Jack the Young Explorer

he stage approached the hotel, and he raised his

o. It's splendid to see them both again." Jack signaled earnestly an

the ground Jack passed him the bags and then sprang down himself. There were hearty handshakes and many questions between the four delighted f

"Just wait a minute ti

oy at meeting again, and then Jack thought of the beds on the coach and ran and unstrapped the leather apron which

n. Just set those beds inside the office, and tell the clerk we'll sto

engaged in the work of preparing breakfast. Soon all were seated at the table. The fa

Hugh. "How do you live? Just about

le for the company at the furs, so they pay me something, and I have some money that I can spend. I have bought me two horses, and sometimes I go off on a hunt; sometimes I trap a little. It is not much, but it is pleasant; it brings back to my mind the old

little piece of metal should have changed a man's

ing we do will have on other people. Now, Joe," he went on, "have you got a tea

ys and we can start just whenever you are ready. I've got a mess outfit and some coffee and sugar and ba

er we get off the better, I

to the camp, and then into the mountains. I always feel as if I didn't h

and chew the rag about old times until you come for us. Get the beds and the bags when you come by the hotel, and then we can pull right out. I reckon Joe has grub enough and we won't have to buy anything here w

ncidents of hunting, trapping, buffalo chasing, and Indian fighting. Jack thought it was good to listen to, but at length Hugh turned to the boys and said, "Well

contents and tightening one of the ropes that lashed on the load, said, "Well, we may as well be going. Good-by, Bat; we're likely to get back here about two months hence, and we'

nds, and Joe, reaching down from the driver's

as been good to see you. Always your coming brings j

nd in a moment they were rattling along the stree

ain. From the top of almost every sage brush came the sweet, mellow whistle of the meadow lark. In the air all about birds were rising from the ground, singing as tho

horses. Ahead of them the white, level road wound about among the bushes of the sage. To Jack it was all very delightful. The change from the crowded city wa

this extra wide seat before I started because I thought we'd all want

h, "there's lots of

could pretty nearly

ple. I heard that two years ago, and maybe last year also, they starved, and tha

people had hunted and sometimes killed an elk or a deer or a few antelope, but at last these had all been killed, and there was left nothing but rabbits and such birds as we could shoot or snare. It was a hard time; everybody was hungry. Everybody got poor. Even people that had once been heavy and had much fat on their bodies grew lean and thin. When you looked at the old people, the women and the children, you could see their bo

commanding officer at Fort Shaw, and during the winter an officer was sent up to the agency to see how the people were getting on. This officer came and went around through the camp, and asked the people to tell him the truth. He did

messages to Fort Shaw and trying to hurry the food along, and they say that he sent telegrams to Washington. Anyhow, about the end of the winter wagons began to come loaded with flour and bacon, and this was given out to the people, and then the suffering stopped, and the people stopped dying. After a little while, too, w

"How did it come that there was not food enoug

growing crops and becoming civilized. They said that he wrote those things so that the people at Washington would think that he was a great man and was helping the Indians along. Of cour

six hundred di

they told me

f the people. I don't suppose there was more than tw

e, but I know that many died. You can see the

thing should occur? Why didn't the people back East kn

ruth about any of these stories. An Indian reservation is a great place for getting up kicks and complaints, and I supp

undred people being starved to death.

l find a good many of our old fri

d Joe, "a

nd the whole country was fresh, green, and charming. About three o'clock they camped on the river at the edge of a grove of cottonwood trees, and unhitching t

rd the west, and the shadows of the cottonwoods grow longer minute by minute, Hugh said to Jack, "We were talking this morning, son, ab

n, while Joe, who had been lying on his back with his

of the Baker mass

Jack, "I

e. I don't remember anything about it. I was too

"lots of people

bout it,"

s a bad killing. You read in the books about the way Indians massacre white women and children when they're on the warpath, but I reckon Indians never did anything worse than this killing at the Baker massacre.

d for a twig with which to pu

"though I never heard the whole story. Some day I'm going t

e to the Blackfeet, and every now and then the Kootenays would come over the mountains and have a scrap, and the Crees would come down from the north and steal Piegan horses, and Assinaboines and other Sioux would come up from the east and they'd tackle the Blackfeet. Pretty nearly any of these Indians, if they saw a chance to run off some stock or to kill a lone white man would do it, but the Piegans, being close at home and always within reach, got the cred

ng, and the result was that Colonel Baker was ordered to march against a certain village of Indians who were camping up here on the Marias, north of where we are now and about forty miles from Benton. The troops were guided by two men who are now living on the Piegan reservation, each of them married to an Indian woman. The orders given to Colonel Baker were to strike Mountain Chief's band of Piegans, because from some information they had it was supposed that these people had been plundering and perhaps killing white people. As a matter of fact, the village found by the troops was that of Red Horn and Bear Chief. The camp consisted of less than forty lodges, and probably had in it a little more than two hundred people. The troops got up close to the village in the gray of the morning, wi

troops got tired of shooting. The Indians have told me that most of the thirty-seven men that were killed were ol

you shake hands with him you'll notice that his hand

eard of," said Jack. "A hundred and seventy-six killed, and

o anything of that kind they take all the chances that there are. It's all right to kill them if you can, but h

truth about it, and I reckon the army officers most concerned in it got called a good many names. I've heard that Colonel Baker los

ruel," said Jack, "and I don't

ng, but still lay on the grass with his head resting on his

ister and my father, but I was at Three Sun's Village, stopping with

ned loose on the prairie-some of them being sick with the smallpox, you will remember-on the twenty-third of January. Anybody who knows what win

to fresh grass, and on their way back brought the beds from the wagon and threw them down close to the fire. Hugh meanwhile had put fresh wood on it and the cheerful blaze l