This summer of 1875 no regular campaign or expedition was made by the
Seventh Cavalry. The few months were spent in drills at Fort Lincoln
and Fort Rice, and in short scouts to reconnoitre and for practice.
However, there was no telling when the whole regiment might be ordered
out in a hurry. The Sioux muttered constantly; and according to Charley
Reynolds and other persons who knew, around the posts, they were “going
bad.”
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were still outside the reservation, in
their own country of the Powder River and the Big Horn region; but even
Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, who had first signed the treaty of 1868,
agreeing to the reservation of Dakota, complained stoutly of unfair
treatment.
Red Cloud had claimed that the Sioux were being robbed in their
supplies; some of the supplies sent out by the Government never reached
them, and other supplies were unfit to use. An investigation proved
that Red Cloud had spoken truth.
The Northern Pacific Railroad had stopped at Bismarck, but the surveys
on across Dakota had been made, and this also annoyed the Sioux. They
had understood that no white man’s road should cross the reservation
without their permission. And, of course, there was the Black Hills
trouble.
“Well, what do you think, these days, Charley?” invited Odell, as the
summer wore on, and only rumors filled the air. “It’s getting late for
war, until next year; ain’t it? But I hear there’s a thousand miners in
the Black Hills, and they’ve started a town they call Custer City.”
“Lonesome” Charley Reynolds slowly puffed at his pipe, and gazed before
with his calm, sombre dark-blue eyes.
“There’d have been war, if there’d been buffalo,” he answered. “But old
Red Cloud was smart enough to send out runners, to count the buffalo,
and the runners reported mighty few. ’Cording to my notion, taking the
plains altogether, north and south, six or eight millions buffalo have
been butchered by white market hunters. The buffalo is what the Sioux
and the Cheyenne live on. Red Cloud sees that with the buffalo gone the
Sioux are beholden to the whites for meat; they can’t carry on a war,
long; and that’s why instead of a fight Red Cloud and Spotted Tail are
favoring selling the Black Hills to the Government. The whites have the
Hills anyway. Those Custer City lots they’re selling are Injun land.
’Tain’t just and right—but it’s white man’s way. As long as we don’t
want the land the Injuns can have it; but when we want it, then we find
some way of getting it.”
Reports came in of a great council held September 17, at Crow Butte,
near the Red Cloud agency on the north line of northwestern Nebraska.
Here the United States met the Sioux nation and the Northern Cheyennes
and Arapahos, to barter for the Black Hills. Part of the Indians wanted
to sell, part did not. They spoke of Pah-sap-pa as their “House of
Gold.”
The United States offered them $400,000 a year as long as the white men
should want the Hills; and offered to buy for $6,000,000. The Sioux
laughed. They asked, some $30,000,000, some $60,000,000; or “support
for every Indian, so long as the Sioux should live.”
Said Little Wolf, Cheyenne chief:
“There has been a great deal stolen from those Hills already. If the
Great Father gets this rich country from us he ought to pay us well for
it. That country is worth more than all the wild beasts and all the
tame beasts that the white people have.”
Said Crow Feather, Sioux:
“Even if our Great Father should give a hundred different kinds of
live-stock to each Indian house every year, that would not pay for the
Black Hills. I was not born and raised here for fun. I hope the Great
Father will look and see how many millions of dollars have been stolen
from those Black Hills; and when he finds it out, I want him to pay
us that. And we will not allow white people to be coming in by many
trails. The thieves’ road made by the Long Yellow Hair is enough. That
we can watch.”
So the United States did not buy or lease the Black Hills—the
Pah-sap-pa of the Sioux and the Cheyennes. Ned heard many arguments,
for and against, at the post; but he could not see that the Indians
were much in the wrong.
However, the Government considered that it, also, had a grievance. Out
there in the Powder River and Big Horn country, off the reservation,
were Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The treaty said that this fine
region of northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana from the Dakota
and Nebraska lines to the Big Horn Mountains was all Indian property,
to be Sioux hunting-grounds as long as there was anything to hunt. Here
were ranging the free bands of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse; but the
whites of Wyoming and of Montana looked upon these rovers as dangerous,
and the Crows, who were trying to live peaceably on their reservation
to the west of the hunting-grounds, declared that the hunter Sioux
stole their horses.
