“Our trip up the river was a dangerous one, owing to the intense hostility of the Indians, but by taking great precautions no accidents happened. I put off the remains of Captain Spear at Fort Buford to await my return. I asked the commanding officer if he could suggest any way of embalming the body. He advised the construction of a large box and the filling of it with green cottonwood sawdust. The experiment seemed to work well, although I had never heard of such a thing before. The post commander refused to receive the prisoner, who was taken on to Camp Cook. The commanding officer there refused to try him on the ground that the crime had been committed in Dakota. He held him for us to take back to Yankton.
“The troops were left at Camp Cook and the boat went on to Benton. I found many passengers for the down trip and great quantities of golddust. I filled the office safe and every other available receptacle with it. There were no incidents of especial importance on the return trip. The soldier, Barry, was taken down to Yankton and there turned over to the United States marshal, who held him until orders came from Washington for his release, when he was sent back to his company.
TRIAL OF SPEARS MURDERER.
“I took Captain Spear’s remains back to St. Louis, where I found telegrams directing the shipment of them to Europe. A Lieutenant Terry of Spear’s company came to St. Louis to get full particulars of the affair. I was then living with my family on the Octavia, and invited him to stay there with me. He did so, and I gave him as full an account as possible of Captain Spear’s death. When the news reached England that the assassin had been released without trial, the government promptly took up the matter and I understood that a demand was made upon our government through Minister Thornton for a civil trial of the soldier. This demand was complied with, and the man was tried before Judge Kidder at Vermillion, Dak. Myself and several others went up as witnesses. The evidence seemed to me overwhelmingly against the accused, there being nothing in his favor except his own statement that he acted in the line of his duty. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, upon instructions from the judge that the man had simply obeyed his orders. They were given a verdict to sign written out by the judge, and thus the culprit escaped.
TRAVESTY UPON JUSTICE.
“To us who knew the facts, this travesty upon justice seemed the crowning outrage of the whole deplorable affair. Here was as deliberate, cold-blooded, and unprovoked a murder as the annals of crime afford, actuated unquestionably by the national hate of the murderer for the country of the victim. The crime was considered by the passengers as meriting the severest penalty of the law. The pretense that the sentinel acted under orders had not the remotest foundation, or if it had, it only made the officer particeps criminis. The final outcome was the grossest miscarriage of justice which even frontier annals afford, and it was unquestionably a justifiable ground for reprisal on the part of the British government. Let those who lament British obduracy in the case of Mrs. Maybrick ponder upon this far more lamentable case of the unavenged death of Captain Spear.
PHENOMENAL SUCCESS.
“Upon my return to St. Louis I called upon McCune, who advised me to attend promptly to my obligations for the construction of the boat, which had now about matured. He offered to help me get them renewed. I told him it was unnecessary, as I should take them all up and clear the debt off. He was greatly surprised and delighted at the success of my trip, which was indeed almost phenomenal. I made a clear profit of forty-five thousand dollars between May 7, the date of leaving St. Louis, and the date of my return. Yet it was a hard trip. The responsibility was very great. I was heavily in debt for my boat. I had on board three hundred passengers and three hundred tons of cargo. The difficulties of Missouri River navigation, the dangers from the Indians, and the many other contingencies of such a trip made it wearing in the extreme. Many boats that had set out weeks before us were passed on the way.[72] On the trip I was awake the greater part of the time night and day. I kept up all right and stood the strain so long as the excitement was on, but the moment we landed at Benton and I knew the danger was over, I went to sleep and instructed my wife not to awaken me even for meals. I slept almost continuously for twenty-four hours.”