About noon the next day they drove down into the valley of a little stream running from the west, and Joe stopped his horses so that they might drink.
“Well, friend,” he said to Jack, “when we cross this creek we shall be on the reservation. The Indians have their camps and their cabins up and down this stream, and from here on, wherever there is a creek, there we will see the Indians camped. It is only about eight miles from here to the Agency.”
Most of the way was uphill, however, and it was well on in the afternoon before the road passed over the high bluff, and at a distance they saw the agency buildings. These looked gray and inconspicuous, set down in the midst of a wide flat, through which flowed a stream bordered by willows, with a few tall cottonwood trees. As they drew nearer, the buildings seemed to Jack to increase in size, and presently they stopped at the little one-story trading post, a hundred yards below the Agency, that now looked like rather an imposing edifice. From here Jack could see only the stockade, about sixteen feet in height and built of cottonwood logs, which concealed all the Agency buildings behind its walls.
At the store they were warmly welcomed by Joe Bruce and his assistant, Mr. McGonigle. Bruce was, and long had been, one of the characters of the upper Missouri country. He was then only about thirty-six years old, smooth-shaven, keen-eyed, thin and wiry. Hugh had often spoken to Jack about him and Jack looked at him with great interest. He was the son of James Bruce, who was an important figure in the fur trade of the Upper Missouri and long in charge of Fort Union at the junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, and later of Fort McKenzie and Fort Brulé, not far from where Fort Benton was built later.
Bruce’s mother was a Mandan, and, as Jack learned a little later, lived with her son at the Piegan agency.
Mr. McGonigle was a Georgian, an old Confederate soldier who had come West “with the left wing of Price’s army,” as the saying used to be in Montana. Of the great number of Southerners that came into Montana in 1862 and ’63 it was said in joke that when Price’s army was defeated in Missouri in the early part of the war, the left wing got separated from the others and started westward, and never stopped until it reached the Rocky Mountains. Mr. McGonigle had spent some years as a prospector, but after having made and lost several small fortunes, at last became a trader’s clerk, which he had now been for many years.
After a brief chat with Joe Bruce, arrangements were made to spread their beds for a night or two in one of his empty buildings, and to live at his mess until they started on their way again. Joe, whose people were camped on another creek further to the northward, was to remain at the Agency for two or three days, and then the whole party would start for St. Mary’s Lakes.
While Hugh was talking with Bruce, Jack chatted for a while with Mr. McGonigle, but he was anxious to go up to the Agency and to get inside that gray barrier of logs behind which were hidden many interesting people and things.
Presently Hugh filled his pipe, and after lighting it, rose and said, “Well, son, let’s go on up to the Agency and see the agent, and look around and see if we can meet any of our friends.”
“All right, Hugh, come on,” said Jack, and they set out.