58 



RECREA TION. 



issues were made and order was pre- 

 served by the " Dog Soldiers," a species 

 of native Indian police, and com- 

 posed only of young warriors of known 

 prowess, their badge being a row of 

 red beads worn in a peculiar manner. 

 The widows and orphans were especially 

 protected ; the families of Black Kettle, 

 Medicine Water, and others, who had 

 either lost their lives or their liberty by 

 the government, being looked after 

 among the very first. Shades of justice! 

 Who would imagine these supplies to be 

 sufficient for this horde of gluttons for 

 six months ? In six days the whole of 

 the rations were consumed ! 



Allowing for the natural wastefulness 

 of the Indians, it would have been im- 

 possible for any one to make them last 

 this band more than two weeks. Where 

 was the balance ? The Indian bureau 

 agents could probably have answered ; 

 I could not — when questioned by Whirl- 

 wind and the other chief — and cannot 

 now. Dissatisfaction was marked in the 

 whole tribe, and no wonder. I advised 

 Whirlwind to make his complaints (for 

 he had several personal ones against the 

 local agent) to the Indian department, 

 on his arrival at the agency. I was 

 powerless in the matter. 



On arriving at Camp Supply, I made 

 him and a few of the others some ad- 

 ditional presents in return for the many 

 specimens of their handiwork and tro- 

 phies of the chase, which they had given 

 me during the winter. 



From thence we continued on our 

 journey eastward, a couple of hundred 

 miles farther to their reservation on the 

 North Fork of the Canadian ; where we 

 found the Arapahoes, who had already 

 been brought in for their mutinous con- 

 duct. Here accordingly, with many a 

 " nut-tah " and " pow-wah" I bade fare- 

 well to my Cheyenne friends ; for so I 

 had come to regard them. How and 

 when I was next to meet them, I, of 

 course, did not know at the time ; but 

 with the warnings of the coming storm 

 still in my ears, I could not but feel 

 some doubt. That there was good 

 reason for this doubt, I will show in 

 another paper. 



The march through the Indian Terri- 

 tory, with my troop, back to my post, 

 was a trying one ; as the spring rains 



STUMBLING BEAR'S DAUGHTERS. 



had flooded the entire country along the 

 Canadian and Washita rivers, and com- 

 pelled me to corduroy a great deal of 

 the road and to bridge most of the 

 streams, they being now unfordable. 

 Several times we were forced to hastily 

 break camp in the middle of the night, 

 to avoid being swept away by the 

 rapidly rising waters, and to seek higher 

 ground back on the hills. 



One of these sudden movements hap- 

 pened on the battlefield where Custer, 

 in the winter of '68, had almost anni- 

 hilated Black Kettle's band of these 

 very same Cheyennes, and the bones of 

 hundreds of their ponies, killed in the 

 fight, still whitened the ground, in silent 

 evidence of the complete overthfrow o 

 the tribe at that time. 



I have often regretted the termination 

 of my free and independent life with 

 the Cheyennes, half-savage though it 

 was. How true the remark I once 

 heard,, from one who had passed nearly 

 his whole life with them: "It is 

 easy for a white man to become an 

 Indian, but almost impossible for an 

 Indian ever to become civilized like a 

 white man." 



