Yate University Library 39002006549480 II In the South Dakota Country Effie Hurance Putney YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY l937 DAKOTA Land of a sea-like drift of plain With hills on her western borderland, Where men delve under the rock-based firs, Eager to grasp at her golden sand ; Seat of an empire broad and free With heights where the buffalo ranged at will. And peopled prairies where brave hearts thrill To the centuries' power and prophecy. — Hamlin Garland. IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY BY EFFIE FLORENCE PUTNEY, A. B. EDUCATOR SUPPLY COMPANY Mitchel, South Dakota 11178 Copyright 1922 Educator Supply Company FOREWORD The object of this book is to make readable history for grade pupils. To that end it has been written as much in story form as was deemed consistent with keeping it pri marily history. CONTENTS Page The Books of Stone 11 Mounds and Stone Pictures 17 The Daughter of a Ree 21 The Dakotas 27 Our First Industry 31 The Plate's Story 39 At the Bargain Counter 47 A Visit to Black Buffalo 51 Spirit Mound 56 The Legend of the Stone Idols 57 Breaking a Trail to the Pacific 59 The Man Who Saved the West 65 A Ree Indian Celebration 73 Big Medicine White Man 77 The Galahad of the Plains 81 An Adventure on the Grand River 87 The First Fourth of July Celebration 93 The First Sermon on the Missouri 95 One of the "Black Robes" 99 The Prophecy that Came True '. 103 Inkpaduta 107 A Buffalo Hunt on the James River 109 The First Teacher of the Sioux 115 The Night Ride of the Chief of Scouts 121 CONTENTS— (Continued.) Page The Crazy Band 125 The Red Cloud War 131 General Custer in Dakota 139 Buried Treasure 147 Charley Reynolds 151 An Early Settler's Story 153 The Messiah Craze 157 Sitting Bull 165 The Shifting Capital 169 Our Volunteers in the Philippines 173 NOTE. I am indebted to Fleming H. Revell for facts from copyrighted material from the book "John P. Williamson, A Brother of the Sioux" by Winifred W. Barton, used "In the South Dakota Country" in the following: "A Buffalo Hunt on the James River," and "The First Teacher of the Sioux." In "The Prophecy That Came True," the quotations in the first and third paragraphs on page 106 are from "John P. Williamson, A Brother of the Sioux." — Effie Florence Putney. THE BOOKS OF STONE. The first volumes of South Dakota history are written on the rocks. These volumes are many, covering countless centuries of time, but they are filled with illustrations, so the long chapters never grow tiresome. A piece of rock with a delicate tracery of fern leaves or the skeleton of some animal imbedded in rock — such are the illustrations in the books of stone. These are called "fossils" — a Latin word which means "dug out of the ground." The best rock records in South Dakota are in the White River Bad Lands, between the White River and the Chey enne River, south east of the Black Hills. These Big Bad Lands, as they are called, are a whole library of ancient South Dakota history. By reading the marvelous rock history men who have given their lives to studying science, tell us this strange story : In ancient times a great ocean tossed and rolled where we now see the prairies of South Dakota. Later some great disturbance raised up the Black Hills and the Rocky mountains. The ocean swept over these hills and washed them down into a layer of sediment at its bottom, which has now become hard rock. Many times the hills raised their heads above the waters, and many times the great ocean washed them back into its depths. But at last the hills conquered and stood firm on their rock bases where we see them today. 12 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY At first there were only low orders of animal life along the shores of the ocean. A multitude of shell fish lived and died in the mud along the bays. The mud, hardened into rock, has kept the shells to the present day. In time, the sea grew more shallow, probably because some new outlet drained away the water. Later came a race of monstrous reptiles. There were reptiles swimming in the water ; rep tiles crawling on the land; reptiles flying in the air. The land reptiles were given a general name* which means ter rible lizard or reptile. Some of these in both length arid weight were by far the largest animals that ever lived. Many were from sixty to eighty feet long. They walked on four legs even if they were reptiles but the hind legs and tail of several kinds were very heavy and long, while the front legs were slender and short; so the monster reptile could either walk on all four legs or on the hind legs alone. The teeth in the skeletons show that some of these great crea tures lived entirely on vegetation while others lived on flesh. The ones that lived on vegetation could easily rise on their hind legs and strip the foliage from the tops of tall trees. Their necks were slender and their absurdly small heads show that these huge creatures were probably too stupid to protect their own lives. Their three-toed tracks printed in so many places on the rocks resemble bird tracks. Many of the largest fossil skeletons of these terrible rep tiles have been found in Wyoming, Montana and Colorado, as well as in South Dakota. On a hill near Cedar Island Louis and Clark found the fossil skeleton of a reptile forty-five feet long. The flying reptile was something like a large bat. A common sea reptile was a fish-like lizard with a large head and thick shoulders. It had four broad, flat legs resembling "Dinosaurs. THE BOOKS OF STONE 13 paddles and many of these reptiles were as long as forty feet. Another of the sea reptiles was long and slender with a neck that towered high above the water. Wherever the rocks of this period are found over the state they tell the story of the age of reptiles. The rocks do not tell how long the reptiles stayed, but we know that the sea waters had slipped away before their day was over, and the South Dakota land was mostly fresh water marsh lands and deltas. The climate was tropical and tropical vegetation grew in the marshes and along the sluggish streams. Countless numbers of turtles thrived in this marshy country, and there were a few crocodiles. Many of the fos sil turtles found are ordinary turtles; those found in the Bad Lands measure from a few inches in length to two feet — one shell measures three feet; others found outside the Bad Lands are monsters — larger than any other turtles found in the world, either alive or fossil. One, found near Railroad Buttes, southeast of the Black Hills, has a total length of almost eleven feet. Fragments of another were found in which the head alone measured three feet and four inches. After the reptiles, great numbers of animals, many of them larger than any now living, appeared. The men who have studied the rocks have given these animals long names, difficult to pronounce, but many of the animals, although they were different from those we know, were really the an cestors of the present day animals. Among these were two members of the rhinoceros family. The larger* of these was about the size of an ele phant. One of the skeletons which has been dug up meas ures nearly fourteen feet in length and is about eight feet 'The Titanother. 14 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY high. This early rhinoceros which lived long ago in trop ical South Dakota must have been a very powerful beast; and how grotesque it must have looked with its ears set far back on the large skull and the eyea far forward, close to the two horn-like growths just back of the nostrils. The brain cavity of this great animal is very small, so it must have been a stupid creature. Another of the ancient animals was a giant pig. It looked little like a pig, however. In some ways it resembled the hippopotamus. Many different sized skeletons of this pig have been found. The largest is nearly the size of the pres ent-day rhinoceros with a head more than three feet in length. An ugly member of the cat family lived in the tropical forests of that ancient South Dakota country. This was called the saber-toothed tiger because of its long sword-like canine teeth which were often three inches in length. The saber-toothed tiger was about the size of a leopard but more powerfully built. Not all of the animals of those days were large. The horses that galloped over the country were about as high as a coyote. You never would have suspected from their footprints on the deltas that they were horses, for in stead of hoofs they had three toes on each foot. The camels — yes, there were camels too in this strange early Dakota country — looked a little like llamas but were about the size of a gazelle. Now the camel is found in Asia, and the llama in South America ; but the books of stone say that the camel lived in the South Dakota country before camels were in Asia or llamas in South America. That was ages before man came to put burdens on his back. A map of the South Dakota country at the time that it was a tropical marshy plain would look quite different THE BOOKS OF STONE 15 from the present-day map. Then the great central river flowed through what is now the valley of the James. The Grand River flowed east until it emptied its waters into the great central river near where Aberdeen now is. The Chey enne River reached the vicinity of Redfield; the Teton or Bad River came to Huron; and the White River added its waters to the great river at Mitchell. As the course of the western rivers indicate, the land sloped from the western part of the country to the great central river. From the great central river the land sloped up to the hills at what is now the eastern line of the state. But the tropical climate of the Dakota country was changing; when the Black Hills and Rocky Mountains were thrown to their present height, they cut off the warm winds from the western ocean and far in the north great masses of ice were forming in the frigid climate. These ice masses became so thick they could not support their own weight but began to run and spread slowly like a great lump of dough. The great glacier from the north spread until it reached far down into the country of South Dakota. The thick, heavy sheet of ice dammed up the valley of the great central river, so that a mammoth lake was formed which extended far back into the valleys of the Rocky Mountains. The western line of the ice was what is now the bed of the Missouri River. There was no river bed there at that time, but the waters of the lake back of the ice cut a channel around the edge of the glacier until it reached its old bed below the site of Yankton. The waters of the melting ice swelled this stream and so the present channel of the Mis souri was cut and the waters of the great central river never went back to their own bed in what is now the valley of the James. 16 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY The ice ehanged the surface of the state in other ways too. Many of the lake beds were formed by the masses of rock carried underneath the glacier. These under the weight of the ice ground out depressions in the earth lower than the level of the surrounding country. The ranges of hills called coteaus were formed by the glaciers. At their edges the glaciers carried great amounts of stone and earth and where the ice melted these were left and formed the hills. The heaps of stones which form the coteau hills and the scratching or "glacial markings" on the rocks tell the story of the glaciers. The melting of the ice left the surface and climate of the country much as it is today. So the books of stone not only open to us a great store house of wonders, but also tell us, in part, how the Creator prepared the prairies for the homes of men. MOUNDS AND STONE PICTURES. Dana and Dan came running in from their afternoon's play on the prairie. They hurried to their uncle's study call ing, "Uncle John! Uncle John! You never can guess what we have found !" Dan held in his arms a round bulky object, wrapped in the newspaper which had held their picnic sandwiches, while Dana kept one hand tightly clasped over some small object. The boys, who were spending the summer vacation with their uncle at Redfield, had been gone from the house the whole afternoon. "I give it up," said their uncle without lifting his eyes from the book he was reading. Dan laid his find on the desk; and with a deft twist removed the wrappings, leaving a human skull beside the book his uncle was reading. Dana put an Indian arrow head beside the skull. "Where have you boys been? Out to the Indian Mound? And what did you bring that home for?" their uncle asked suddenly when he saw the skull. "It's a big hill," exclaimed both together, "out south of town. We went out on our wheels. Is that an Indian Mound?" "There was something that looked like a ditch," con tinued Dan, "and back of that was higher ground like an embankment that had almost worn away ; both were sodded over with prairie grass ; and then there was a mound — " "And we were digging a cave in the mound," inter rupted Dana. 18 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY "And we found this skull and the arrow head," finished Dan, without answering their Uncle's last question. "It looks as if you found the Indian Mound," said the man. "Tell us about it! Tell us about it, Uncle John!" clam ored the boys. "Well," said their uncle, "you have found out that the mound is a burial ground. The place was an ancient fortifi cation. That is about all anyone knows about it. The ditch was probably wide and deep years ago when it was made. The Indians used to make them twelve or fifteen feet deep and wider than that. It has been many years since people found out that that mound was an Indian tomb. The trench and ditch show that it was probably a battle ground and the mound is the grave of the slain warriors." "Are there many Indian Mounds around here?" asked Dan. "No, not around here, but there are mounds other places in the state, — mounds that are older than this one and much larger." "Did the Indians make those too?" questioned Dan. "No one knows, and probably no one will every know who were the first human beings in the South Dakota coun try, but the large mounds in several places in the state seem to have been made by men and the objects taken from them make it evident that the men who made them were Indians. "Along the Missouri are mounds that are the remains of fortresses. Near Pierre are the four most important of the old forts — two on each side of the river. These com manded the river from above and below, protecting the large district between from foes by way of the water. The Ree Indians had villages and gardens in this district up un- MOUNDS AND STONE PICTURES 19 til 1792, and it is thought that the forts were built by the ancestors of the Rees, yet they may have been built by some people of whom there is no record in history. "From the mounds along the Big Sioux River in the vicinity of Sioux Falls have been taken many stone imple ments of war and pieces of pottery which are very unlike the weapons and domestic utensils used by the Ree and Sioux Indians. The same is true of the relics taken from the burial mounds along the coteaus in Marshall and Roberts counties. Since some of the implements found in these mounds are similar to those used by tribes of Indians found in the South,it is thought that the tribes now living in the southern part of the United States may, at some early day, have occupied the South Dakota country. "The Sioux Indians who generally inhabited the state when white men first came are not known to have made mounds of any great size, but on the tops of hills and along streams they have left memorials either in honor of some person buried near, or in memory of some unusual event in the tribe. These memorials are usually pictures of bird, beast, or reptile, outlined in stones. A pony is found in one place, and human figures in several other places. These stone outline pictures are found in many places in the state. One is in the form of a serpent over five hundred feet long. About twenty feet from the snake is a rude picture of a bird with outstretched wings. This bird is evidently the tribal mark of the Indian whose deed is recorded in the image of the snake. That is, he signed his name by making the bird. "Three miles north of Pierre, on what is known as Snake Butte, is a line of boulders over two thousand seven hundred thirty feet long. This undoubtedly commemorates some deed of valor of the Sioux Indian. Not far away is 20 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY the Indian's autograph, the image of a turtle fifteen feet and a half long from head to tail. This is made of seventy small boulders. In Garner Township, Sully County, there is a picture of a pony fourteen feet long and six feet high made of stones. There is no Indian autograph mark near it but about a mile away is the figure of a duck which may be the sign of the person who made the pony. Other images have been found near Wessington Springs, near Watertown, at Armadale Grove, at Turtle Peak, and a few other places in the state. Some have been destroyed by the owners of the land." "And we were destroying the Indian Mound by digging in it," said Dana thoughtfully. "Come on, Dan, we'll go put the skull of this warrior back and fix up the mound." "All right," agreed Dan. Then with a glance at the clock he added, "if we ride fast we'll be back in time for supper." THE DAUGHTER OF A REE Red Flower, a little Indian girl, lived in a fortified vil lage on the bank of the Missouri River many, many years ago. Her people, the Rees, were the first known inhabitants of the South Dakota country. Her father's house, like all the other houses in the vil lage, was an earth lodge. This was built by first digging a hole in the ground similar to a round, shallow cellar. Around this cellar forked timbers were set which were covered over with poles, brush, and hay to make the side- walls and roof. The whole structure was then covered with earth, so the lodge looked like a mound of earth. Although it was the month-in-which-the-wild-geese- return, a winter storm was piling the snow high in the spaces between the lodges. Yet it was warm and cheerful in side the lodge close to the fire where Red Flower sat beside her father and mother. On the other side of the fire her older brother was playing with the puppies that sprawled in the warmth. The cellar foundation made a warm floor where no drafts could creep in as they did under the sides of tepees. Hides stretched on a frame closed one door of the lodge, and a hole in the roof let out the smoke and foul air. That morning, before the storm began, Red Flower had helped her mother gather and carry in the wood which was piled inside the lodge. Red Flower's loads were very small compared with those her mother carried yet she helped her mother every day for she was already learning to do the tasks required of an Indian woman. After the supper 22 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY of buffalo meat and Indian corn was over, Red Flower, at her mother's knee, had her first lesson in embroidering a pair of small moccasins for herself while her mother worked on large ones. Red Flower's fingers were awkward and got in each other's way as she sewed on the brilliant porcu pine quills. She and her mother had gathered buffalo ber ries along the river; dug roots of plants on the prairie; and carried black clay from the valley to make the dyes to color the quills red, and yellow, and black. The quills she was us ing she thought very pretty for she had dyed them herself. While Red Flower and her mother worked at their quill embroidery, they listened to Big Wolf, her father, telling his son how the Rees had sprung from the Pawnee nation which lived far south on the Platte. They had heard the story often before for her brother must learn the history of his people in this way. "The Rees are the happiest of all In dians," Big Wolf said as he finished the story of their an cestry. "We