“When these Sioux change from hunting buffalo to hunting scalps
or horses, if they can’t find them one place they will another,”
complained the whites—some of whom rather coveted the Powder River
country for themselves.
“We might just as well go out and fight like we used to,” complained
the Crows, “instead of being good Indians, for we don’t gain anything
by it if other Indians are allowed to steal from us.”
It was becoming a popular custom among the Sioux for their young men to
slip away from the reservation limits, join the free bands, and have a
good time until they decided to come into the agencies for supplies.
All in all, matters between the Sioux nation and the nation of the
United States were not satisfactory. Before the middle of December it
was known at Fort Lincoln that the Government had ordered Sitting Bull
and the other bands to come in upon the reservation before the end of
January, or to suffer the consequences.
“Huh!” grunted Odell, as the news reached Fort Lincoln, on its way to
the various agencies. “That means war.”
“Yes, and likely a winter campaign, too,” chipped in Sergeant Butler of
Ned’s company. “Another Washita for the Seventh!”
“Won’t Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse come in, you think?” queried Ned,
anxiously.
“Charley says they won’t,” quoth Sergeant Butler, nodding toward the
scout.
Charley was sitting in the barracks room, taking things easy, by the
stove.
“No, they won’t,” he asserted, calmly. “Why should they? They’re on
their own grounds, guaranteed to them by the Government, where they can
live and hunt. What’s more, half the Sioux nation will be joining ’em.
I’ve got a heap o’ respect for Sitting Bull. He’s the biggest power in
the Sioux nation to-day, though he isn’t a chief.”
“Do you know him, Charley?” asked Ned.
“Yes, I know him. He’s a short, heavy-set Injun, with a broad homely
mug, and brown hair and light complexion pock-marked up. Only Injun I
ever saw having brown hair. His Sioux name is Ta-tan-kah-yo-tan-kah.
He’s an Unkpapa, and his name as a boy was Jumping Badger, until he
counted a coup on a Crow carcass and took his father’s name. He’s not a
chief, or son of a chief except a subchief, but he’s the smartest Sioux
living. The war chiefs don’t think much of him. His specialty is making
medicine and guessing at what’ll happen. He’s a good guesser, too. And
he sure can read human character.”
“Won’t he fight?”
“Oh, he’s done some fighting, Injun fashion. Up at Buford (Fort Buford)
they’ve got an old roster of the Thirty-first Infantry, that belonged
to Sitting Bull and that another Injun stole from him. He’d pictured it
full of himself and his killings and stealings. So he’s been a warrior;
but among the other Injuns he ranks as big medicine and not as a man
like Crazy Horse or Gall or Red Cloud; except that he hates the whites
and always will, I reckon.”
“Do you know Crazy Horse, too, Charley?”
“Yes, I know Crazy Horse. He’s an Oglala Sioux, but his band are mostly
northern Cheyennes. Crazy Horse is a fighter, all right. You can bet on
that. Chief Gall is their general, though. Next to him is Crow King. If
we have a fight, it will be Gall and Crow King and Crazy Horse doing
the planning, and Sitting Bull doing the prophesying, urging ’em on.”
“We can beat them, anyhow.” This was the confident voice of Boston
Custer. “Bos” had been appointed forage-master, so now he counted
himself a member of the regiment, and was proud of the fact. He liked
to mix with the soldiers, sometimes, and be one of them, even if his
brother was the commanding officer.
“Maybe so, maybe not,” mused Charley Reynolds, soberly. “That Bad Lands
country is a terror to cross. Those Injuns are better armed than the
soldiers, too; with Springfields and Winchesters and Remingtons that
they’re getting direct from the agencies—along with plenty supplies.
When you run up against those Sioux, son, you’ll know you’ve been in a
scrimmage.”
The weeks passed. By the first of February the Sitting Bull and Crazy
Horse bands had not come in upon the reservation, and evidently they
did not intend to come in. One day appeared at Fort Lincoln old Isaiah,
a negro interpreter who had married a Sioux wife and lived at the
Standing Rock agency.
“Well, Isaiah, where are the rest of your Injuns?” hailed a soldier.
“Who you mean?” demanded Isaiah.
“Sitting Bull.”
“Didn’t you get his word?” retorted Isaiah. “He say to the soldiers:
‘Come on. Needn’t bring any guides. You can find me easy. I won’t run
away.’ That is so, because my squaw tell me, an’ she know.”