ELDORADO 267 



the evening of the next day, those in the fort beheld 

 the approach of a regiment of United States cavah-y 

 which had been sent to the rehef of the fort. By their 

 admirable picket system, the savages had been ap- 

 prised of their approach long before the whites 

 dreamed of it, and fearing that vengeance might be 

 taken for their hostile attitude and their warlike 

 threats they had prudently decamped. 



Bill Bent had quite a family by a Cheyenne wife, 

 and at one time bought property at Westport, Mis- 

 souri — for which at that time, Kansas City was the 

 landing — and furnished his house handsomely. The 

 restraints of civilization were, however, too much for 

 the prairie-born and plains-reared wife and children, 

 and they returned to the wilderness, after a short trial 

 of their new life. His daughter married some white 

 man at Westport, and the boys returned to their 

 mother's tribe, where they became thorough Indians, 

 although, through the efforts of their father who 

 spared no pains to civilize them, they had acquired 

 moderate educations. 



When the ranchmen were retreating from the Platte 

 during the Sioux and Cheyenne troubles about 1863, 

 it was reported that two of Bent's sons, George and 

 one called "little Bent," were in command of 

 Cheyenne bands. None of them ever attained the 

 celebrity of tlieir father, in anything; the taint of In- 

 dian blood poisoning their nobler qualities, and these 

 "degenerate sons of an illustrious sire" show strongly 

 the evil effects of a mongrel mixture of races, in 

 which, as a general rule, only the worst qualities of 

 each parent are perpetuated, .and the nobler extin- 

 guished." 