never roam over the prairies to build our homes. Here by the Missouri we have our lodges and gar dens where we will live and die. The forts above and below us with the palisades and ditches around our villages make us safe from our enemies forever. While the buf faloes that winter on the rich grasses yonder," and he pointed toward the west, "give us an abundance of meat all winter." The snows melted after awhile, and the month-that- vegetation-begins came again. That was the month Red Flower liked best. It was good to have the long winter ended, and to feel once more the warm sunshine and the soft winds as she watched her mother prepare the garden soil with a shovel made of the shoulder blade of a buffalo. The Rees had long been farmers. Each family in the vil lage had a tract of land to cultivate. These plots were di- THE DAUGHTER OF A REE 23 vided from each other by strips of uncultivated ground, grown up to bushes and wild plants. In the center of each lodge hung a medicine sack with a large ear of corn sticking out of it. Before the planting began, there were feasts and religious ceremonies during which each family made offerings to the ear of corn in their medicine sack. After the offering, they prayed to the corn, asking it to give them a bountiful harvest. Next the ears of corn, stowed away in skins and large earthen pots, were car ried out to the garden plot and the planting began. Corn was not the only crop raised in the Ree gardens although it was the most important. Other seeds had been carefully hoarded in the lodges during the winter. These were pump kin, squash, and tobacco seeds. There were beans, too, such as grew wild in some places on the prairie. The summer was filled with long hours of hard work for Red Flower's mother and the other women of the village. The gardens must be tended; buffalo skins prepared for robes and garments ; meat cured for the cold stormy weather of the following winter; roots, herbs, and berries gathered from coulee and prairie; and earthen pottery made for household use. Red Flower was so eager to see the pottery made that she usually got in the way while her mother, with a round stone in one hand and a smooth piece of bark in the other, skillfully shaped the slate-colored clay which had been mixed with powdered granite. Then the pot was burned in the fire until it came out yellow-brown in color and ready to use. In the month-that-corn-was-ripe Red Flower climbed the bluffs to watch for the Indian traders who came year ly from the roving tribes of the prairie to exchange horses for the Rees' garden truck. One day she saw a large party of Indians approaching, but as they came nearer she could 24 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY see their weapons and hideous war paint. It was a war party coming to attack the Ree village. Red Flower hur ried back to her father's lodge to warn her people, but she found that the alarm had already been given by the sentinel and the warriors were ready to fight. This was a party of Dakota Indians, but their foes called them Sioux. In the battle that followed the Sioux were defeated and driven off. A celebration was held in the village that eve ning in honor of the victorious warriors. There was dancing and feasting, savage music, and long accounts of the brave deeds done in battle. But that was only the beginning of a long, treacherous war. The Sioux had for some time been hunting buffalo on the prairies east of the Missouri; now they had in some way learned that the snowfall was so light west of the Missouri that the buffalo herds fed there during the winter months. This was the country they wanted for their own, but it was the hunting ground of the Rees who had many brave warriors in their fortified villages. The care-free days of Red Flower's people were past. They felt safe in their villages. They made their gardens, held their religious festivals, and worked and played as they formerly had, yet life was never the same again. Now there was ever need to watch for an enemy outside the fortification; always a foe lurked near the buffalo trail. Sometimes the Ree hunters never came back ; sometimes it was the Sioux warriors who never returned to their tepees. Always the Sioux were beaten at the fortified villages. Red Flower was proud of her father for he was a skill ful hunter and a great warrior. There was never lack of meat in his home, and the herald's voice as he went from lodge to lodge often told of his brave deeds in battle. In the celebrations held in honor of their victories, she thought he looked very grand in his holiday clothes made of leather THE DAUGHTER OF A REE 25 embroidered with bright porcupine quills. He wore a neck lace made of the claws of a grizzly and his crowning glory was a head dress of eagle feathers, badges both, of his prow ess in the chase, and in war. Red Flower grew to womanhood and married ; and still the Sioux tried in vain to drive the Rees from their strong hold on the Missouri,but outside the walls many of the Ree warriors met their death, so the sound of mourning often mingled with the songs of victory. Red Flower's father and brother were among those slain. A baby son came to Red Flower, and as the years passed, a little daughter worked beside her in the lodge and garden. Her son grew old enough to go hunting with his father. He returned wound ed by a Sioux arrow and died that night in his father's lodge. The Sioux could not drive the Rees from their fortified towns, but at last they frightened the buffalo herds and drove them so far away that the Ree hunters returned to their lodges without meat. So hunger found its way past the palisades and trenches which the Sioux could not pass. Then the Rees, after a war of more than forty years, were forced to leave their strongholds and build others farther north on the Missouri where their hunters could find buffalo. They moved back more than once in the years which fol lowed for the Sioux were a powerful nation. Today there are none of Red Flower's people in South Dakota. With the Mandans and Gros Ventres they are liv ing on the Fort Berthold Reservation and the days of their power and prowess are past. THE DAKOTAS The last night in the big timber! Groups of Teton boys had gathered outside the lodges. In front of them stretched the shadowy waters of the lake with a fringe of canoes and rafts drawn up on the near shore. The dark forest formed a semicircle around the Indian village with its lodges made of poles, bark and skins. The boys had all been born in that forest, and so had their fathers and grand fathers for generations. The location of the village had changed many times but it had always been in or near the big timber among the lakes which feed the Mississippi at its source. The forest was the book the Indian children had stud ied since the days when the birds and whispering leaves had talked to them in their wind-rocked cradles that hung from swaying boughs. They had already learned the paths of the forest and how to cover their trails. They had learned the track signs and the marks on trees. They knew the language of the forest creatures and could imitate their cries and calls. They had played in the lake since they were tiny fellows, ducking each other, riding rafts and slippery logs, diving, swimming and paddling a canoe. Now they must leave the forest and the lake. There was sor row in each little Indian's heart at the thought of leaving, but it was sorrow well mixed with eager anticipation. They stopped in their sport to talk of the long journey and the adventures that awaited them. The Tetons were but one of the tribes which made up the Dakota nation. The word Dakota means allies. That was their real name, but their enemies called them "Sioux," 28 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY which taken freely means enemies. The seven tribes of the Dakotas had grown too numerous to live comfortably on the game in their northern forests. The chiefs and head men of the Tetons said it would be better on the prairie where the great herds of buffalo fed. For the buffalo were better game than that in the big timber and easier to get. But there was another reason for their migration from the forest. The Chippewas had entered the forests and the lake region and while they were no stronger as a nation than the Dakotas, they were forcing the latter from their hunting grounds. In their former homes the Chippewas had traded with the French and now used the white men's guns. That was the secret of their power. The bows and arrows, spears, tomahawks, and war clubs of the Dakotas were no match for the guns of the Chippewas. The Teton village was astir early the next morning. Before daybreak their goods were packed and loaded on the womens' backs and the dog travaux and they were off in search of new hunting grounds, the first tribe of the Dakotas to leave the forest home. The prairies east of the Mississippi were occupied by tribes of the Iowa Indians, so the long line of Tetons moved westward until they came to Lakes Traverse and Big Stone. Along the shores of those lakes they made their new homes. That was before the end of the seventeenth century. They were called Tetonwana (dwellers on the prairie) by the other Dakotas. The Teton hunters roamed the prairies westward for the buffalo which they found in great numbers. They got possession of horses about that time. Then they could go farther and it was easier to hunt buffalo. Some of the young boys went on their first buffalo hunts soon after coming to the prairie. But their arrows did not penetrate deeply enough to seriously injure the animals they hit. It THE DAKOTAS 29 took a stronger arm and a larger bow than theirs to kill a buffalo. However they went often with the hunters to hold the pack horses, and while they were growing larger and stronger, they learned all the tricks and skill of the buf falo hunt. There were other kinds of game on the prairie — antelope, black-tailed deer, grizzly bears, and an abun dance of game birds. The hunters found an enemy as well as game on the prairie. Bands of Omaha Indians were living in the Big Sioux Valley when the Tetons first came to Lakes Big Stone and Traverse, and both tribes wanted the same hunting grounds. War parties were frequently sent out and the Tetons who were more powerful, finally drove the Omaha Indians south of the Missouri. Then the whole prairie, bounded on the south and west by the Missouri River, be came the hunting ground of the Dakotas. The years passed swiftly and the boys of the forest became the warriors and hunters of the prairie, while a new lot of prairie boys, who had never lived in the forest, had grown to be young braves. Some winters the snows were very deep on the prairie and the storms were frequent. At these times the Tetons were hungry, for the buffalo herds went far away to feed during the months of deep snow. Only a few small groups of buffalo were occasionally found. It was in the year 1750 that a party of Teton hunters returned to their village with wonderful news. They had crossed the Missouri. The snow, they said, was not deep west of the big river. There the buffalo roamed in countless numbers, feeding on the prairie grass, although it was dead of winter and the snow was deep on the east side of the river. In the council that followed that announcement the Tetons decided to take the winter pastures of the buffalo 30 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY for their hunting ground. To do this they must conquer the Rees in their strongly fortified villages on the Missouri. Frequent war parties were sent out from the Teton vil lages after that. The wailing cries of the wives, mothers, sisters and sweethearts of the warriors arose in the camp as the warriors rode away. Often the death song sung by the returning braves, told the waiting women that the dreaded sorrow had come to some of their number. The war begun then lasted nearly forty years before the Rees were starved out of their villages because the Te tons kept the buffalo far away. Early in that war with the Tetons two tribes of the Yankton Dakotas settled in the valley of the James. For they also had been driven out of the big forest by the Chippewas and were seeking new hunting grounds. That kept out the Omahas who were trying once more to return, and gave the Tetons an ally. The four bands of the Santee Dakotas were driven out of the lake region later and one band of them, the Sissetons, settled at Lakes Traverse and Big Stone, the old home of the Tetons. Long before the end of the war with the Rees, the Og- lalas, a branch of the Tetons, discovered that there were hills southwest of the buffalo pastures, which looked black in the distance. Those black hills they found occupied by a band of Indians named the Kiowas. The Oglalas drove them out and settled there. When Lewis and Clark passed through the South Da kota country, the Rees in their new fortified villages at the mouth of the Grand, held a narrow bit of territory; the rest of the country belonged to the tribes of the powerful Dakotas. Historical outline based on Robinson's "History of the Sioux Indians," South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. II. OUR FIRST INDUSTRY. The first industry of the Dakota country, together with the whole northwest, was the fur trade. This was long the only branch of commerce in the western world and almost the only business transacted in the vast territory west of the Mississippi River. The fur traders were in the field earlier than the government explorers, the pioneers, or the gold seekers. The French, many of whom came on the double mis sion of fur trading and discovery, were the first known white men in the territory of South Dakota. There is a story that Charles Pierre Le Seur visited the South Da kota country as early as 1683 when he was collecting his first furs to send down the Mississippi by boat. If this story is true he was probably the first white man in South Dakota territory. His map of the central part of North America shows the Missouri, Big Sioux and James Rivers, and Lakes Traverse and Big Stone properly located and well drawn. The location of the principal Indian tribes is also given on the map. There are three trails marked on the map which enter South Dakota from the east. It is certain that Le Seur traded with the South Dakota Indian tribes and if he did not enter South Dakota territory himself, some of his white traders did. Verendrye on his voyage of discovery in 1743 left his leaden plate by which he claimed the land for the king of France, but the early unlicensed traders from Canada left no record of the places they visited or what they did. Neither did the early French traders from St. Louis 32 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY leave any record of their trade with the Dakota Indian tribes. In 1796 Loisel's trading post was built on Cedar Is land, a few miles below the site of Pierre, and Trudeau's trading post was built the next year on the east side of the river, opposite the site of Fort Randall. The trade along the Missouri must have been general a numbers of years before these posts were established . Thomas Jefferson, when he asked Congress for funds to purchase Louisiana, said, "The Indians along the Mis souri (then French territory) furnish great supplies of furs and peltry to another nation." One purpose of the Louisiana purchase was to make treaties with the Indians which would turn that trade to the United States. When Lewis and Clark returned from their trip to the Pacific and told the people of St. Louis the story of their travels, it had the same effect that the opening of new gold fields had later. Every restless, adventurous spirit of the time was eager to seek a fortune in this region rich in valu able furs. The history of the great American Fur Companies be gan after the return of Lewis and Clark. St. Louis was the center of the fur commerce. All parties were organized and all outfits made up in St. Louis. All of the return trade passed through St. Louis. Most traders lived there, and all non-resident firms had houses there. Manuel Lisa of the Missouri Fur Company made the first trip up the Missouri. When the report of Lewis and Clark's expedition reached New York City, John Jacob As tor, the king of the American fur trade, decided to establish a great fur depot at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific coast. Two expeditions were to be sent out, one to go by boat around South America, the other to go up the Missouri from St. Louis and then overland to the Columbia OUR FIRST INDUSTRY 33 River. Walter Price Hunt, a fur merchant from the east, commanded the overland expedition. After laying in sup plies in St. Louis he managed to get Manuel Lisa's guide, Pierre Dorion, Jr., away from Lisa and set out on the trip upstream with Manuel Lisa, who was setting out on his second trip, in close pursuit. Lisa overtook Hunt at the Big Bend of the Missouri. The two parties went on to the Ree village together, quarreling some over the guide whom both wanted. At the Ree villages Manuel Lisa traded out his goods to the Rees in exchange for furs and then started back to St. Louis at about the time that Hunt, following the course of the Grand River, set out for the Columbia. On that journey Hunt went through the northern part of the Black Hills. At the time of the War of 1812, when Manuel Lisa was made Indian agent for all the Indians on the Upper Mis souri with the task of preventing the Dakota Sioux from aiding the British, he established a strong trading post somewhere near the Big Bend. Just where the post was is not known. It may have been on American Island at Chamberlain or on Cedar Island just above the Big Bend. Wherever the post was, Manuel Lisa kept a large stock of goods for the Indian trade. His stock included vegetable seeds and even fowls and cattle. He taught the women to raise the vegetables and dry them for winter. The sick, and old, and crippled he cared for at the post. In the fall of 1817 a mixed-blood Indian, named Joseph La Framboise, established a trading post where Fort Pierre now stands. