“Well, son,” said Hugh, “you know it’s an awful long way from here back East, and then it’s hard always to get at the truth about any of these stories. An Indian reservation is a great place for getting up kicks and complaints, and I suppose that maybe those people in Washington are so used to hearing complaints that they don’t pay much attention to them.”
“But just think,” said Jack, “of six hundred people being starved to death. It’s almost impossible to believe it.”
“I reckon,” said Hugh, “that we’ll find a good many of our old friends dead when we get to the camp.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “a good many.”
All day long the horses trotted briskly up the level road along the Teton River. The sun was hot, but a cool breeze blew down from the mountains to the west and the whole country was fresh, green, and charming. About three o’clock they camped on the river at the edge of a grove of cottonwood trees, and unhitching the horses, Joe and Jack picketed them on the fresh green grass. Hugh, meanwhile, had brought some wood and built the campfire, and before long supper was ready.
As they sat about after eating, Hugh smoking his pipe, the boys lounging in the warm sunshine, and all watching the sun as it sank toward the west, and the shadows of the cottonwoods grow longer minute by minute, Hugh said to Jack, “We were talking this morning, son, about the hard times the Piegans have had this winter, and that brought to my mind another hard time that they had a good many years ago.”
“What was that, Hugh?” said Jack, sitting up to listen, while Joe, who had been lying on his back with his eyes shut, rolled over so that he faced the old man.
“Did you ever hear of the Baker massacre?” asked Hugh.
“No,” said Jack, “I never did.”
“I did,” said Joe. “My father was killed that time. I don’t remember anything about it. I was too little. Only I remember my mother, how she cried.”