When the Indians came up to us, the council was, as usual, begun. The pipe being smoked, Two Bears gave us a eulogy of himself. He then demanded, in behalf of the tribe, payment for the use of the ground on which we were encamped, and also for the grass consumed, though it was too short to get more than an occasional tuft. He ended, as they all do, with a request for food. The general in reply vaguely referred them to the Great Father in payment for the use of their land, but presented them with a beef in return for their hospitality. Only half satisfied, they stalked away one by one. We watched them at a distance kill and divide the beef. It surprised us to see how they despatched it, and that hardly a vestige of it was left.
Many of the Indians coming from reservations carried papers which they valued and carefully guarded. After burrowing under robe and shirt, something was produced wrapped in layers of soiled cotton cloth. It was a recommendation of them obtained from some officer or Indian agent. This was presented on entering, as their letter of introduction. Most of these papers read very much the same way. Giving the Indian’s name, it stated that he had been living on the reservation for a certain length of time, that he was friendly to the whites, etc.
One of our guests that day carried something a little different. He was called “Medicine Jo.” Lingering behind the rest, he presented his letter with perfect good faith and great pomposity. Some wag had composed it, and it read something like this:
“Medicine Jo says he is a good Indian, that you can trust him. If he is, he is the first I have ever seen, and in my opinion he, like all the rest, will bear watching.”
It was all the general could do to keep his face straight as he handed back to the unconscious owner this little libel on himself.
The interpreter kept constantly before us the fine post that we were approaching, and the last day before we reached there it was visible for a long distance. The atmosphere of Dakota was so deceptive that we imagined ourselves within a few miles of the garrison, when, in reality, there was a march of twenty-nine long miles before us.
Our road led up from the river valley on the high bluffs, and sometimes followed along the backbone of hills from which on either side we looked down a great distance. There was barely room for the travelling-wagon. Occasionally I had been obliged to take refuge from the cold for a little while and drive. Our lead-mules were tiny, quick-moving little dots, and I soon discovered that they were completely demoralized at the sight of an Indian. They could see one in advance long before the driver could. A sudden shying and quick turning of these agile little brutes, a general tangle of themselves in the harness and legs of the wheelers, loud shouts of the driver, and a quick downfall of his foot on the brake, to keep us from overturning, made an exciting mêlée.
Nothing would get them righted and started again. They would have to be unharnessed, and the rebellious pair tied to the rear of the wagon until we had gone far beyond the object of terror. Part of the day that we were following the wanderings of the road alongside hills and over the narrow, smooth level of the hill-tops, I was compelled to drive, and I watched anxiously the ears of these wretched little beasts to see if they expressed any sentiment of fright. We came to such steep descents, the brake holding the wheels seemed of no use. Looking down from the wagon on to the mules below us, we appeared to be in the position of flies on a wall.
As we came to one descent more awful than the rest, the general, who was always near, rode up to the carriage and told me not to be afraid, for he would order the wheels manned. The head-quarters escort of over a hundred men, dismounting, attached ropes to the wheels, and held on with all their strength while I went down the steepest declivity I had ever descended. After that I begged to get out, and the general carried me to a bank and set me down where I could watch the repairing of the road.
He took off his coat and joined the soldiers in carrying logs and shovelling earth, for they were obliged to fill up the soft bed of the stream before the command could cross. It took a long time and much patience; but the general enjoyed it all, and often helped when the crossings needed to be prepared. When the logs were all laid, I had to laugh at the energy he showed in cracking a whip he borrowed from a teamster, and shouting to the mules to urge them to pull through where there was danger of their stalling. When the road was completed, I was ready to mount my horse, for it seemed to me preferable to die from accident, surrounded with friends, than to expire alone in the mule-wagon. The ascent was rendered so wet and slippery, the general feared my saddle would turn, and I was once more shut in by myself. The soldiers again manned the wheels to prevent the carriage sliding back, the mules scrambled, and with the aid of language prepared expressly for them, we reached the summit.