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, organized several years later led by Major Andrew Henry and William H. Ashley, passed through the state on its several expeditions. Ashley had trouble at the Ree villages and 34 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY Henry and the United States troops under General Leaven worth, came to his aid. Five years after La Framboise built his trading post at the mouth of Bad River, Fort Tecumseh was built there and ten years later Fort Pierre Chouteau was built near by. This name was soon shortened by common use to Fort Pierre. The settlement at the mouth of Bad River was never abandoned at any time after the trading post was established in 1817. So Fort Pierre is the oldest con tinuous settlement in the state. The fur traffic was in fine furs, such as beaver, otter, mink, and fox, and such coarser products as buffalo, bear, and deer skins. Bear and buffalo tallow and buffalo tongues were also articles of trade. Besides the men employed and paid wages by the fur companies, there were free hunters and trappers who worked on their own account. The Indians valued the fur pelts lightly and traded them eagerly for such baubles as vermillion paint, mirrors, finger rings, gay calicos, ribbons, and tin pans ; for luxuries in food such as coffee and sugar ; or the useful articles like blankets, traps and ammunition. The Indian thought the white man very stupid to trade such treasures for skins of animals that any one could get in the big out of doors, and most of the traders looked at the red man in scorn because he parted with valuable pelts to get such worthless trifles. The merchandise for the Indian trade was shipped from Europe because of the lack of manufactories in the United States, but even then the profits of the trader were several hundred per cent. A few items from Ashley's bill of sale show why the profits of the trader, who paid the Indians entirely in goods, were so great : OUR FIRST INDUSTRY 85 Tin kettles assorted sizes $2 each Sugar $1 lb. Common calico $1 yd. Thread, assorted $3 lb. Vermillion paint $3 lb. Small looking glasses $ .50 each Dried fruit $1.50 lb. Washing soap $1.35 lb. Scarlet cloth $6 yd. Blue cloth $4 yd. Beads, assorted $2.50 lb. Handkerchiefs $1.50 each Finger rings $5 per gross Buttons $5 per gross The merchandise for the Indian trade was carried up the river on keel boats. These boats were sixty to seventy- five feet long, fifteen to eighteen feet wide, and the hold was three to four feet deep. The cargo box arose four or five feet above the deck and was twelve feet shorter at each end. They were propelled by oars and the cordelle line, which was at tached to the high mast, a little forward of the center and then passed through a ring fastened to the bow. From twenty to forty men on the shore drew on this line. When the winds were favorable and strong a sail helped to carry the boat forward. In shallow water poles were used to push the boat along. In 1831, the year before Fort Pierre was built, Pierre Chouteau made a small steamboat with a flat bottom especially for navigation on the shallow Missouri. Its first trip was from St. Louis to Fort Tecum seh. This rude little steamboat was a wonderful help in the Missouri River fur trade. A trip which had before taken the whole season that the Missouri was not bound by ice, now was easily finished in a few weeks time. The 36 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY second season Pierre Chouteau travelled to the head waters of the Missouri in his steamboat and there built Fort Union. Life at the trading posts was dull and uninteresting. Receiving bands of Indians who came to barter furs for the white man's goods, watching the country for signs of buffalo, and cutting the needed supply of wood, were the daily tasks. Once or twice a year bundles of newspapers came from the outside world. The life of the trapper was less monotonous than that of the trader but the trapper's life was full of danger and hardships. Savages and wild animals constantly threatened him ; deep snows, and heavy rains, extreme cold, and scorch ing heat all added to his discomfort. The trappers garments wore out quickly and the most convenient clothes to replace them was the Indian costume. He wore a heavy shirt, deerskin breeches, long leggings and moccasins cut in one piece. Instead of an overcoat he wore a long hooded cape called a capote. A belt passed over his left shoulder and his ammunition bag hung under his left arm. A leather bag attached to his girdle held a knife, a hatchet and materials for mending moccasins. In summer the trapper slept in the open on a bed of leaves or boughs, where these were to be had, and his sad dle, if he had one, was his pillow. In winter he had a rude hut usually open to the fire in front. The implements of his trade were hung about the hut. There were graining blocks and a frame for stretching the skins while traps hung in some nearby tree. An antler rack held the trapper's few belongings and a little store of sugar, coffee and salt made him rich in provisions with the game he killed. Through the fur trade white men made their first ac quaintance with the Indians and many permanent posts were established to accommodate the various Indian tribes. OUR FIRST INDUSTRY 37 The fur companies marked the sources and courses of rivers ; traced out the lines of lakes and mountains which were but little known before; and discovered other rivers, lakes and mountains. They led the van of civilization in the West. Later the pioneer settler ventured on their trails, and now the railroads traverse the paths along which these brave early traders went ; and the names of the stations, streams and passes call to mind the days of the fur trade. After 1855 the fur trade as the leading industry was over in Dakota because the fur-bearing animals had been so nearly exterminated in the territory. While the fur trade was at its height it was the only industry of the North west. Other industries have developed far beyond it since that day while the fur trade has stood still. The United States, however, still has about one half of the fur trade of the world. Only a few years ago the value of the furs sold in the United States in one year was worth $10,000,000. THE PLATE'S STORY. "Well," said the leaden plate as it settled back con tentedly among the state historical collections at Pierre, "I'm glad I'm found." "Found ?" echoed the nearby historical treasures, "were you lost?" "No — oh, no," answered the plate hastily, "I was just buried — buried for one hundred and seventy three years." "Do tell us all about it!" urged the older members of the collection. "Tell us all about it from the beginning." "I cannot tell you all about it," answered the leaden plate, "for some of it I do not know. The explorers car ried me packed away, so that I had little chance to know of their travels except from the talk around the campfire at night — when they did talk — often the men were too weary to talk; but you wanted the story from the begin ning. "There lived in Canada in the days before I began my travels a Frenchman, named Pierre Verendrye. His home was on an island in Lake St. Peter. Often he took his little sons with him to the trading post which he had established a few miles from his home. At this post the dusky Indians came to trade their furs for the white man's goods. Pierre Verendrye frequently questioned his savage customers about the great wild country of the Northwest. There at their father's knee the boys heard for the first time the name of the 'Great Western Sea.' "The vision of that 'Great Western Sea' soon lured Pierre Verendrye away from his family and far from his 40 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY beautiful island home. During these travels he laid claim to large tracts of land for his country, France; but he failed to find the Sea he sought. Impatiently the boys waited un til they, too, could join in the quest. Fear that their father would explore all unknown lands and leave them none to seek when they were men, mingled with the pride they felt in their father's great achievements. But at last the glad day came when the older boys joined Pierre Verendrye on his journeys. "That part of the story is all hearsay to me. The first I knew I was a new leaden plate quite proud of these flow ers of France in my corners, these arms of France at my head, and this Latin inscription. My back was plain then — left plain for the name and date to be scratched into the soft lead with a knife when the time came to bury me. Only in that way could an accurate record be left. For it was the custom of French explorers to carry leaden plates to bury as proof that citizens of France had first explored new lands, and in this way establish her claim to the country. "On a day in April Louis Joseph Verendrye and Fran cois (now called the Chevalier) with two other Frenchmen, set out from Canada, carrying me with them, to search for the Western Sea. We traveled a long distance to the coun try of the Mandans. Then, after waiting many days for a guide, two Mandan Indians led us to Horse Mountain (wherever that may be.) "When he had journeyed twenty days from the Man dan village, I heard the men talking excitedly about bright colored soil and rock which they saw as they passed through the new country. " 'See !' said Louis Joseph, 'Soils azure, green as grass white as chalk.' THE PLATE'S STORY 41 " 'Look ! Look !' cried another voice a little further on, 'Here is rock shinine black, and there rock yellow like ochre !' " 'Yonder is soil red as vermillion,' exclaimed the Cheva lier. 'When we return we must carry with us a sample of each or the people at home will think we tell them a fairy tale.' "Since I have been found, I heard a man call that coun try the 'Bad Lands.' Though why such land should be called 'bad' I do not know. "Well, we traveled many, many days, trying to find Indians who could lead us to the Sea. At length a great Indian chief promised to show the men the sea they sought if they would march with him. So he led them with his war party. They came to mountains after a time but there was no sea. I think those mountains were the Black Hills — but am not sure. "It was then winter, and the snow was deep among the forest trees on the mountain. So the Verendryes, disap pointed in their search for the Western Sea, and fearful now that they might be lost and starve in the winter storms, decided to return. "A party of Indians, who chanced in that vicinity, were easily persuaded to guide us back to the Missouri, where the Verendryes were guests to the chief. There I was taken from my coverings for the first time on the jour ney. The meeting seemed to be a secret one and I caught only snatches of the low-voiced conversation — 'Indians must not know about plate,' 'astrolobe is broken and we cannot take the altitude'; 'must tell the Indians that the pile of stones is for a memorial' — I could make very little out of that at the time, but the eyes of the Verendrye brothers 42 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY turned again and again to a prominent bluff about seven miles away on the Missouri River. "That night the two Frenchmen who had accompanied the Verendryes, carried me away secretly to that bluff, hur riedly scratched their names, the word Chevalier, and the date, 1743, on my back. Then they buried me on the bluff, marking the spot with a rough pyramid of stones and left me there to the long years of waiting. So the Verendryes took possession of the land that is now South Dakota in the name of France. "Spring, summer, fall, winter — the slow years passed. For long months at a time the winter storms swirled and raved over my head; spring brought again the honking geese, the lark's clear call ; then once more the summer rains beat upon my hill. "The coyote's howl, the buffalo's stampede, the war cry of the red man, I heard at times, and the prairie wind, monotonous as the passing years droned endlessly over the bluff. "Still I was less lonely there than I should have been else where in the territory that this state covers for when the trappers and fur traders came, they established in the vicin ity of my mound, a trading post. That was in 1817 — the earliest permanent white settlement in South Dakota, I have heard them say. From that rude trading post grew the present Fort Pierre. "Sounds were my one amusement and as the years passed there were some new sounds very strange to me. One sounded like the booming of a giant gun from the river. It puzzled me greatly; but the next day two little Indian boys sat on my pyramid of stones and talked of three strange boats that had gone up the river 'one sun' before. They were afraid of the gun one boat carried and THE PLATE'S STORY 43 called it 'big medicine.' But the flag that that boat floated each little savage wanted for his own, and before they had finished their talk I could almost see the red and white stripes running lengthwise, an upper corner dark blue like the heavens at night, sprinkled over with gleaming stars — a flag I had never seen. They spoke, too, of two white chiefs; one with black hair; the other with red. They thought some one must have painted it red. That was years before the white men came to trade near my bluff. "Many years after, when the day of both the Indian and the trapper had passed, I heard a terrible puffing and rumbling. The earth seemed to tremble with fright; then there came a long drawn out shriek that awoke all the sleep ing demons of sound along the river. The cause of such commotion I could not guess. "The pyramid that marked my hiding place had grown smaller, stone by stone, through the years. Now I had be gun to fear that it did not mark my hiding place plainly enough for anyone to find me. But one day I heard a click ing sound and felt the weight of the remaining stones gradu ally lifted. Then I was sure that I had been found ; but no — the years of waiting continued. "The children from Fort Pierre were now coming to play about my hiding place. After a while the school boys built a fort near me. There on my bluff they fought and ref ought all the battles of the world. "Finally there came a morning when a ray of sun shine struck one of my corners. The rains, and frosts, and winds had found me after many, many years. Now I waited hopefully, but alas, both grown people and children walked carelessly over me without knowing I was there, so crusted was my surface with the clinging earth. But there was more to interest me after that, for I could watch the people 44 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY come and go, and see the children at play. Then too, I learned that the terrible rumbling and shrieking was made by a black, puffing creature that the children called an en gine, and every day I saw a flag that was like the one the two little savages had described so long ago. "There came a warm bright day in February. It was Sunday, and Sunday always brought a crowd of boys and girls to their fort on the bluff, if the day was fine. Soon a group of young people strolled in my direction. They stop ped almost above me, laughing and talking, and as they talked, one of the girls pushed the toe of her shoe aimlessly into the earth. Her foot struck my protruding corner, then quickly she kicked me loose and stooped to pull me from the ground. " 'What have you found, Hattie Foster?' demanded one of the group as the girl began to scrape the earth from my surface. " 'I don't know/answered Hattie, as the others gathered closely about her. " 'Must be the tablet Moses wrote the laws on', said another girl. " 'What's it made of?' asked a boy. " 'Here, let me take it,' insisted another boy. The number on it is one-thousand-seven-hundred-forty-three', he remarked scraping away more particles of dirt. " 'Perhaps it's worth something,' suggested someone. " 'It's lead all right,' continued the boy, scratching me with his knife. 'I'll take it down to the hardware store and sell it for about five cents.' "I began to feel quite foolish and unimportant as they passed me from hand to hand, making remarks about me. THE PLATE'S STORY 45 Before they had finished I really expected to be sold for five cents. When that boy carried me off to his home a little later, I thought my years of waiting had been in vain for I was sure that the history story on my face was doomed to be blotted out in a melting pot ; but the boy's father sold me to the State Historical Society and — here I am." AT THE BARGAIN COUNTER. Thomas Jefferson sat at his desk in the White House one spring morning. He was not looking at his desk al though it was piled high with many papers which demanded the President's attention, but at a map of North America that hung above his desk. There was little need for him to look at that map for he had studied it so much that it seemed drawn upon his brain. The United States then reached westward only to the Mississippi River with New Orleans, standing like a for eign sentinel at the river's mouth, and Florida belonged to Spain. Far west of the Mississippi stretched a mountain chain then called the "Stony Mountains." The generous strip of country between the River and the mythical "Stony Mountains" Thomas Jefferson coveted for his country. It was a wild land, mysterious, unknown. But its mystery like a magnet drew his thoughts ever back. Spain, France, and England had claimed this territory. It had been held in turn by Spain, France, and now again by Spain. Recently disturbing news had come to President Jef ferson. France had purchased Louisiana from Spain the fall before by secret treaty, and Napoleon, then ruling France under the title of First Consul, was planning to build in America a colonial empire of France. "Spanish control of the west bank of the Mississippi has been intolerable," said Jefferson, turning at length to his secretary, Meriwether Lewis. "Our hundred thousand settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains have no way to reach the markets of the outer world except by the Missis- 48 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY sippi River to New Orleans, and New Orleans is now by proclamation of Spanish officials, closed to our American commerce. That, I say, is intolerable, but French control is a menace to our national growth — perhaps to our nation's life. For Spain is a decaying power, France strong and aggressive." The President was silent for a moment, then, bringing his fist down upon the desk, said : "The United States will never submit to French control of the mouth of the Missis sippi— NEVER !" Then Jefferson arose from his chair and began to walk back and forth in the room, heedless of his littered desk and his waiting secretary. Thomas Jefferson was over six feet tall, although his shoulders were then stooped. His eyes were brown and his well shaped head was crowned with red hair, so dark that it was almost auburn. He was dressed in the manner of his time, but the close-fitting knee breeches, the dingy brown coat with its high rolling collar, the soiled red waistcoat, the coarse woolen stockings which reached to his knees, and the worn carpet slippers run down at the heels, all showed his disregard of his appearance. Yet his careless dress could not conceal his greatness. His clear eyes, keen and watchful, swept his desk, but his thoughts were still on the one great topic, the greatest trans action in history, for he was trying through his envoys, Rob ert Livingston, and James Monroe, to purchase Louisiana. "I wonder what Livingston and Monroe are doing yonder in France with Napoleon Boneparte," he said, as he turned again to his secretary. "I am living now principally for news from France." Then the years seemed to slip away from him ; his dark eyes shone with interest; and his face grew eager as a boy's. Catching hold of his young secretary's arm he de- AT THE BARGAIN COUNTER 49 manded, "Come with me ! There may be — but wait and see." Quickly the men passed out at the back door, crossing the White House grounds to a brick stable. Jefferson gave his companion no word of explanation as they passed by his favorite horses. The horses thrust out their satiny noses nickering softly for the usual caress, but today their mas ter hurried on unheeding. Silently he led the way to a loft over the horse stalls. It was not a hay mow which they entered. The room was empty, but rows of square boxes fastened to the wall showed that this might be the nesting place of pigeons — many of them. President Jefferson scanned the rows of boxes anxious ly. Then with a low exclamation he hurried to one of them, opened it, and drew out the drab and white bird which it held. His fingers trembled with eagerness as he took from the bird's coral leg a tiny roll of paper wrapped in tinfoil which was tied securely in place. Thomas Jefferson seemed to read the message at a glance, then with beaming face he held the bit of paper before the eyes of Meriwether Lewis while he read: "Gen eral Boneparte signed May 2, fifteen millions. Rejoice !" The men clasped hands in silence. As they climbed down the ladder from the loft, Mr. Jefferson said, "The ship bearing this news reached the dock at New York yes terday. This bird with others was released late in the af ternoon. Counting out the hours of darkness when she could not fly, she has made an average flight of something like seventy miles an hour. The stages which carry the mail cannot reach here until some time tomorrow." Then, caressing the drab and white pigeon which he had carried down from the loft, he said, "You, little bird, have brought word of the greatest bargain in the world. No other pigeon ever carried so great a message. Never more 50 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY shall you be carried away from home to work for men. Go now and enjoy your cote and your nest," and he held the bird