As he walked into the yard about nine o’clock the agent found fifteen or twenty young men of Howling Wolf’s faction lounging about the door of the office. They were come to see that their leader was not abused—at least such was Cook’s inference.
He was irritated but did not show it. “Go out of the yard!” he said quietly. “I don’t want you here. Claude will tell you all you want to know.” He insisted and, though they scowled sullenly, they obeyed, for he laid his open palm on the breast of the tallest of them and pushed him to the gate. “Come, go out—you’ve no business here.”
Claude was shaking with fear, but regained composure as the young men withdrew.
As they faced Howling Wolf in the inner office, Cook said, “Well now, Wolf, I want you tell me just what is the matter? I am your friend and the friend of all your people. I am a soldier and a soldier does his duty. My duty is to see that you get your rations and that no one harms you. Now what is the trouble?”
Howling Wolf mused a while and then began to recount his grievances one by one. His story was almost exactly as it had been reported by others.
An Indian Trapper
This Indian trapper depicted by Remington may be a Cree, or perhaps a Blackfoot, whom one was apt to run across in the Selkirk Mountains, or elsewhere on the plains of the British Territory, or well up north in the Rockies, toward the outbreak of the Civil War.
A Questionable Companionship