The nonchalant cow-boys riding about the camp, the somber squaw-men (attended by their blanketed wives and groups of wistful half-breed children), and the ragged old medicine men all in their several ways made up a marvelous scene, rich with survivals of pioneer life.
The Gall and the Sitting Bull were both dead, but Rain-in-the-Face (made famous by Longfellow) was alive, very much alive, though a cripple. We met him several times riding at ease (his crutch tied to his saddle), a genial, handsome, dark-complexioned man of middle age, with whom it was hard to associate the acts of ferocity with which he was charged.
My letter of introduction from General Miles not only made me welcome at the Fort, it authorized me to examine the early records of the Agency, and these I carefully read in search of material concerning the Sitting Bull.
In those dingy, brief, bald lines of record, I discovered official evidence of this chief's supremacy long before the Custer battle. As early as 1870 he was set down as one of the "irreconcilables," and in 1874 the Sioux most dreaded by the whites was "Sitting Bull's Band." To Sitting Bull all couriers were sent, and the brief official accounts of their meetings with him were highly dramatic and sometimes humorous.
He was a red man, and proud of it. He believed in remaining as he was created. "The great spirit made me red, and red I am satisfied to remain," he declared. "All my people ask is to be let alone, to hunt the buffalo, and to live the life of our fathers"—and in this he had the sympathy of many white men even of his day.
(In the final count this chieftain, for the reason that he kept the red man's point of view, will outlive the opportunists who truckled to the white man's power. He will stand as a typical Sioux.)
Our days at the Agency passed so swiftly, so pleasantly that we would have lingered on indefinitely had not the report of an "outbreak" among the northern Cheyennes aroused a more intense interest. In the hope of seeing something of this uprising I insisted on hurriedly returning to Bismark, where we took the earliest possible train for Custer City, Montana.
At that strange little cow-town my brother hired a man to drive us to Fort Custer, some forty or fifty miles to the south, a ride which carried us deep into a wild and beautiful land, a country almost untouched of man, and when, toward sun-set, we came in sight of the high bluff which stands at the confluence of the Big Horn and the Little Big Horn rivers, the fort, the ferry, the stream were a picture by Catlin or a glorious illustration in a romance of the Border. It was easy to imagine ourselves back in the stirring days of Sitting Bull and Roman Nose.
The commander of the Garrison, Colonel Anderson, a fine soldierly figure, welcomed us courteously and turned us over to Lieutenant Aherne, a hospitable young Irishman who invited us to spend the night in his quarters. It happened most opportunely that he was serving as Inspector of the meat issue at the Crow Agency, and on the following day we accompanied him on his detail, a deeply instructive experience, for, at night we attended a ceremonial social dance given by the Crows in honor of Chief Two Moon, a visiting Cheyenne.
Two Moon, a handsome broad-shouldered man of fifty, met us at the door of the Dance Lodge, welcomed us with courtly grace, and gave us seats beside him on the honor side of the circle. It appeared that he was master of ceremonies, and under his direction the dancing proceeded with such dramatic grace and skill that we needed very little help to understand its action.