out on his extended hand. Before the men again entered the White House, they looked out over the straggling village which was then the nation's capital. The Washington of today with its parks, its boulevards and its beautiful buildings was hardly dreamed of. Yet to both Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis it seemed a greater Washington than ever before — the cap ital of a nation whose territory had doubled in so brief a time. As they turned from the vision of the country's future to take up the waiting tasks, Thomas Jefferson said with eyes aglow, "This transaction I hold the greatest our country ever engaged in." But the President and his secretary did not then dream of the greatness of this vast territory to the west which the Louisiana purchase had added to our possessions, yet they did know that the wealth of its mines, its forests, its pas tures, and farmlands were necessary for the development of the United States. The price paid by our government for Louisiana was about three cents an acre. Every one thought that too high for no white man knew anything defi nite about the size, the boundaries, or wonderful resources of this new territory, which was larger in area than France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Great Britain taken together. The Louisiana purchase doubled the size of the United States. From it thirteen states and parts of states have been admitted to the Union. South Dakota is one of these states. AdaDted from "The Magnificent Adventure" by Emerson Hough A VISIT TO BLACK BUFFALO At the Big Bend of the Missouri, in the heart of South Dakota, three Sioux Indian boys swam the river to carry a message to Lewis and Clark who were on their way up river. The message asked the white chiefs to confer with two par ties of the Sioux nation. While the boys delivered the message, a dozen mounted Indian warriors were outlined against the sky from the rim of a bluff. The explorers would gladly have avoided this meeting, for the great chief of the Teton Sioux was Black Buffalo, an Indian hostile to the whites and a surly tempered fellow. The number of mounted warriors, rapidly increasing along the shore was an added threat. Yet they decided to stop for a short time, make a speech, and distribute presents. To Black Buffalo they gave a medal, a flag of the United States, a uniform coat, a cocked hat and feather. To each of the other chiefs a medal and some small presents. But Black Buffalo, as usual, was not in a good mood. He and his men, not waiting for the parley, crowded down to the river's edge after the presents had been distributed. Cap tain Clark was on the shore and Captain Lewis, working on the barge which he had not yet brought to a good landing, turned to find his friend, Clark, struggling in the hands of several Sioux Indians, Black Buffalo among them while three other painted warriors held the cable of the boat, and still another threw both arms around the mast. Then Black Buffalo said, "We will not let you go on." Captain Clark answered haughtily, "You cannot pre vent us from going on. We are warriors — not squaws. Our 52 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY Great Father sent us and he can in a moment exterminate you." "I, too, have warriors," replied Black Buffalo, and laid his hands roughly on Captain Clark. Then Clark drew his sword and the hands of the Sioux were on their tomahawks. A loud command from Lewis drew the attention of the Indians before either side could use their weapons. They faced the barge to find the black mouth of the swivel gun pointed directly at them. They had heard its thundering voice from a distance and now turned back in terror shouting, "Big Medicine." Captain Clark, unwilling to leave an enemy behind him, offered to shake hands with Black Buffalo, but the angry chief refused. Hardly had Clark entered the boat when Black Buffalo and three other Indians waded after him. He took them on board. The boat went to Willow Island and the Indians were kept on the big boat that night. The next morning the Sioux were better natured and asked that their squaws and children might come to see the boats. After this request was granted, the Sioux chiefs said that they were sorry for what had occurred the previous day and they invited the white men to a feast and a dance. The journal kept by Lewis and Clark says: "Captains Lewis and Clark who went on shore one after the other were met by ten well dressed young men who took them up in a robe highly decorated, and carried them to a large council house, where they were placed on a buffalo robe beside the grand chief. The council hall was in the shape of three quarters of a circle. Under this shel ter sat about seventy men forming a circle around the chief, before whom were placed a Spanish flag and the one we had given them yesterday. A VISIT TO BLACK BUFFALO 58 "This left a vacant circle about six feet in diameter, in which the peace pipe was raised on two forked sticks, about six or seven inches from the ground, with the down of a swan scattered under it. A large fire in which they were cooking provisions stood near, and in the center was about four hundred pounds of buffalo meat as a present for us." After the speeches at the conclusion of the council, they smoked the peace pipe. The Lewis and Clark journal de scribes the ceremony thus : "With great solemnity a chief took some of the most delicate parts of the dog which was cooked for the festival and held it to the flag by way of sacrifice ; this done he held up the pipe of peace and first pointed it toward the heavens, then to the four quarters of the globe, then to the earth, made a short speech, lighted the pipe and presented it to us. We smoked and he again made a speech to his people." After the council came the feast which consisted chiefly of dog meat. There was pemmican too, a dried buffalo meat, pounded fine and then mixed with grease and potato or roots. The food was set before the whites in platters with spoons made of horn. The men found it difficult to eat dog meat then, but dog meat kept them from starving before their journey was finished. The festival ended with a grand dance which lasted from twilight until midnight. The hall which now served as a ball room was lighted by a great fire in the center. Music was furnished by a band of ten whose musical instruments were skin bags containing pebbles, hoops with skins stretched tightly across, and sticks to which were fastened hoofs of deer and goats. The women, decked in all their savage finery, arranged themselves in two lines, one on each side of the firelighted room. In their hands they carried poles hung with scalps, 54 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY grim relics of war ; or weapons taken by their relatives in battle. As soon as the rude orchestra began to play, the two columns of squaws shuffled toward each other until the lines met, then they shouted and moved back to their former positions. The men danced in their turn in much the same manner as the women, except that they jumped up and down instead of shuffling. At times there were intervals in the dance. These pauses some warrior filled with recitals in a low gut tural chant of some incident of the chase or of deeds of heroism. So interesting did the captains find this entertainment that they decided to stay for another day among the Teton Sioux. The second day the Lewis and Clark party furnished their part of the entertainment. The greatest wonder of that party to the Indians was York, Captain Clark's negro servant. His skin of ebony and his tightly curled hair were a marvel never seen before. The wonder of the savages in creased when they found that the black man's war paint would not wash off. "You have many colors," said the chiefs as they looked from the white^skinned men to York and then to Captain Clark's red hair, another curiosity. When the captains decided to go on they found the In dians quite as determined as before to stop them. A line of Indians with Black Buffalo and other chiefs among them sat on the cable which held the boats to the shore. The In dians were bribed and coaxed and threatened, but still they sat on the cable. At last Captain Lewis said to Black Buf falo, "You have told us that you are a great man, and have great influence. Now show us your influence by tak ing the rope from those men." This speech touched Black Buffalo's pride. He compelled his warriors to give him the rope which he threw away from the land out of their reach. A VISIT TO BLACK BUFFALO 55 But the explorers were not yet rid of Black Buffalo. He insisted on going up the river with them to the Ree encamp ments. They were near the mouth of the Cheyenne River when the boat on which the Indian was riding struck a log and came very near overturning. Frightened at this, the chief demanded that he be set on shore. The captains will ingly let him off, and continued their journey glad to be rid of Black Buffalo at last. SPIRIT MOUND. While on their journey up the Missouri, Captains Lewis and Clark with ten men, stopped in what is now Clay County, South Dakota, to visit a mound in the midst of the flat prairie. This mound was about nine hundred feet long, more than a hundred and eighty feet wide, and seventy feet high with a top as smooth and level as the plain from which the mound rose. The Indians called this the Moun tain of the Little People, or Little Spirits. The Lewis and Clark journal says : "The Indians believe that it is the abode of evil spirits in the human form, about eighteen inches high with re markably large heads ; they are armed with sharp arrows, with which they are very skillful, and are always on the watch to kill those who have the hardihood to approach their residence. The tradition is that many have suffered from these little evil spirits, and, among others, three Maha (Omaha) Indians fell a sacrifice to them a few years since. This has inspired all the neighboring nations * * * with such terror that no consideration could tempt them to visit the hill. We saw none of these wicked little spirits, nor any place for them, except some small holes scattered over the top; we were happy enough to escape their vengeance, though we remained some time on the mound to enjoy the delightful prospect of the plain, which spreads itself out until the eye rests on the northwest hills at a great distance, and those of the northeast, still further off, enlivened by great herds of buffalo feeding at a distance." THE LEGEND OF THE STONE IDOLS. (A Ree Chief told this legend to Lewis and Clark on their journey upstream. They named the stream Stone-Idol- Creek, but it is now known as Spring River, and is in Camp bell County, South Dakota.) Long years ago a young brave loved an Indian maiden ; but she was the daughter of a great chief who refused to consent to the marriage. When the youth persisted in his attentions his weapons were taken from him and he was driven out on the prairie to starve or freeze in the win ter's cold. The Indian maiden resolved to die with her lover and slipped unnoticed away from the Indian village. Close behind the lovers followed the young brave's dog. The long, cold, pitiless winter passed and no hunter saw any trace of the wanderers ; spring came, and summer passed — still no roving Indian band brought word of the outcasts. But when autumn came and the haze of Indian summer was beginning to show purple on the distant hori zon, the chief, riding across the prairie, came upon the lov ers. Side by side they stood on the bank of a little creek a few miles west of the Missouri River. Gaunt hunger had not touched their forms, nor were their faces lined with suffering. Close by stood the faithful dog. The Great Spirit had pitied the plight of these children of the prairie and turned them into images of stone. Here, too, was food in abundance, for a wild grape vine hung in festoons from a tree above the images with one purple cluster touching the maiden's upraised hand. The chief, fearing the anger of the 58 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY Great Spirit, laid an offering before the lovers as an atone ment. The Indians still lay offerings of clothing at the feet of the stone idols. Retold from a legend given in the Lewis and Clark Journal. BREAKING A TRAIL TO THE PACIFIC In the early fall of 1804, three boats, flying the American flag, passed through the country that is now South Dakota. The boats toiled upstream against the treacherous currents of the Missouri. The wild geese were hurrying south in honking V's when the boats reached the Mandan villages not far from where the capital city of North Dakota now stands. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had reached the end of the trail. Beyond stretched the great wilderness into which no white man had gone. Big White, chief of the Mandans, received them kind ly, eager to barter the skins of beaver and bison for the white man's goods. Captain Lewis, speaking through an interpreter, said, "The Great Father at Washington sends you this," and on Big White's broad chest he pinned a medal with a picture of President Jefferson. Then he loaded the chief with gifts. "Many Great Fathers send me greeting," replied Big White. "This Great Father I do not know. But stay with us until the geese fly up the river. The beaver and muskrat built their lodges early ; winter snow will fall soon and fall deep." The travelers stayed at the Mandan villages. Before the snows fell a little fortress of their own building pro tected the sturdy adventurers. There was a row of little log cabins, surrounded by a strong stockade of cottonwood logs, placed on end, while from one corner the black muz zle of the big gun peered like a grim sentinel at his post. 60 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY So rapidly had they worked in building the fortress that the Indians called them "men who never sleep." During the winter, Carbonneau, a Frenchman with an Indian wife, was hired as an interpreter for the journey to the Pacific, but they could find no guide, because at the Mandan villages all white men had turned back. One morn ing just before they set out on their long journey into the unknown country ahead, Captain Lewis said to Captain Clark, "I believe I have found a guide." "A guide!" exclaimed Captain Clark. "How can one find the impossible ! No human being knows the path to the Rockies." "I believe I have found the only human being in the Mandan villages who knows the path to the Rocky Moun tains," answered Lewis. "Explain your riddle, Meriwether, for I give it up," said Clark. "Carbonneau's wife, Sacajawea, will guide us," ex plained Lewis. "She is but sixteen years old, but she is unusually intelligent and she was born in the Rockies. A war party of the Minnetaree Indians took her captive when she was a child and sold her to the Mandans. Her name, Sacajawea, she says, means Bird Woman. I take that as a good omen. For a bird can find a path where there is none." "It is the hand of Providence," said Captain Clark reverently. Early in April the expedition started up the Missouri River. With that party of thirty-one men went but one woman, the girl wife, Sacajawea. On her back she car ried her baby boy only a few months old. When they came to the place where the Yellowstone pours its waters into the Missouri, it was difficult to tell BREAKING THE TRAIL TO THE PACIFIC 61 which was the main stream. "Which way, Sacajawea?" asked Captan Lewis. "Which is the big river?" "Him big river," she answered positively, pointing to the right hand stream. "Me know. See!" and with a sharpened stick the Indian girl drew in the sand a rude map of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. So, with the Bird Woman pointing the way, the Lewis and Clark expedition stepped out into the silence of the great wilderness, a beautiful wilderness — dressed in sum mer finery. There were bison feeding in the valley and the tracks of antelope, deer, and grizzly were seen along the river. Yet all that summer they found no human, white or red. In June they came to a forking river. Again they were puzzled to know which was the Missouri. The little Indian guide pointed to the stream on the left. The men said, "We must go to the right, the other stream is too clear to be the Missouri." Again the Bird woman proved to be right, and soon they came to the Big Falls of the Missouri which it took them a month to portage. At the Big Falls Sacajawea said, "By and by, three rivers. Me know. There my people lived. The Minne- tarees fought my people there five snows ago. Took me away captive." Difficulties increased as the expedition came into the mountains. Game was scarce ; the traveling was hard, and the sharp stones and cactus spines cut and penetrated the men's moccasins like so many knives and needles. Pulling cactus spines from his feet was a part of each man's nightly task. The men grew discouraged under the trials of the jour ney, but Sacajawea, by birth an Indian princess, was the merriest-hearted little squaw ever born in an Indian wig- 62 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY warn. She cheered the men ; doctored their sick bodies with herbs from mountain and plain; mended their moccasins, and later in the journey her presence often helped Captain Lewis to convince an Indian tribe that the purpose of his coming was peaceful, because a squaw never attended a war party. Food was almost impossible to get in the mountains. They killed and ate some of their ponies, and varied the ration by buying, when they could, fish, roots, and dog meat of the Indians. It was just on the crest of the Great Divide that the party met the first Indians. They were the Shoshones, Saca- jawea's tribe, and her brother, Cameawait (Cam-e-a-wit,) was their chief. Through his influence Lewis and Clark secured Indian ponies to carry them over the Great Divide and to the head waters of the Columbia River. There they made boats to continue the journey. There is an end to every trail. So there came a day when Lewis and Clark came to the end of theirs. The waves of the river setting back at flood tide at its mouth, as well as the gulls which came in flocks from the west, had been messengers from the Ocean. Now here was the Ocean itself. At sight of the white-capped waves of the Pacific, the two Captains with lips tight drawn, looked into each other's eyes and nodded in speechless joy. "The big flag, Sergeant Gass," were Captain Lewis' first words as he turned to his men. They made camp on the shore of the Pacific, and around the fire the men gathered wet, ragged, hungry, and un kempt; yet the happiest group that ever reached the end of a trail. Over them floated the stars and stripes — their "big flag" kept unspotted for the hour of victory. BREAKING THE TRAIL TO THE PACIFIC 63 Captain Lewis thanked the men for their strength, and loyalty, and courage. To Sacajawea he said, "Without your aid, Bird Woman, we would not be here today. I know not how to repay you." At the camp they spent a busy winter. The hunters supplied the men with food ; skins had to be made into moc casins and other garments; Sacajawea worked at the cut ting board and taught the men how to sew. The supply of salt had given out. Great quantities of ocean water needed to be boiled down to secure the three bushels of salt neces sary for the homeward journey. Captain Clark made maps of the country they had crossed, while Captain Lewis with a flat-topped stump for his desk wrote records of the trip. Before they started home Meriwether Lewis said to William Clark, "We must leave some record of our trip which will reach Washington, for the savage tribes to the east may never let us live to tell our own story. We can post conspicuous notices along the shore. Next summer some ship will carry the news. We must take no chances. So between them they wrote this now famous announce ment : "The object of this list is that through the medium of some civilized person who may see same, it may be made known to the world that the