with the chief clerk and storekeeper, rations can be issued ad libitum for which the Government must pay, while the proceeds pass into the capacious pockets of the agent. Indians are sent to work on the coal-fields, superintended by white men; all the workmen and superintendents are fed and frequently paid from the agency stores, and no return of the same is made. Government tools and wagons are used in transporting goods and working the coal-mines, in the interest of this close corporation and with the same result. All surplus supplies are used in the interest of the agent, and no return made thereof. Government contractors, in collusion with Agent Tiffany, get receipts for large amounts of supplies never furnished, and the profit is divided mutually, and a general spoliation of the United States Treasury is thus effected. While six hundred Indians are off on passes, their rations are counted and turned in to the mutual aid association, consisting of Tiffany and his associates. Every Indian child born receives rations from the moment of its advent into this vale of tears, and thus adds its mite to the Tiffany pile. In the meantime, the Indians are neglected, half-fed, discontented, and turbulent, until at last, with the vigilant eye peculiar to the savage, the Indians observe the manner in which the Government, through its agent, complies with its sacred obligations.
This was the united testimony of the Grand Jury, corroborated by white witnesses, and to these and kindred causes may be attributed the desolation and bloodshed which have dotted our plains with the graves of murdered victims.
Foreman of the Grand Jury.
The above official report of a United States Grand Jury is
about as strong a document as is usually to be found in the dusty
archives of courts; to its contents it is not necessary for me to
add a single syllable. I prefer to let the intelligent reader form
his own conclusions, while I resume the thread of my narrative
where I left off in General Crook's bivouac on the Black River.
The cañon of the Black River is deep and dark, walled in by towering precipices of basalt and lava, the latter lying in loose blocks along the trail down which the foot-sore traveller must descend, leading behind him his equally foot-sore mule. The river was deep and strong, and in the eddies and swirls amid the projecting rocks were hiding some of the rare trout of the Territory, so coy that the patience of the fisherman was exhausted before they could be induced to jump at his bait. The forbidding ruggedness of the mountain flanks was concealed by forests of pine and juniper, which extended for miles along the course of the stream. The music of our pack-train bells was answered by the silvery laughter of squaws and children, as we had with us
