58 



not to go to war, and yet he was all the time goiag to war himself. 

 (Bear's Kib knew that when General Harney left the Sioux country 

 he had gone to the war in Florida^ and was at the time in command 

 of the army sent against the Mormons.) He said, moreover, that the 

 annuities scarcely paid for going after them; and that if they were 

 not distributed to them while they were on their visit to the trading 

 posts, on the Missouri, to dispose of their robes, they did not want 

 them. 



(It is a fact, that for several years, owing to this cause, these In- 

 dians have not come in for their goods at all.) 



He said that he heard that the Ihanktonwans were going to sell their 

 lands to the whites. If they did so, he wished them informed that 

 they could not come on his people's lands. They must stay with 

 the whites. Every day the Ihanktonwans were coming there, but 

 were always turned back. 



Whatever may have been Bear's Eib's actions after leaving us, it 

 is certain we saw no more Indians in the Black Hills. We completed 

 our reconnaissance along the eastern portion of these mountains as far 

 as Bear peak, which forms another convenient and accurate point with 

 which any future reconnaissance may connect with our own. We also 

 visited the north fork of the Shyenne, in this vicinity. On our return 

 we took a southeast direction, striking the south fork of the Shyenne 

 at the mouth of Sage creek. We then proceeded up the south fork to 

 French creek; thence southeast, through the Bad Lands, to White 

 river ; thence along the sources of White Clay creek and Porcupine 

 creek ; and thence to the Niobrara, striking it in longitude 102° 03'. 



We found the party under Lieutenant McMillan about forty miles 

 below where we struck the river, and eighty miles below where we 

 had first reached it on our journey westward in August. This inter- 

 vening distance had been carefully mapped by Mr. Snowden, and he 

 had made several excursions at diflterent places to examine the country, 

 as I had directed. Lieutenant McMillan's march down the river thus 

 far had not been made without much wordy opposition from the Brule 

 Dakotas, much of the same kind as that I have related as having 

 been said to me in the Black Hills. On finding that he was deter- 

 mined to proceed, the chief, Little Thunder, sent four of his principal 

 men to accompany them, which they did for some days. At a subse- 

 quent time, twenty-two warriors charged into the camp, thinking the 

 party was a trading expedition. Their insolence was checked by 

 Lieutenant McMillan's threatening to fire on them ; whereupon they 

 entered their usual protest against the party's proceeding further, 

 and the next day all withdrew. The last twenty miles of Lieutenant 

 McMillan's route was through difficult sand hills bordering the 

 river, the stream itself being so shut in by high precipitous ridges 

 that he was unable to travel along it. 



We now found the route exceedingly laborious for wagons on 

 account of the sand hills, which continue to the mouth of Rapid creek. 

 The character of the immediate valley of the Niobrara precluded the 

 wagons from travelling along it ; so, while Mr. Snowden mapped the 

 route of the train, Mr. Engel travelled along the river, sometimes on 

 one side and sometimes on the other, and made a map of it. Even he. 