party, consisting of the persons whose names are hereunto annexed, and who were sent out by the United States to explore the interior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by way of the Mis souri and Columbia Rivers, to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific Ocean, where they arrived on the 14th day of November, 1805, and departed the 23rd day of March, 1806, on their return trip to the United States by the same route by which they had come out." 64 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY Each man in the party signed this, and copies were made out and posted. A year after the explorers arrived safely home, ships, rounding Cape Horn, brought to the world these proofs that the Lewis and Clark expedition had blazed a path to the Pacific Ocean. In Portland, Oregon, there is a monument — a poor one — erected to the memory of Sacajawea. A statue of her and her child was shown at the St. Louis Exposition. Only this has America done to honor the great work of the little Indian woman, who guided Lewis and Clark. The crest of the Great Divide would be a fitting place to erect a memorial to Sacajawea whose guidance was so wonderful that an Unseen Hand seems to have piloted her course. THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WEST. "Manuel! Manuel! Your partner took my muskrat skin, and didn't pay me for it," a child's voice called in Spanish. Manuel, who was standing with his eyes fixed on the upstream waters of the Mississippi, turned at this appeal. He was a lad not more than twelve, dark-eyed, dark-haired and already masterful. The boy who spoke to him was several years younger, dressed in buckskin garments and had a black feather in his cap ; his cheeks were daubed with red clay and charcoal. The game was fur-trading. A number of the younger boys were playing Indian, while Manuel and his partner, the fur- traders, were bartering for the small pelts the Indians had to sell. Manuel smiled at the boy. Then with a shrewd glance at his partner, said: "It always pays to be kind to an In dian — and fair; they will bring you more and better pelts. Give Black Feather the wampum, Ferdinand." And Ferdi nand obeyed. Behind the boys lay the frontier town of New Orleans, that stood at that time like a foreign sentinel guarding the mouth of the Mississippi. In front of them the waters of the great river slipped sluggishly by, toward the Gulf. But Manuel's eyes and thoughts always turned to the waters above the town. His dreams were of the wild coun try they drained. It was not many years before Manuel, little more than a boy, realized his dream and went up the Mississippi River 66 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY to his work. The Spanish government had found out that he could be trusted with an important trade, though he was only a youth. So, where the Missouri pours its muddy stream into the Father of Waters, Lisa worked many years at the fur trade among the Osage Indians. But, while working around St. Louis he still dreamed of the upstream country. Louisiana, that great territory lying between the Mis sissippi River and the Rocky Mountains, passed by secret treaty from Spain back to France while Manuel Lisa bar tered for furs around St. Louis. Then Manuel Lisa took the Stars and Stripes for his flag. When the Lewis and Clark expedition returned from its two years in the wilderness, the men brought to the trap pers good news of a country to the north, rich in fur-bear ing animals. Now there were many trappers in St. Louis and each began to plan an excursion up the river. But Manuel Lisa knew that it was the country of his dreams, so he wasted no time in making his dreams come true. For Manuel Lisa to plan was to act, and while the other traders were still telling what they were going to do, his boatmen were rowing against the shifty currents of the Missouri. He worked among his men, helping where help was needed: a word of encouragement ; a hand on the tiller ; a place at the oar; or leading a gay boating song. The Indians were hostile, but soon they brought him pelts and went away rich with colored beads, gay cloth, a jack knife, or some small trinket, chosen as pay. He loaned them traps, asking only that they would sell him the skins from the animals caught. He was a friend to the sick and old of every tribe ; but they soon learned that the black muzzle of the swivel gun, that frowned from the deck of the boat and later from the walls of the fort, was no more THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WEST 67 to be dreaded than Manuel Lisa if an Indian tricked him. For a number of years he traded in the country along the Missouri, making friends with the Indians and gathering rich stores of furs. When the States took up arms the second time against England, a grave danger threatened in the west. The set tler had followed the trapper. Along the rivers were pio neer homes. Between Canada and these brave, venturesome white families were hordes of savage tribes who were sus picious of the increasing number of white men. England saw her opportunity. If she could get the Missouri and Mississippi Indians to unite with the English, America would lose the West. Captain William Clark, now governor of the Indian country, sat in his office at St. Louis, wondering how he could control the Mississippi and Missouri Indians. For only by controlling them could he save the settlements. There was but one answer to this question. There was only one man who could be trusted to hold the treach erous tribes to the North in subjection; only one trapper who was both friend and master of the many savage na tions he had traded with — that man was Manuel. Lisa. At Governor Clark's request, Manuel Lisa accepted the perilous task. Then he was made sub-agent of the In dian work. So the west passed into his keeping to hold or to lose. He kept up his own private business. That was best both for his interests and those of his country. Two new trading posts sprang up; one among the Omaha Indians; the other on an island in the Missouri in the heart of what is now South Dakota. 68 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY At these posts he gathered great stocks of goods. Queer stocks they were ; bright cloth, beads of many colors, pipes, small mirrors, hatchets, axes, knives, clothing, and many other articles which he had learned were dear to an In dian's heart — and Manuel Lisa had made it his business 1o know better than any other living man, just what an In dian liked. But there was something better than these in the stock. There were seeds for gifts, as many seeds as Man uel Lisa could get and carry to the posts. Pumpkin seeds, squash seeds, turnip seeds, beet seeds, potatoes, and beans to plant. You see, Manuel Lisa was. the forerunner of the agricultural schools. As he gave the Indians these pre cious seeds, he told them how to plant them and how to pre pare them for food. "They are big medicine," he told them, "to keep away hunger when the snow is deep and the game scarce." With his posts stocked, Manuel Lisa and his two hun dred hunters and trappers tended their traps, traded with the Indians, and cared for the pelts. Yet, as he managed his fur trade this shrewd man of the out-of-doors held within his keen mind the whole critical situation. The Mississippi Sioux, who were called Santees, were already friendly to the English when the war began. Gov ernor Clark did not doubt that the Missouri Sioux, the Tetons, would join with the Santees and fight for the Eng lish, for the Tetons and Santees had been allies for genera tions. And what could prevent ally joining ally? The English counted on this old alliance too. Already their men, working among the Tetons, had done much to secure the aid of the Northern tribes. THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WEST 69 But they had reckoned without the new sub-Indian agent. Manuel Lisa handled the savages as if they were chess men under his hand, set one facing the other. He began by inciting the. Tetons against the Santees, their old allies. Then his trappers, by chance it seemed, carried to the Santees tales of Teton strength and prowess in battle until the Santees came to fear and dread the old allies to the North. England, at last, persuaded the Santees to march with them to fight against the Americans. The Santees from far and near gathered, hideous in their war paint and feath ers. Until midnight they would dance, they planned, and in the early hours of the morning slip silently away to battle. The camp fires glowed and the monotonous beat of the tom-tom was broken only by the blood-chilling war cry as they danced. But it was not yet midnight when small groups of the painted warriors began slipping away into the night, in different directions. Other groups larger than the first ones followed. Soon tom-toms ceased; and the diminished war party gathered in little groups about the fires. Mingling with the Indians through the night, were two trappers and an Indian not wearing war paint. The trappers were from the country of the Missouri Sioux. One had seen several war parties of the Teton Sioux; the other repeated the words of a Teton chief, "While the San tees fight with the English, easy for the Tetons to burn their villages and carry away women and children as slaves." In the grey hours of morning, the British found no braves to march with them against the Americans. The Indians, fearing an attack on their unprotected territory had scattered before this rumor from the north like brown 70 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY leaves before a wind. They had gone to protect their homes. Manuel Lisa's hand was reaching far from his capi tal on the Missouri in the Dakota country. The Indian was Tahama, the one-eyed chief, the only member of the Santee nation who had remained loyal to the United States. The trappers belonged to Manuel Lisa's company. Rumors wild and alarming kept circulating. Many times the Mississippi Sioux held war councils and listened to the English leaders; again and again, the savage bands gathered to aid the British; but, as often as they put on their war trappings a fresh scare caused the war party to break up and scatter away to their homes. The English Indian agents in their reports to the British government said: "There is some secret force working among the In dians and holding them back. The cause of this we do not understand." So, for two years, Manuel Lisa carried on his trade, seemingly as usual, but in those two years he kept faith with the United States government. The hostile tribes of the Missouri nation continued his friends for he dealt fairly with them, kept his word, gave them seeds, loaned them traps, befriended the needy, ordered his blacksmiths to work for them free of charge and even introduced the plow among them. His only personal demand from them was the demand that he had made in the beginning — that they sell him the pelts they got. And they brought to Manuel Lisa more and better pelts than other fur traders could get. Lisa's boats carried more valuable cargoes down the river, than did the boats of the other traders. But whatever success came to Manuel Lisa in his business; and whatever envy that success aroused, he held the Indians from aiding the enemy in any large measure; THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WEST 71 he saved the pioneer families; and made the later settle ments more safe because of the friendly feeling the In dians had for him. At the close of the war, forty chiefs went with Manuel Lisa to St. Louis and pledged allegiance to the United States. The gratitude of America is due to Manuel Lisa who saved the West to the Nation. A REE INDIAN CELEBRATION. (The following account of an Indian celebration is taken from Washington Irving's history of Astoria which he wrote from the notes of Mr. Hunt, the fur trader.) "On the 9th day of July, 1811, just before daybreak, a great noise and outcry was heard in the village. This being the usual Indian hour of attack and surprise, and the Sioux being known to be in the neighborhood, the camp was in stantly on the alert. As the day broke Indians were descried in considerable number on the bluffs three or four miles down the river. The noise and agitation in the village con tinued. The tops of the lodges were crowded with the in habitants, all earnestly looking toward the hills and keeping up a vehement chattering. Presently an Indian warrior gal loped past the camp toward the villages, and in a little while the legion began to pour forth. "The truth of the matter was now learned. The Indians upon the distant hills were three hundred Ree* braves re turning from a foray. They had met the war party of Sioux who had been so long hovering about the neighborhood, had fought them the day before, killed several, and defeated the rest, with the loss of but two or three of their own men and about a dozen wounded ; and they were now halting at a dis tance until their comrades in the village should come forth to meet them and swell the parade of their triumphal entry. The warrior who had galloped past the camp was the leader of the party hastening home to give tidings of his victory. ?Arickara. The word "Ree" has been substituted throughout and a few of the longer words simplified. 74 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY "Preparations were now made for this great martial ceremony. All the finery and equipments of the warriors were sent forth to them that they might appear to the great est advantage. Those, too, who had remained at home tasked their wardrobes and toilets to do honor to the procession. "The Rees, like all savages, have their gala dress, of which they are not a little vain. This usually consists of a gray surcoat and leggings of the dressed skin of the ante lope, resembling chamois leather, and embroidered with por cupine quills brilliantly dyed. A buffalo robe is thrown over the right shoulder, and across the left is slung a quiver of arrows. They wear gay coronets of plumes, particularly those of the swan ; but the feathers of the black eagle are considered the most worthy, being a sacred bird among the Indian warriors. He who has killed an enemy in his own land is entitled to drag at his heels a fox skin attached to each moccasin, and he who has slain a grizzly bear wears a necklace of his claws, the most glorious trophy that a hunter can exhibit. "An Indian toilet is an operation of some toil and trou ble; the warrior often has to paint himself from head to foot, and is extremely difficult to please as to the hideous dis tribution of streaks and colors. A great part of the morning, therefore, passed away before there were any signs of the distant pageant. In the meantime a profound stillness reigned over the village. Most of the inhabitants had gone forth ; others remained in mute expectation. All sports and occupations were suspended, excepting that in the lodges the painstaking squaws were silently busied in preparing the repasts for the warriors. "It was near noon that a mingled sound of voices and rude music, faintly heard from the distance, gave notice that the procession was on the march. The old men, and such of A REE INDIAN CELEBRATION 75 the squaws as could leave their employment, hastened forth to meet it. In a little while it emerged from behind a hill and had a wild and picturesque appearance as it came moving over the summit in measured step and to the cadence of songs and savage instruments; the war-like standards and trophies flaunting aloft, and the feathers and paint and sil ver ornaments of the warriors glaring and glittering in the sunshine. "The pageant had really something chivalrous in its ar rangement. The Rees are divided into several bands, each bearing the name of some animal or bird, as the buffalo, the bear, the dog, the pheasant. The present party consisted of four of these bands, one of which was the dog, the most es teemed in war, being composed of young men under thirty and noted for their prowess. It is engaged on the most des perate occasions. The bands marched in separate bodies under their several leaders. The warriors on foot came first, in platoons of ten or twelve abreast; then the horsemen. Each band bore as an ensign a spear or bow decorated with beads, porcupine quills, and painted feathers. Each bore its trophies of scalps, elevated on poles, their long black locks streaming in the wind. Each was accompanied by its rude music and minstrelsy. In this way the procession extended nearly a quarter of a mile. The warriors were variously armed, some few with guns, others with bows and arrows and war clubs ; all had shields of buffalo hide, a kind of de fense generally used by the Indians of the open prairie, who have not the covert of trees and forests to protect them. They were painted in the most savage style. Some had the stamp of a red hand across their mouths, a sign that they had drunk the life blood of a foe. "As they drew near to the village the old men and the women began to meet them, and now a scene ensued that 76 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY proved the fallacy of the old fable of Indian apathy and stoicism. Parents and children, husbands and wives, broth ers and sisters, met with the most rapturous expressions of joy; while wailings and lamentations were heard from the relatives of the killed and wounded. The procession, how ever, continued on with slow and measured step, in cadence to the solemn chant, and the warriors maintained their fixed and stern demeanor. "Between two of the principal chiefs rode a young war rior who had distinguished himself in the battle. He was severely wounded so as with difficulty to keep on his horse, but he preserved a serene and steadfast countenance, as if perfectly unharmed. His mother had heard of his condition. She broke through the throng and, rushing up, threw her arms around him and wept aloud. He kept up the spirit and demeanor of a warrior to the last, but expired shortly after- he had reached his home. "The village was now a scene of the utmost festivity and triumph. The banners and trophies and scalps and painted shields were elevated on poles near the lodges. There were war feasts and scalp dances, with warlike songs and savage music ; all the inhabitants were arrayed in their festal dresses ; while the old heralds went around from lodge to lodge, telling with loud voices the events of the battle and the exploits of the various warriors. "Such was the boisterous revelry of the village, but sounds of another kind were heard on the surrounding hills ; piteous wailings of the women who had retired thither to mourn in darkness and solitude for those who had fallen in battle. There the poor mother of the youthful warrior who had returned home in triumph but to die gave full vent to the anguish of a mother's heart." BIG MEDICINE-WHITE-MAN. Every boy likes a fish pole and a stream to fish in; most boys like a gun and woods to hunt in ; but only a few boys are fond of brush, and palette, and paints. George Catlin liked all of these when he was a boy, and he had them all. The stream wound through the Pennsylvania woods near his home. In the stream and woods there were fish and game a-plenty. Neither gun, nor fish-pole, nor bait, nor palette, nor brush, were left behind when the boy went into the woods for a holiday. He always man aged to carry them all. George Catlin's father was a lawyer and he wanted his son to be a lawyer too. George cared little for law books for he wanted to be a painter. Yet he studied law to please his father, and in a few years opened a law office of his own. However he felt very much out of place in that office, waiting for clients who seldom came. Each passing day made him surer that he could not spend his life in a law office. So George Catlin sold everything he had except his fishing tackle and gun. With the money from the sale he bought paints and brushes. He had decided to be a painter. Although he painted everything well, he liked