VII 



Red and White on the Border 



P to t88o the countr}^ through which the Little 

 Missouri flows remained as wild and almost as 

 unknown as it was when the old explorers and 

 fur traders crossed it in the early part of the 

 century. It was the last great Indian hunting- 

 ground, across which Grosventres and Mandans, 

 Sioux and Cheyennes, and even Crows and Rees wandered in 

 chase of game, and where they fought one another and plun- 

 r^^l dcred the small parties of white trappers and hunters that 

 "-^^ ' occasionally ventured into it. Once or twice generals like 

 Sully and Custer had penetrated it in the course of the long, 

 tedious, and bloody campaigns that finally broke the strength 

 of the northern Horse Indians ; indeed, the trail made by 

 Custer's baggage train is to this day one of the well-known 

 landmarks, for the deep ruts worn by the wheels of the 

 heavy wagons are in many places still as distinctly to be seen 



as ever. 



In 1883, a regular long-range skirmish took place just 

 south of us between some Cheyennes and some cowboys, with bloodshed 

 on both sides, while about the same time a band of Sioux plundered a 

 party of buffalo hunters of everything they owned, and some Crows who 

 attempted the same feat with another party were driven off with the loss of 

 two of their number. Since then there have been in our neighborhood no 

 stand-up fights or regular raids ; but the Indians have at different times 

 proved more or less troublesome, burning the grass, and occasionally kill- 

 ino- stock or carrying off horses that have wandered some distance away. 

 They have also themselves suffered somewhat at the hands of white 

 horse-thieves. '°' 



THE PEACE SIGN. 



