BEN CLARK
Gen. P. H. Sheridan’s Chief of Scouts
The trouble being averted, the escort started on its way again, Ben Clark guiding them down the river. But the danger was not yet past. General Pope insisted on the order being carried out in spite of the fact that justice and decency forbade it. However, he succeeded in having it fulfilled, but when it was carried into effect there were not enough guns of any value to arm a corporal’s guard. I have always been under the impression that the Indians during the march from where the trouble arose to the place where they were disarmed, succeeded in secreting the best of their arms, which was not very difficult as the soldiers were not too strict in trying to prevent their doing so as they saw that an injustice was being done to their charges. I do not know what General Sheridan thought or said when he learned how his treaty of peace with the Indians had been observed by the war department, but, I am under the impression, that if one could have taken a kaleidoscopic view of his thoughts at the time, there would likely have been a very lurid tint about them.
Once the Indians were disarmed, the work trials of the expedition were practically at an end. It was a very short march down the North Canadian to the place of their future abode. Ben Clark saw to it that things were carried out, as far as possible, to the satisfaction of all.
Nor did Lieutenant Creel leave the wards of the government at once. In fact he remained with them for a considerable length of time in the capacity of agent, and the confidence they had in him is shown by the results of his tenure of office among them. He came to be looked upon as a father to all of them, to whom they might go to have all wrongs righted, and their rights preserved. The result of such confidential relationship between Lieutenant Creel and the Indians is manifest today in the high-class of citizenship that exists among the wards of the government, and their advancement in the various pursuits of life according to the white man’s ways.
Creel was the man of the hour. He devoted his time, talents, and energy to the elevation of the children of the plains. He set out to improve their educational facilities. He wrote a grammar and a dictionary of the Cheyenne tongue, of which he had a complete mastery. Also work on the sign language of the North American Indians. His work in this regard was of such a high order as to be preserved in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D. C.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Ben Clark; General Creel; Some Observation in Conclusion.