best to paint portraits. Yet he was not satisfied to paint his neighbor and his neighbor's neighbor and a lot more people who looked very much like them, as artists had done since men began to paint. He longed to do something different than other artists had done. But it seemed to him that there was noth ing different to do. 78 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY One day, in a travelling show, he saw a number of Indians clad in all the fantastic trappings dear to the heart of uncivilized red men. Then George Catlin knew what he wanted to do. He had found the thing that was different. He would paint Indian portraits — and he would paint them in the Indian country in the West. That is how it happened that George Catlin was a pas senger on the steamer Yellowstone when it made its sec ond trip up the Missouri. The steamer halted for sand-bars many times in that long tedious journey. She finally stuck fast on one of the them near the Niobrara. Here Cat lin, a fur trader, and a party of hunters left the boat and walked the rest of the way to Fort Pierre. So the painter of Indian portraits arrived in the Indian country of the West, and at Fort Pierre in the South Dakota coun try Catlin began the work which made him famous. Al together in his visits at Fort Pierre he painted many por traits of the Teton Sioux, their lodges, and pictures of Fort Pierre. Portrait painting had never been heard of among the Indians before Catlin's coming, so it was a great mystery to them. At the Mandan village Catlin first invited two chiefs to his lodge to sit for their pictures. The chiefs did not understand at all what the artist was doing. Never were two Indians more astonished than they when each saw his neighbor looking back at him from the canvas. Both of them pressed their hands over their mouths (as an Indian is apt to do when very much astonished.) So they stood in awed silence looking from the painter to the portraits ; from the portraits to each other ; and then at the mysterious palette and brushes. After a while each shook hands with Catlin and whispered the words which made him "Big medicine-white-man." BIG MEDICINE WHITE MAN 79 No one else in the village had known why the chiefs were at the white man's lodge, but after they returned to their wigwams, the story soon spread that the white medi cine man had the living faces of the chiefs in his lodge. As the word was passed around the Indian village, the women and girls hurried to the artist's rude dwelling. From within he could see bright, dark eyes glistening at every crack and crevice. The silent, curious throng increased un til hundreds of women were pressed closely about the hut. Soon the Indian men began to slip noiselessly through the crowd of women and girls. The braves looked ashamed of their curiosity but they could not stay away. It was not long until the chiefs and medicine men took possession of the lodge. The agent of the fur company who spoke the Indian language well, told them how the pictures were made and why Catlin was making them. "Then," said Catlin in telling the story, "the two por traits were held up together over the door, so that the whole village had a chance to see and recognize their chiefs. The likenesses were instantly recognized, and many of the gap ing multitude commenced to yell; some went stamping off in the jarring dance; some began to sing and others began to cry; hundreds covered their mouths with their hands and were mute ; others indignant, drove their spears fright fully into the ground, and still others shot a reddened ar row at the sun and went home to their wigwams."* After the Indians had seen the pictures, their next demand was to see the man who had made them. Catlin stepped out of his lodge. Immediately he was surrounded by the curious crowd of Indians. They pressed close to him. The women gazed in mute astonishment. The braves crowd ed near to shake hands. While Catlin was held fast in the ?Vol. IV. P. 439, "South Dakota Historical Collections." 80 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY pressing crowd he felt as if several shoals of small fish were nibbling at his legs. For the children, quite as curi ous as the grown-ups had crept through the crowd and were touching him with their finger tips. The Indians decided that Catlin was the greatest medi cine man in the world. They said, "He has made living human beings. We see our chiefs alive in two places. Those he has made are a little alive because we can see their eyes move." Then trouble arose because the squaws feared he had in some way injured the lives of the chiefs by taking life away from them to make the portraits live. The old medi cine men, who were jealous of his power, sided with the squaws. But it was not long before Catlin was given per mission to paint again. Soon he was made a real medicine man of the village. He said, in describing the ceremony, "I was elegantly feasted and presented with a doctor's rat tle, and also a magical wand, or doctor's staff, strung with claws of the grizzly bear, with hoofs of the antelope, with ermine, with wild sage, with bat's wings — and perfumed with the odor of the pole-cat."* George Catlin spent eight years among various Indian tribes in different parts of the United States. He was busy all that time studying their lives and painting pictures. These Indian paintings show the leading Indian characters of that time ; the scenes of their everyday life ; their dress ; and weapons. His buffalo pictures are almost as famous as the others. Hundreds of his paintings are in the Smith- sonion Institute at Washington, D. C. His book, "North American Indians," tells many interesting facts about In dian life. •Vol. IV. P. 441, South Dakota Historical Collections. THE GALAHAD OF THE PLAINS A little more than a hundred years ago, the people of St. Louis read this notice in the "Missouri Republican" a newspaper of that city : "TO ENTERPRISING YOUNG MEN "The subscriber wishes to engage one hundred young men to ascend the Missouri River to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years. For particulars, in quire of Major Andrew Henry, near the lead mines in the County of Washington, who will ascend with you and com mand the party; or of the subscriber near St. Louis. (Signed,) William H. Ashley." Eagerly the young men responded to the call to go in to the wilderness. In less than a month the expedition, commanded by Andrew Henry, began the difficult journey up the Missouri River. Early in the voyage one of the keel boats struck a snag and sank, taking with it to the bottom a cargo worth ten thousand dollars. Later the Indians stole all fifty of the horses that were being driven by the land party. Because of the loss of the horses, Major Henry did not push on to the Big Falls of the Missouri, as he had intended, but built his fort at the mouth of the Yellowstone. William Ashley in the meantime had advertised for another hundred young men. Those who answered Ash ley's second call for men ranged in age from old Hugh Glass, the gray-beard trapper, to Jedediah Smith, a boy of eighteen. These men with Ashley and those at Major Henry's camp were facing adventures greater than the deeds of the old Greek heroes. They were part of the great 82 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY army of trappers and traders who first explored and broke trails through the West. These trails became the roads the pioneer settlers travelled; later they became the routes of commerce. But none of them were to break more trails or undergo more dangers than the boy Jedediah. And his first adventure was near at hand. General Ashley intended to purchase horses from the Ree Indians in what is now the South Dakota country, and send some of his men across country with the horses to the fort which Major Henry had established on the Yellowstone. The Rees were fickle and treacherous. Some tribes of In dians were always friendly to the traders, and other tribes always hostile; but they would be friendly to a man one day and scalp him the next. They had treated Ashley well the year before when he visited them, yet he was not at all sure that they would be friendly this time. When they reached the Ree villages they anchored the two keel boats well out in the stream. General Ashley and his interpreter went ashore in a small boat. The chiefs shook hands with them, passed the peace pipe and made a great show of friendship and agreed to meet Ashley at a conference on the shore. The chiefs were so friendly at the conference that Ashley forgot his fears of their treachery. He gave them presents, a price was set on the horses, and the trading went briskly on. After the horses were bought, Edward Rose, the half- breed interpreter, said to General Ashley, "I am sure that some sort of trouble is brewing." General Ashley answered, "I am sure that everything is all right. The chiefs have been very friendly." It was late when they finished buying the horses and the land party stayed on shore with the horses ready to continue their journey by land early the next morning. THE GALAHAD OF THE PLAINS 83 Again the interpreter warned Ashley, "The chiefs have been over friendly," he said, "You had better moor the boats against that sand-bar on the other side of the river. Your men will be surer to see tomorrow's sunrise if none of them sleep on the shore near the Indian village." Edward Rose had rather a bad name. General Ashley had more faith in the Indians than he had in his interpreter, so he anchored his boats near the shore next to the Indian village and left forty men and all the horses he had bought on the beach before the village. Jedediah Smith was among the forty men on shore. The Rees at that time lived in two villages. There were about seventy dirt lodges in each village. The towns were surrounded with a new stockade of timbers fifteen feet high and six inches thick. Inside this stockade the dirt was banked up for some distance against the timbers ; outside was a ditch. The ground between the villages and the river was rough with some timber and brush. At the end of the sand-bar where the channel was narrowest the Indians had built a breastwork of timber commanding the river. Just before dawn Ashley was awakened with the message: "One of our men has been killed and everything points to an immediate attack." Then there were hurried preparations for defense, but the Indians opened fire so soon from behind the stockade that Ashley's men could only stand behind the horses for a breastwork and return the fire. Their bullets did little in jury to the Indians because they were so well protected. Ashley tried to swim the horses across the river to the sand-bar but it was impossible under the hail of bullets. He tried, too, to move his keel boats inshore that he might take on the men. The cowardly voyageurs refused to row near 84 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY the shore for fear of the fiends. They thought only of their own safety, not of the brave men fighting on the shore. Then skiffs were sent ashore, but the men refused to give up the fight. Only the wounded and dying came back in the skiffs. When the party on shore saw that the fight was use less, they plunged into the river and swam to the boats. After the men were taken on board the anchor of one boat was lifted ; the other cut. Then the boats drifted back down stream until they were out of reach of the enemies' fire. It now seemed necessary to wait for reinforcements before attempting to pass the Ree villages. Word must be sent to Major Henry on the Yellowstone, so Ashley called for volunteers to undertake the perilous journey from the Missouri to the fort on the Yellowstone. It was a journey from which the experienced plainsmen shrank. Before them on the deck lay the dead — victims of the treacherous Rees. A worse death threatened hourly on the prairies to the west, for the Indians would torture a captive while there was breath in his body. It seemed to the men like throwing life away to venture on that dan gerous trail. Yet there was one among them whose courage did not fail. Jedediah Smith stepped forward saying, "I am willing to go to the Yellowstone alone." General Ashley was amazed that this boy who had just been in the battle with the Rees had the courage to volun teer for the perilous trip. No one else would volunteer. Before Jedediah started he knelt on the deck and pray ed for the dead and dying, and for guidance and protection on his journey. Then General Ashley and all his men knew the secret of Jedediah Smith's great courage. His faith in God made him fearless in the face of the death which THE GALAHAD OF THE PLAINS 85 lurked on every side in the country through which he must pass. With Galahad of King Arthur's Court he could say, "My strength is as the strength of ten Because my heart is pure." The youth succeeded in reaching the fort on the Yel lowstone, and returned immediately by boat to St. Louis; he got back to the Ree village in time to command a com pany of men in the fight there. Major Henry set out at once with most of his men to help Ashley. Three years later Ashley retired from the fur business and handed the control of the Rocky Mountain Fur Com pany over to three men, and one of them was Jedediah Smith. Then the unknown stretches of the west called Jedediah and he decided to carry the fur trade into a new country. Armed with his Bible and his gun, he never left either out of reach, he led his men over an unexplored country from St. Louis to Sante Fe and then on to the Pa cific. At the shore he turned north and explored the coast to the mouth of the Columbia River. He returned by way of the Columbia and Missouri Rivers. He discovered and explored the central and southwestern routes to the Pacific. These explorations were of as great importance as Lewis and Clarke's while the difficulties he overcame were very much greater. His escape from the dangers of the wilder ness seem like miracles. Grizzly bears, Indians, and starva tion stalked his path but just missed him. Jedediah Smith carried his Bible and lived its teachings all the way. AN ADVENTURE ON THE GRAND RIVER. The Grand River stretches across western South Da kota like a long arm with the fingers of its source clutching at the Montana border. One morning late in the summer when the rivalry in the fur trade was at its height, a soli tary hunter, clad Indian fashion in deerskin garments, was traveling westward along the course of this river. The man was Hugh Glass, large-boned, deep-chested, gray-bearded, and gray-crowned; a hunter in the party of Major Andrew Henry. Though there seemed to be no other human being in that great silent expanse of prairie, Major Henry and the eighty men of his party were only a short distance back in the river valley. The men were bound for the fort and trading post on the Yellowstone, the head quarters at which the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was at that time gathering its harvest of furs. They were all men fresh from great adventures and facing greater adventures. The massacre at the Ree villages had called Major Henry back from the fort on the Yellow stone to aid Ashley's men; with Ashley he had awaited at the mouth of the Cheyenne River the arrival of General Leavenworth's troops, and then had joined in the campaign against the treacherous Rees. Hugh Glass had been one of the land party the night that Ashley's men were attacked at the Ree villages. After that narrow escape he had fought against the Ree Indians and was wounded in the hip. Im mediately after the battle they had set out for the Yellow stone. Hugh Glass had been sent ahead to find food for the party. 88 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY At a curve in the river where the buffalo berry bushes and wild cherry trees, tangled with wild vines made a dense thicket on the river bank, a huge grizzly suddenly rushed out at Hugh Glass. The old hunter's keen gray eyes had at that moment been turned away toward the prairie, search ing for signs of buffalo. The bear had the advantage from the start and the famous old hunter of the Missouri could not manage to shoot this fury that tore and mauled him. The bear's long sharp claws ripped through the man's deer skin clothes, laying open great gashes in the flesh. His face was torn until his features seemed blotted out with a bloody sponge. The foremost men of Henry's party came in sight as the grizzly's great paws encircled Hugh Glass' body. Just then a shot was heard and man and bear fell together. Before the bear's powerful arms could crush him, the hunter had managed to get the muzzle of his gun against the grizzly's body and press the trigger. The grizzly was dead when the men reached the spot. Hugh Glass was breathing, but so horribly lacerated that there seemed no hope of his recovery. It was necessary for Major Henry to hurry on to the Yellowstone, so he chose two men to stay behind and care for the old hunter until he died. The days passed slowly. Hugh Glass lay struggling for breath, no better than when they had first found him — barely alive — that was all. The older of the two men had been very unwilling to stay behind. His talk was all of In dian cruelty and their bloody deeds. On every far horizon he imagined he saw an Indian war party. Every eve ning he said that Hugh would not live until the next day. The younger man, a mere boy, soon caught the other's fear. Each leaf that rustled in the night wind he thought an Indian slipping through the bullberry bushes. Then the AN ADVENTURE ON THE GRAND RIVER 89 crafty older man began to show how useless it was for two strong men to risk their lives for one as good as dead. "Old Hugh," he said, "is really dead. He does not know that we are here — will never know if we should go and leave him. Then why not go? Old Hugh would want us to." So five days passed. One morning Hugh Glass awoke realizing that a silence gloomy and foreboding hovered over the little camp on the Grand. (Though seemingly unconscious, he had once recog nized the voices of the men who were with him.) His com rades were nowhere about. At first he thought that they were out hunting, but soon he saw that his gun and am munition were gone and their belongings too. Then he knew that the men had left him to die alone on the prairie. Helpless and sick at heart he lay there, not daring to think. He wished he could die at once and have his sufferings over with. His despair, however, soon changed to anger. His anger at the treachery of the men made him resolve to live in spite of their treachery. When his thirst drove him like cruel lashes, he managed to crawl to a spring near by. The bushes along the river, when he could drag his tortured body out to them, gave him acid buffalo berries and tiny, puckery cherries — a scanty fare and a dear one if he counted the pain it cost him to reach them. It was a long time before he dared to start back to Fort Kiowa, near the mouth of the Cheyenne. Hugh Glass feared that he was facing the impossible the morning he decided to set out on his hundred mile jour ney. The water and berries had kept life in his body, that was all. He was weak and stiff from his wounds and at the point of starvation. Wild beasts might tear him to pieces or roving Indian bands torture him to death; but either death might as easily come to him here. The brave old 90 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY trapper had often made the impossible possible, so now he set out to crawl back to the fort at the mouth of the Chey enne River. He decided to go south until he found a creek bed which would lead him to the Moreau River. For days he crawled down the shallow coulee through which ran a dried-up creek bed. He found no food except a bunch of bread-root plant which had in some way lived through the long summer drought. Once he drank from a tiny stagnant pool; again a hole scraped in moist earth slowly filled with water. Then even these were lacking. The determined man crept on in the terrible heat. His