red to the Indian Territory, the annuities due the tribe were of course paid there; and that portion of the tribe which had fled back to Dakota received nothing. Moreover, the Indian Bureau issued an order forbidding any Ponca who should leave the Indian Territory to take with him any kind of property whatsoever, under penalty of being arrested for stealing. As they could not take their families on the long, hard journey to Dakota without food or means of transportation, this order kept them imprisoned in Indian Territory as effectually as a military guard could have done.
The Government employés in charge of them reported, meanwhile, that they had “made up their minds to live and die where they are. * * * There exists a feeling of contentment in the tribe that will make it very difficult for any one to induce them to leave their present home,” says a general press despatch, presumably dictated by the Indian Bureau, and sent throughout the country on July 15th.
It seems an insult to people's common-sense to suppose that this statement would be believed, close on the heels of the general order for the arrest of all fleeing Poncas who should dare to take with them out of the Indian Territory one dollar's worth of property. A very superfluous piece of legislation, surely, for a community so “contented” that it would be “difficult for any one to induce them to leave their homes.”
THE LEGAL ASPECT OF THE CASE.
The chivalric and disinterested attorneys who had had the charge of the Ponca case from the outset, wore not to be intimidated by the threats nor outwitted by the expedients of the Indian Bureau. The ingenious devices practised by the Department of the Interior to hinder the getting service of summons upon the defendants in the suits necessary to recover the Poncas' lands, make by themselves a shameful chapter, which will some day be written out. But on the 13th of July the attorneys were able to report to the Omaha Committee as follows:
REPORT OF THE ATTORNEYS.
To Omaha Ponca Indian Committee:
In response to the inquiry of one of your members as to the condition of the suits instituted by us to liberate Standing Bear and his associate from the custody of the military, and to re-
