“Yes,” said Hugh, “I knew him some. I worked for him part of one summer out from Lincoln; I was one of the scouts on the Yellowstone expedition in ’73 and again in ’74, when he made his trip to the Black Hills.”
“What sort of a man was he?” asked Jack.
“Well,” said Hugh, “he was a nice man. Of course, I never knew him, except in what you may call a business way, to take orders from him and to report. He was always right pleasant, and his wife was an awful nice lady. He was a good soldier, General Custer was, and a great hunter. He was just crazy to be hunting all the time. He treated his men well, too; worked them awful hard, breaking camp early in the morning and sometimes marching away into the night, but they thought a heap of him. I remember one time, going into the Black Hills, two of the men were caught stealing canned goods out of one of the wagons. We camped early the afternoon they were caught, and he had them each ride a cannon from the time we went into camp until after dark. Then he had ’em cut loose and brought to his tent, and he gave them a good talking to, and a day or two afterward he appointed one of them, an old soldier and a pretty good man, too, his orderly. The other man he gave permission to go hunting the next day. He was pretty savage with his men when they did wrong, but after he’d punished a man, he always did something to him to make him feel that he did not hold the offense up against him. That made the men have confidence in him, and it made a good many of them careful about how they did anything wrong.
“I haven’t told you, have I,” he went on, “that Jackson, Billy Jackson, you know, was along with that outfit in 1874.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “I think you told me that.”
“I didn’t know him then,” said Hugh. “He was just a schoolboy. We had quite a bunch of schoolboys along. They were called scouts, and maybe they thought they were scouts, but, of course, they were just boys out of the Indian schools without experience, and not knowing anything. They were mostly Santee Sioux.”
“Well,” said Jack, “but Billy is a Piegan, isn’t he?”
“Yes, a Piegan,” replied Hugh, “a grandson of old Hugh Monroe’s and on his mother’s side a grandson of a great chief that died before my time with the tribe, a man called Lone Walker. They said he was a great man. An awful big man, brave and rich. He had nineteen wives, and old man Monroe has told me that when he first came with the tribe—that must be nearly seventy-five years ago—Lone Walker had two grizzly bears that he used to keep tied up, one on either side of the door of his lodge. The old man said that the first time he ever went into the lodge, both bears got up and growled and started to attack him. He said he was scared pretty near to death, but Lone Walker spoke to them and they became quiet and went and lay down again. Old man Monroe lived in Lone Walker’s lodge for two or three years after that and, of course, the bears got used to him right away and never bothered him; in fact, I believe it wasn’t very long after that before the bears ran away and were never seen again.”
“But, Hugh, were they tame bears?” asked Jack.
“I don’t rightly know,” responded Hugh. “They were tame to the man that owned them, I expect, and they say that during the day when the camp was moving, the bears used to travel with it, walking along with the dogs. They didn’t bother anybody or anything and nothing bothered them; but, finally, I believe, they ran off, and although Lone Walker looked for them he could not find them.”