lips were parched and his tongue swollen. At last he found a small crystal pool fed by a spring, but the water was so bitter with alkali that he could not drink it. Farther on the walls of the coulee deepened and held plum thickets and wild grape vines. The ripened fruit was manna to Hugh Glass. As the days wore on the night chill suggested autumn. A herd of buffalo thundered by one day. Here was food in abundance, but he must starve because he had no gun. He wanted to give up, but he forced himself to keep on. Then he saw a little distance away a buffalo calf which several wolves had just killed. He decided that he would have that calf or die trying to get it. It was broad day-light and the sight of the strange, crawling man-creature who shouted and threw stones, frightened the wolves and they ran away, leaving their game to the starving man. Hugh Glass ate his fill of the meat and took enough with him to keep him alive to the end of the journey. That meat which came to him so providentially, enabled him to reach Fort Kiowa. As soon as he was strong enough Hugh Glass joined a party bound for the Upper Missouri. It was February when he reached Major Henry's fort on the Yellowstone. His appearance there caused great excitement. The super- AN ADVENTURE ON THE GRAND RIVER 91 stitious thought they were seeing a ghost for the cowards who had deserted him had reported that Hugh Glass was dead. He did not find the men who had left him to die. They had gone back to St. Louis and joined the army. THE FIRST FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION. The celebration was at Fort Pierre fifty years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Two special commissioners, Dr. O'Fallon and General Atkinson had come up from St. Louis to visit all the Indian tribes on the Missouri River. The purpose of their coming was to make treaties with the Indians which would turn the whole Indian trade of those tribes to the American merchants. The com missioner's party travelled up the river in eight keel boats, visiting the tribes as they came to them and on the Fourth of July they chanced to be at Fort Pierre, so it was decided to celebrate. Lieutenant Leavenworth was chosen officer of the day. The program began at sunrise with the booming voice of the cannon. Next came the flag-raising and Old Glory, as the prairie wind caught its bright folds, looked down on an unusual assembly. There were ranks of uniformed men and crowds of interested, curious savages, for nearly five hun dred soldiers had come with the commissioners, and there were many bands of Indians of the Teton and Oglala tribes who had come at the invitation of the commissioners. Two Fourth of July orations were given, one by each of the commissioners. These speeches were interpreted to the Indians who listened in grave, respectful silence to the men who had been sent out by the Great Father at Washing ton. The Declaration of Independence was read by Lieu tenant W. S. Harney and interpreted to the Indians. At noon the officers were invited to dinner by the Oglala In dians. The menu was thirteen dogs boiled in seven kettles 94 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY until well done. Games, and races, and contests filled the rest of the time until evening. Then the Indians, old and young, watched in amazement a wonderful display of fire works. As the Indians watched the strange lights which glowed or died in the sky at the white man's will, his re spect for the white man's "medicine" deepened. One day was too short for the festivities, so the fifth was set aside for a second holiday. On that day there was a grand military review. The number of marching columns awed the watching red men. It seemed wise to them to obey a "Great Father" who had so many soldiers at his command. The military band filled their savage hearts with delight and every Indian brave coveted for himself the soldier's uni forms with their glittering braid and brass buttons. On the sixth the treaties were read and interpreted to the Indian bands, who agreed to sign them. Six times after the treaties were signed the voice of the howitzer boomed out over the prairie and echoed among the bluffs, carrying fear to each Indian breast as the mystery of the unknown always did. So the first Fourth of July celebration closed, but the story of that celebration was told many times in In dian tepees far from the homes of white men. And the treaties signed at that time, together with the others made by the commissioners, gave all the Indian trade along the Missouri to the American merchants. THE FIRST SERMON ON THE MISSOURI In the fall of 1840, Thunder Face and his band of In dians set out from Lac qui Parle, Minnesota, to hunt buf falo in the Dakota country. The procession of Indians travelled single file, one family following another, with the men in the lead. There were the usual number of sway- backed ponies, each heavily loaded with kettles, clothing, tepees, and corn enough to last until they reached the buf falo. The women, themselves heavily loaded, led the over burdened ponies, and the girls, even the tiny ones, strag gled behind the ponies, each bearing a pack of some sort. Even the dogs had kettles and packs tied to them. But the boys carried only their bows and arrows and made a frolic out of each day's journey. Two white men accompanied Thunder Face's band. They were Stephen R. Riggs and Alexander Huggins from the Lac qui Parle mission on their way to Fort Pierre to see about opening a mission school for the Indians of that region. The missionaries and Thunder Face had agreed that they would travel together as far as the James River Valley. From the James, where the Indians expected to find buffalo, Thunder Face had promised to furnish the white men a guide to Fort Pierre. The journey was slow and monotonous. The band did not travel more than six or seven miles a day; that was a long march for the little girls with their packs, and they were very tired every day before the camp was reached. The kettles clanged against each other with the motion of the ponies, the dogs barked, sometimes the little children cried, and often the women scolded in their shrill voices. 96 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY Thunder Face and his people had rather a bad reputation for stealing and lying, yet they stole nothing from the missionaries who had put themselves under the protection of Thunder Face. They did tell wild tales of the Indians whom the missionaries were intending to visit. On the sixth day of their journey, the party camped on Two Woods Lake in what is now Deuel County, which was the old home of Thunder Face and his band. While there they learned that Kanikanki, a younger brother of Thunder Face, was encamped ten miles away. That was disturbing news, for Kanikanki was an ugly fellow, jealous of his elder brother's power, and he had forbidden the mis sionaries to take this journey through Dakota. Now he was angry with the white men because they had gone against his wish, and angry with Thunder Face because he had taken them under his protection. He was boasting, too, so the bearer of the message said, that he would smash the white men's cart, kill their horses, and punish the mem bers of the party. Anxiety and foreboding troubled the campers at Two Woods Lake. No one doubted that Kani kanki would do all he threatened and he might do more. Some of the Indians advised Dr. Riggs and Mr. Huggins to return to Lac qui Parle; but they did not want to do that. Thunder Face at last agreed to send the white men on their way with two young men as guides. Before daylight the next morning the missionaries had passed by the camp of Kanikanki without his knowledge. But more difficulty awaited them. They came upon buffalo in or near the up per valley of the Sioux, and Scared Cow, one of the guides, killed one. That made the two young Indians wild for the hunt and they stubbornly refused to go on, but were at last persuaded to go on to Fort Pierre. THE FIRST FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION 97 Colin Cambell, who was then in charge at Fort Pierre welcomed the missionaries and gave them much informa tion about the Dakotas in the vicinity of the fort. Forty or fifty tepees of Teton Sioux were encamped there and they welcomed the white men by making a dog feast in their honor. Dr. Riggs preached to the Indians and Mr. Huggins sang hymns. This was the first preaching service held on the Missouri above the mouth of the Sioux. No mission was founded there for thirty-one years. Then Thomas L. Riggs, a son of Stephen R. Riggs, began his wonderful work among the Sioux. Based on facts given in "Mary and I" pages 87 and 88 ; and a quotation from the "Missionary Herald." January, 1841. ONE OF THE "BLACK ROBES." Up and down the rivers and across the mountains of the great northwest country, from St. Louis to Oregon, south to the Shoshones and far north into the wilds of what is now Canada, a solitary black-robed priest travelled on the boats of the fur trader or along the trails of the trapper and red man, carrying the story of the Cross to the Indian tribes. This priest was Peter John De Smet. Without money or weapon he visited both hostile and friendly tribes and was welcomed at every tepee and lodge. He learned the In dian dialects, shared their secrets, reproved their evil deeds, and sympathized with their sorrows. In 1850 he was a passenger on the American Fur Com pany's steamer when cholera broke out among the crew and he was ill of the disease. Small pox was then raging among the Indian tribes along the Missouri and great num bers were dying in every Indian village. Wherever the steamboat stopped, among the Dakotas at the Big Bend of the river, or at Fort Pierre, or among the Rees at the mouth of the Grand, Father De Smet went ashore and spent the night among the sick and dying Indians. The next year he journeyed on foot from the Yellow stone to the Black Hills and then on to Fort Laramie. The Indians must have told Father De Smet their most care fully guarded secret while he was in the Black Hills, for he afterwards said : *"In the Black Hills of Dakota, where the feet of white men have never trod, there is gold enough to pay off the debt of the nation, and for that matter, the entire debt of the world." But he was so loyal to the In- •South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. I, Page 55. 100 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY dians that he would not tell where the gold was in the Hills for fear the white men would take the Indians' land away from them. So the hint that the priest had dropped was soon forgotten. At Fort Laramie Father De Smet was present at the great council between the United States Commissioners and Indians from the eight Indian tribes of the surrounding country. The court lasted twenty-three days and ten-thou sand Indians were camped on the plain, but during that time these warlike nations who had been enemies for generations lived side by side in perfect peace. This was a great audi ence for Father De Smet and he preached to them and bap tized many. While among them he adapted his life to the Indian ways as was his custom when among Indian tribes. The supply wagons for the conference were late in arriving at Fort Laramie, so the Indians were given per mission to go out and hunt until their arrival. The Indians were short on food but they had plenty of dogs in camp so they managed to live fairly well until the supply wagons came, without leaving the council to hunt. The priest speak ing of the food said, *"No time in the Indian annals prob ably shows a greater slaughter of dogs. * * * The Indians gave me several times a dish highly esteemed among them. It consists of plums dried in the sun and afterward pre pared with pieces of meat. I must own that I found it very palatable. But here is what I afterward found as to their manner of preparing it : When an Indian woman wishes to preserve plums, which grow in profusion here, she collects a great quantity and then invites her neighbors to her lodge to pass an agreeable afternoon. Their whole occupation then consists in chatting and sucking the stones from the plums, •Western Missions and Missionaries, Page 109. ONE OF THE "BLACK ROBES" 101 for they keep only the skins, which after being dried in the sun are kept for grand occasions." Father De Smet made many visits to the Dakota tribes in the years that followed. The Dakotas loved and trusted their black-robed friend as all other tribes did and they had great faith in the "black-robe's medicine," as they called his prayers. At Fort Pierre he once met a party of Oglala Indians under their old chief Red Fish,* just back from a raid on the Crow Indians. But Red Fish had not returned with enemy scalps and songs of victory. Red Fish was in trouble. The Crows, not wanting to waste valuable pow der on such cowards, had driven the intruders off with clubs, killing twelve Oglalas in their flight. To be driven off with clubs was a great disgrace. He had been ridiculed and scorned by his people when they heard the story of his defeat. But the real trouble was that the Crows had cap tured his favorite daughter. So Red Fish had come to Fort Pierre to ask the traders to get his daughter away from the Crows. But as soon as the chief learned from other Indians at the fort that a "black-robe" was there, he hunted up the priest and told him his story. Father De Smet told Red Fish how wicked he had been to make war on the Crows, who had done him no harm. Then he tried to show the Indian that the loss of his daughter might be a punishment sent by God because of the wrong he had done. Red Fish was very much discouraged at the idea, but after Father De Smet prayed earnestly for the girl's re turn, Red Fish felt comforted and hurried back to his peo ple. While he was telling them about the "black-robe's medicine" a cry of joy was heard in the camp and Red •South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. II. Page 207. 102 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY Fish's lost daughter leaped into her father's arms. She had escaped from the Crow and followed her people home. There was great rejoicing over the girl's return and the In dians always were sure that she would never have come back without Father De Smet's "medicine." Father De Smet never stayed long enough in one place to teach his converts better ways of living nor to develop any strong Christian characters among them as the mission aries who spent a life time in one place did. But his influ ence was always good among the Indians and he often acted as peace maker between hostile tribes and the whites, even journeying alone into far distant regions to carry the gov ernment messages to hostile Indians. THE PROPHECY THAT CAME TRUE Struck-by-the-Ree was just a tiny Indian baby — only a few hours old when it happened, so, of course, he could not remember anything about it. But his father and mother told him the story so many times as they sat around the fire in their tepee on winter nights that he was sure that he could remember the flag with its beautiful stripes of red and white, its blue field and shining stars — the flag that the Great White Chief, Meriwether Lewis, had wrapped around him. He thought about the story so much that while he was a little fellow he imagined that he had heard the words the white Chief said as he wrapped the bright folds of the flag around his tiny form, "This boy will be a great chief among his people and will live to be a good American." It was on Green Island that he had been born; and Green Island is in the Missouri River almost opposite the site of the present city of Yankton. There was the camp of the two white chiefs; the three boats anchored near the shore ; the swivel gun with the thundering voice. Then there was the camp of his tribe whom the white captains, Lewis and Clark, had invited to meet there for a council. He could shut his eyes and see each chief of the tribe gay in a gold trimmed officer's uniform and a cocked hat with drooping plume, the presents of the white chiefs. And, floating from a pole high above them all, was a flag like the one around him — only more beautiful. He told the story often to the other Indian boys with whom he played. Sometimes he boasted that his first dress 104 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY had been the American flag. Yet he thought most about the prophecy of the Great White Chief. To be a good American he must be a friend to the whites, must not lie to them, steal from them, cheat them, nor quarrel with them ; while to be a great chief of his people, he must be wise in the lore of his race, able to endure torture or hardship without betray ing his feelings ; and be the terror of his enemies in battle. So he grew to manhood striving for all these things. The time of which he had dreamed came at last. He was the great chief of the Yankton tribe. In war he de feated a larger band of Rees and in honor of his victory was called Struck-by-the-Ree; this name the whites later changed to Old Strike. In the height of his power Struck- by-the-Ree did not forget his friendship for the whites. He still remembered the flag, and the Great White Chief, and the prophecy. He always claimed the American flag as his flag. The Yankton Sioux then possessed all the land between the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers as far north as Pierre and Lake Kampeska. In April, 1858, the head men of the tribe made a treaty with the whites giving up all their land ex cepting four thousand acres in what is now Charles Mix County. Most of the tribes did not like to give up their hunting grounds, but Struck-by-the-Ree stood firmly for the treaty against Smutty Bear, an older man, who made a great fuss about leaving their ancestral hunting grounds and the graves of their fathers. After the treaty had been agreed to, Struck-by-the-Ree kept its terms faithfully to the day of his death. At the beginning of the terrible massacre in Minnesota, swift runners were sent to the Yankton Indians, asking them to join with the Sioux in Minnesota. The work of the Yankton Indians if they did join, would be to kill all THE PROPHECY THAT CAME TRUE 105 the whites in Dakota Territory. That meant the settle ments at Yankton, Vermilion, Bonhomme, and the scattered settlers along the James River. The coming of the runners caused great excitement among the Yankton Indians. A council was called to meet with the Indian runners from Minnesota. In that council Chief Struck-by-the-Ree stood alone for the whites against the other chiefs and the warriors. Every instinct of their savage nature made them eager to join with their brother Sioux in Minnesota. They did not want to keep the treaty ; they wanted back their lands, and the hunting grounds which had been theirs for generations; they wanted to be rid of the annoying whites forever. There was no finer ora tor in the Sioux nation than Struck-by-the-Ree, and he used every argument, every persuasion, every trick he could think of in his speech against the massacre of the white settlers. The outcome of it all was that the swift run ners carried the message home that the Yankton Sioux would not join with their brother Sioux in Minnesota. So Struck-by-the-Ree saved the white settlers in Dakota from the tomahawk and scalping knife. Again at the coming of the missionary, John P. William son, Struck-by-the-Ree stood for the white man's church and the white man's school, but this time he was defeated. Yet he was a staunch friend and ally of the missionary from the first. In his old age Struck-by-the-Ree was bald, which is un usual for an Indian, and he always wore a red bandanna handkerchief knotted into a cap. Over this on dress oc casions he wore a head dress of feathers and fur. His finger nails were uncut and grew long and claw-like, for that was a mark of a gentleman among the old Indian chiefs. 