ROAD AGENTS. 365 



anyone going to one of the Western Posts. He receives so 

 many offers of hospitality, that he is at a loss which to accept. 

 I once stayed for two months at Fort Wadsworth, in Dacotah, 

 and had the use of an ambulance and of any of the horses 

 belonging to the Post at any time, having merely to say what 

 I wanted and when. 



General Miles was also in a hurry to go east, and I wished 

 to travel with him, so we crossed to Bismarck and took the 

 train for St. Paul's, the General and his guide being the observed 

 of all observers, and I must have been asked fifty times to 

 introduce men to the former. During the journey I was sur- 

 prised to find Kelly reading Pope's Homer's Iliad, and when I 

 expressed astonishment, he told me that he had not been brought 

 up to be a scout, but had been made one by circumstances. 



On reaching St. Paul's, the General got a telegram telling 

 him that two ambulances full of officers, who had left Keogh 

 only one day after us with an escort of six men, had been 

 " held up," as it is called, which means stopped by " road 

 agents," whose cry is always " hold up your hands," when they 

 proceed to examine your pockets, some of the party keeping 

 their rifles aimed at you. It seems that the escort was nearly 

 a mile ahead, and that the ambulances were travelling slowly, 

 when four men with repeating rifles sprang into the road 

 shouting to the escort to hold up their hands, which they did 

 at once as their carbines were fastened to their saddles. They 

 were searched and their weapons taken from them, and they 

 were then conducted into a ravine, where one man was left to 

 guard them. The other three then returned and stopped the 

 ambulances, and went through the party, getting a thousand 

 dollars (200) from one officer, who had in consequence to give 



