Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/456

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rumors, which proved to be only too well founded, that Congress was legislating to transfer the Sioux to another locality—either to the Missouri River or the Indian Territory. A delegation was sent down to the Indian Territory to look at the land, but upon its return it reported unfavorably.

"Crazy Horse" began to cherish hopes of being able to slip out of the agency and get back into some section farther to the north, where he would have little to fear, and where he could resume the old wild life with its pleasant incidents of hunting the buffalo, the elk, and the moose, and its raids upon the horses of Montana. He found his purposes detected and baffled at every turn: his camp was filled with soldiers, in uniform or without, but each and all reporting to the military officials each and every act taking place under their observation. Even his council-*lodge was no longer safe: all that was said therein was repeated by some one, and his most trusted subordinates, who had formerly been proud to obey unquestioningly every suggestion, were now cooling rapidly in their rancor towards the whites and beginning to doubt the wisdom of a resumption of the bloody path of war. The Spotted Tail Agency, to which "Crazy Horse" wished to belong, was under the supervision of an army officer—Major Jesse M. Lee, of the Ninth Infantry—whose word was iron, who never swerved from the duty he owed to these poor, misguided wretches, and who manifested the deepest and most intelligent interest in their welfare. I will not bother the reader with details as to the amount of food allowed to the Indians, but I will say that every ounce of it got to the Indian's stomach, and the Indians were sensible enough to see that justice, truth, and common honesty were not insignificant diplomatic agencies in breaking down and eradicating the race-antipathies which had been no small barrier to progress hitherto. General Crook had been specially fortunate in the selection of the officers to take charge of Indian matters, and in such men as Major Daniel W. Burke and Captain Kennington, of the Fourteenth Infantry, and Mills, of the Third Cavalry, had deputies who would carry out the new policy, which had as one of its fundamentals that the Indians must not be stolen blind. The Sioux were quick to perceive the change: less than twelve months before, they had been robbed in the most bold-faced manner, the sacks which were accepted as containing one hundred pounds of flour containing only eighty-