106 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY He was a regular attendant of the church at the Yank ton mission — "John's Church," he called it. He was al ways given a chair near the door facing the audience, and there he sat a dignified, reverent listener during the service. Governor Faulk, who used fifty of the old chief's men as guards and scouts, said of him, "This venerable chief never quarreled with the whites, never stole from them, but lived and died at peace with them. He was a really great man. Once in a conversation with me he extended both his hands and said, "Not a drop of white man's blood is on these hands." When Struck-by-the-Ree, the great chief of his people and the good American, died, Mr. John P. Williamson, who knew the old chief so well, chose as a text for the funeral service, "Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel ?" INKPADUTA Inkpaduta was the evil spirit of the prairie as his father, The Black Eagle, Wamdesapa, had been be fore him. The Black Eagle had cruelly murdered his brother who was a chief greatly beloved by his people, the Wakpekuta band of Santee. For that crime the Wakpeku- ta Santee banished The Black Eagle. Never again was he to set foot in the territory of his people along the Minne sota River; never again could he hunt in the forests along that river; never again find shelter in the lodges of his tribe. Condemned to be a wanderer, The Black Eagle fled to the great unsettled country of the Dakotas, taking with him a few other criminals. The Black Eagle made his home on the lakes near where Madison is now located, with his hunt ing grounds along the Vermilion River. Inkpaduta was born in this new home, and when The Black Eagle died, Ink paduta became the chief of the few bad Indians who had gathered around his father. And Inkpaduta was worse than his father. No Indian more terrible is known in his tory. He was a fiend, intelligent, treacherous, bloodthirsty, and cruel. With his band of murderers he wandered over the Da kota country and the neighboring territories. The first year of his chieftanship, he murdered in their sleep his cous in, the chieftain son of the man his father had murdered, and seventeen of the young chief's men. He was the ter ror of the whole line of frontier settlements and about ten years after he took the leadership of his people he mur- 108 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY dered all but four of the settlements at Spirit Lake in north ern Iowa. Those four, three women and one girl, he carried with him into South Dakota. One of the women he tortured to death near Flandreau, and his fiendish son, Roaring Cloud, murdered another. The other two were rescued by Christian Indians. Inkpaduta had an active part in the Indian massacre in Minnesota and his band fought against both General Sib ley and General Sully when they were pursuing the fleeing Indians through the territory of the two Dakotas. Though many chiefs of other bands were present the general scheme of defense was left to Inkpaduta because the Indians thought he bore a charmed life. Again at the Custer battle Inkpaduta was present and after that he fled into Canada. After the Spirit Lake massacre the government as signed to the Wakpeduta Santee the task of punishing Ink paduta. They killed his son, Roaring Cloud, but never suc ceeded in getting Inkpaduta. A BUFFALO HUNT ON THE JAMES RIVER. Sounding Heavens* slipped stealthily away from the Crow Creek Reservation with his gun. The Indians had been forbidden to set foot across the boundaries of the agency for they had been sent out of Minnesota after the Indian Outbreak there and they were really prisoners, al though none of them were known to have taken part in the massacre. The Indians were starving at Crow Creek. That was the reason Sounding Heavens was disobeying orders. Pro vision for the Indian rations had been long postponed by the graver problems of the Civil War. It was late in the fall before the contract for furnishing the supplies was let — too late for steam boats to travel up the Missouri. The man who had undertaken to get these supplies to the agency knew that the three thousand Indians at Crow Creek must starve if he failed in his undertaking. So he had tried to take them overland from Mankato. It is a long way from Mankato to Crow Creek, especially in the deep unbroken snows of a cold stormy November. It was a long train of heavily loaded freight wagons which left Mankato. Only a few teams drew their loads to the journey's end. One by one the other teams had dropped exhausted in the snow and the teams and their loads had to be left along the trail. There was no hope of more supplies from the government until spring and before that time the Indians would all be dead, unless they could get food in some other way. *In the Indian language this name is Mahpiyakahoton. 110 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY Sounding Hea.vens was the only Indian at Crow Creek who owned a gun. When the Indians were disarmed after the massacre he had taken his gun to pieces and concealed it in his tent roll. Now Sounding Heavens was determined to find food for his people — at least, he was ready to die trying. A few days later he returned staggering under the load of buffalo meat that he carried on his shoulders. But the meat that one man weakened by lack of food can carry on his shoulders for a long distance will make little more than three thousand mouthfuls. Again he went away, and no one tried to prevent his going. This time the skillful hunter killed two buffaloes. Some strange Indians who lived farther west chanced to come upon him just as he was skinning his big game. These Indians needed meat and buffalo skins, so Sounding Heavens traded buffalo meat for a pony. Now he could go farther away to hunt and carry more meat with him when he re turned. One day Sounding Heavens went to Mr. Williamson, the missionary at Crow Creek, and said, "Me watch many days. Buffalo now coming down Jim River — many of them. If Indians stay here, all die. If we go after buffalo, live well all winter. Me shoot enough for all with my gun." The starving Indians were almost unmanagable. They were determined to go on a buffalo hunt. They begged to go and Mr. Williamson pleaded for them. "Colonel Thomp son," he would say to the Agent, "can you let helpless wom en and little children starve when food is so near ?" And Colonel Thompson would answer, "Williamson, the authorities at Washington would take my head off if I should let these prisoners go." A BUFFALO HUNT ON THE JAMES RIVER 111 Several weeks passed during which Colonel Thompson firmly refused to let them go. The Indians were growing weak from hunger and the number of deaths increased daily. At last Mr. Thompson called the missionary to him and said, "Williamson, this is dreadful ! If you will go with the Indians ; be responsible for them ; and see that they do not join the hostile tribes, I will let them go on the buffalo hunt. That is the only condition on which I will let them go." "Gladly will I go with them and be responsible for them," said Mr. Williamson. That night there were joyful preparations for the jour ney. The next morning a very small ration of flour and salt pork was issued to eight hundred Indians, and they were given six guns and a little ammunition. Then they set out toward the northeast, carrying with them their tents and the few utensils needful for their cooking. It was a slow journey through the snow for even the strongest among them were weak from hunger and many of the children had to be carried. Mr. Williamson walked with the others and carried his pack while the feeble ones when they were too weak to walk, were given a "lift" on his pony. The Indians' clothing was thin and their blankets and tents threadbare, but the weather was unusually mild for the middle of January and continued so for several weeks. In the first dim light of the winter mornings Sounding Heavens and the other young men, thinly clad and without a bite of breakfast, went out ahead of the party to see if they could locate the buffaloes. Cautiously, but as swiftly as their strength would allow, they went on through the unbroken snows of the prairie. Determined, uncomplaining, hopeful the young Indians left the tents each morning ; they 112 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY were still determined and uncomplaining with no trace of disappointment showing on their bronze faces when night sent them back to the tents — hungry and weaker than at dawn. About a week after the Indians had left Crow Creek these hunters came back with exciting news. For once their stoical faces could not hide their joy. Late in the afternoon they had seen three small herds of buffalo grazing in the distance. Now that they were near the buffalo, Mr. Williamson let the Indians take his gun. That and the six guns that the agent had supplied were given to the seven best marks men among the eight hundred Indians. It was near the place where the town of Miller is now located that the hunters brought in their first game. What a feast that was! There was enough buffalo meat so that every Indian among the eight hundred ate his fill that night. Travelling only a short distance each day, they moved on to the Jim River north of the present town of Redfield. There they made a permanent camp. To Buffalo-Hunt- Camp, as they called it, the hunters returned each night with their game. There was plenty of work now for the women in Buf falo-Hunt-Camp. All day long they scraped and tanned the buffalo skins, for the Indians were almost as badly in need of the skins as they were of the meat. As soon as the skins were ready they were used for tents, robes, shirts, moccasins, and leggings. So the buffalo hunt furnished the Indians with shelter and clothing as well as food. A BUFFALO HUNT ON THE JAMES RIVER 113 When the long buffalo hunt was ended they went back willingly to Crow Creek with Mr. Williamson. Not an Indian was missing from the band that had gone out and the authorities at Washington neither punished nor blamed the agent at Crow Creek because he let the prisoners go on that Buffalo hunt. Adapted from "John the Beloved of the Sioux," by Winnifred W. Barton. THE FIRST TEACHER OF THE SIOUX John P. Williamson first opened his baby eyes in a log cabin which belonged to a half-breed Indian. There were Indian faces peering in at the window at all hours ; Indians coming and going all day long to see his missionary father ; Indian children playing on the dirt floor ; and Indian voices guttural and harsh sounding in his baby ears. Little John had come to a world of Indians, yet he smiled and cooed through his baby days, not seeming to mind that he was hundreds of miles away from any other white baby and probably the first white baby born in Minnesota. The Indian language he learned as any child learns the language it hears daily, and he talked Sioux as soon as he could talk English. He learned many things about Indian ways and Indian likes and dislikes as he played with the In dian children day after day, and year after year. By the time John had finished his college course, he had decided to spend his life teaching the Indians. At the time of the Indian outbreak in Minnesota he was working among the Minnesota Sioux. He went with the Indians who were sent out of Minnesota to Crow Creek in what is now South Dakota. When the Indians were sent from Crow Creek to Northern Nebraska three years after, he accompanied them. Later he made up his mind to go to Dakota as there was then no missionary living in all the undivided Dakota Terri tory. One day, several years after the Civil War ended, a doz en or more Yankton Indian boys were playing among the 116 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY trees on the north bank of the Missouri River. They were all little savages — playing at war. In their play they scalped imaginary enemies, tortured their prisoners to death, or danced a war dance around a big cottonwood stump. Sud denly, at a signal from the boy nearest the river, each boy seemed to become a part of a tree trunk, for where the boys had been playing there were only trees. The boy sentinel down the river had seen someone crossing on the ice from the Nebraska side. A one horse wagon, loaded with household goods soon approached the Dakota shore. The driver was a white man, and behind the wagon a cow was tied. Not until the pale face and his goods had disappeared in the direction of the agency build ings, did the tree trunks change back to Indian boys. Then they filed back to their fathers' tepees to tell the news. The driver of the wagon was John P. Williamson whs had come to teach the Sioux. The next day he returned on foot for his family. There was need of haste, for it was late March and the ice was breaking up in the river. Again the next day there were bright eyes, watching unseen along the shore. John Williamson walked ahead of his wife and two little children, testing the ice with a long pole. They crossed none too soon, for before another day had passed the swollen waters tossed the cakes of ice in grinding, heav ing masses. That was the year after the treaty that gave Red Cloud possession of the Black Hills. The Yankton Sioux were the first Indians in Dakota to give up their lands and settle on a reservation chosen by the government. Several thousand of these restless, uncivilized red men had come under Uncle Sam's care. They were to stay where he told them to and he would feed and clothe them. THE FIRST TEACHER OF THE SIOUX 117 They had learned few civilized ways from fur traders and pioneer settlers. All spoke the Sioux language, wore blankets, painted their faces, and braided their hair in long braids, Indian fashion. All worshipped the sun, and the moon, and the thunder god. All bowed down at the shrines of painted stones by the wayside. They were as ignorant of soap and its uses as they were of the Christian religion. Every man carried a gun or a bow and arrow. Most of them were dissatisfied and resentful because they were no longer free to go and come as they always had, and they wanted back the lands which they had signed away. A poor welcome awaited John P. Williamson. He started a school and religious meetings in an agency build ing. But the Yankton Indians decided in a council of the chiefs and head men that they did not want the white man's religion or his school. The council appointed two committees. Old Strike and Feather-in-the-Ear were first sent to tell Mr. Williamson that he must close his school, stop holding serv ices, and leave the agency. Mr. Williamson did not promise to do any of the things they wished. The other committee then went to the Agent and asked him to force the missionary to leave but the Agent pointed to the flag and said, "Religion is free under that flag. Mr. Williamson can do as he pleases." Indian heralds were next sent through the Indian camps carrying the message that no Indian could attend any meeting of the new "holy man." Old Strike came back to Mr. Williamson after he had delivered the message of the council and said, "I want to tell you that those are not my words, but that is what they told me to say. I made a speech in the council in favor of the church and the school but they were all against me." 118 IN THE SOUTH DAKOTA COUNTRY Mr. Williamson did not close his school nor stop holding meetings. The Indians who were watching saw pupils go ing to the school the next day after the heralds had made the rounds of the camps. But the few pupils who did go were mostly Old Strike's grandchildren. He sent them to school every day and to all the meetings, although a crowd of Indian boys tormented and abused them as soon as they left the building, and Old Strike himself was ridiculed by the other Indians. There was plenty of timber on the flats along the river but the Indians refused to sell any of it to Mr. Williamson for the new missionary building. So he went away up river to look for timber. After awhile the Indians saw a great raft of logs near the shore. Mr. Williamson had bought them at an island thirty miles up stream and floated them down. In the house made of these logs Mr. Williamson lived the rest of his life — nearly half a century. The front room was school and church in one. There were no pickets put up at the windows to keep the Indians away as there were at the agency buildings. Dusky Indian faces, some curious, some hostile, and some interested watched through the windows the strange things that the Indian pupils were doing. They could see plainly the charts on the wall made of newspapers on which there were many mysterious black marks. The marks were words printed in the Sioux language with a brush dipped in a pot of lamp black. Most often it was Indian voices singing hymns in the Sioux language that kept the young Indians listening at window or door. And many who came to disturb the school went quietly in to learn how to sing. Gradually the opposition lessened until those who had opposed him became his friends. In two years a church was THE FIRST TEACHER OF THE SIOUX 119 organized with eighteen members. John P. Williamson was a friend and helper to his Indians. He shared their hard ships, their sorrows, and their joys. His knowledge of the Sioux language and of Indian ways was a great help to him in making friends and made him much sought by the gov ernment as an interpreter in its dealings with the Indians. The Indians were even more anxious than the government to have him do their interpreting because they learned that they would be sure of fair treatment with him. It is slow work making a civilized man out of a savage, but John P. Williamson spent a life time at it and succeed ed beyond belief. He was the first resident missionary in the state. Others soon came and worked for the welfare of the Indians along with him. He lived to see more than fifty churches among the Dakota Indians with a membership of nearly five thousand. As the Indians believed in the Christ they gave up their charms and medicine sacks, the sun dances, and other barbaric customs. Gradually they learned to build themselves comfortable homes and to farm their individual allotments of land. The younger Indians generally dress in civilian clothes and speak English. Even our sports and our fashions have reached the younger set. In the Indian schools the girls play basket ball and the boys are skillful players of base ball and foot ball. Many fine, intelligent, Christian Indian men and wom en have been developed through the influence of the mission churches and mission schools. The missionaries have done much to advance civilization in South Dakota and no one man has done more for the Indians than has John P. Wil liamson, the first teacher of the Sioux. THE NIGHT RIDE OF THE CHIEF OF SCOUTS The Indian runner stooped to examine the fresh moc casin tracks in the soft earth at the crossing of the James River. He read a plain message in those moccasin tracks. They told him that hostile Indians had recently crossed the river from the west on their way to the settlements where they would steal, and burn, and kill. Without delay the runner was off to warn the Chief of Scouts. After the Indian outbreak in Minnesota, the hostile Indians had fled beyond the Missouri and into Canada to escape the punishment for their atrocious deeds. The Sisseton Sioux, who were friendly to the whites, had been enlisted as government scouts. These scouts were divid ed into small parties and stationed in a line of scout camps, extending from central North Dakota to about the present line of the Northern Pacific Railroad in North Dakota, and it was their duty to prevent any hostile In dians from reaching the white settlements by quickly giving the alarm to the soldiers at the forts. Just before sundown on that bright April day, the In dian runner reached Fort Wadsworth on the coteau in what is now northeastern South Dakota, between the James River and Lakes Traverse and Big Stone. He re ported to SamueJ J, Brown, the Chief of Scouts, that he had seen moccasin tracks at the crossing