TEN DAYS IN MONTANA. 129 



number of Rees warriors turned out and followed them, over- 

 took them and recaptured the ponies, killing six of the 

 Chippewas and losing four of their own men. The Pawnees 

 were feeling good over the success of their friends, the Rees, 

 and the defeat of the Chippewas, who are their bitter enemies. 

 We arrived at Bismarck at half-past six in the evening, 

 twenty-four hours ride from St. Paul, and as there was no 

 train west on the extension until next morning, I put up at 

 the Sheridan House, which is said to be the best hotel in the 

 place, but if this be so I pity the others. After supper I took 

 a walk round to the gun store, to interview the proprietor 

 thereof as to game out along the extension. He told me 1 

 could find all the antelope shooting I wanted in the Curlew 

 valley, about twenty-five miles west. This was just what 1 

 wanted, just what I had come for. But he said if I wanted 

 larger game I could get it ; that a man just in from Green 

 river, one hundred miles west, reported having seen several 

 large herds of buffaloes only forty miles south of that station 

 two days before. Shades of Nimrod ! Could it be possible 

 that I was within one hundred and forty miles of a herd of 

 buffaloes ? And I was going to Green river, and should then 

 be only forty miles from them. I resolved at once to kill a 

 buffalo before I returned or get scalped in the attempt. But 

 then how was I to make that forty miles? And who would I 

 get to go with me for company and to help keep the Indians 

 off? Well he said I could probably hire a man at Green 

 river to take me down there on a buckboard, but that two of 

 us couldn't do much toward keeping Indians off in case we 

 should run across a party of them. Well, I said, I would go 

 for the buffaloes any way, and take the chances on meeting 

 the Indians. 



The construction train was to leave at half-past five the 

 next morning for "end of track." That was the way my 



