A CIVILIAN SHOT BY AN OFFICER. 243 



were two small rooms for ladies or married men, though the 

 number of the former coming to Sheyenne was extremely 

 limited. We found this to be quite as rough a place as Jules- 

 berg, and of the same size, and the description of one will do 

 for the other. 



There was a good deal of excitement when we went there 

 about a young officer having shot a civilian under the follow- 

 ing circumstances : He happened to be officer of the day at 

 Fort William Russell, three miles from Sheyenne, when in 

 going his rounds, accompanied by an armed soldier, he heard 

 a quarrel going on in a small house, in which lived an old 

 couple, the husband being a mule-driver to the post, though 

 not a soldier. The man who was with the officer told him that 

 the old man and his wife were always quarrelling, but that it 

 never amounted to anything more than words, so no one took 

 any notice of it. The officer, however, opened the door and 

 called to the old fellow to be quiet, but got a rough answer, 

 on which he went in and abused the couple, the old man giving 

 him as good in return ; whereupon the officer got in a rage 

 and told the soldier to shoot him, and as he refused he 

 took the rifle from him and shot the old man dead. He was 

 arrested and tried by court-martial, but was acquitted, because 

 he pleaded that the man put his hand behind him to pull out 

 a revolver, and that he had shot him in self-defence. This 

 verdict did not satisfy the people of Sheyenne, and they sent 

 to demand another trial, the chief reason for their animosity 

 being that the same officer had shot another man under some- 

 what similar circumstances about a year before, when he had 

 also been acquitted. On receiving the demand the comman- 

 dant of the post sent the officer east to be tried, and I saw 



