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228 haversack. With an air signifying to "the victor belong the spoils," he swept majestically out of the house.

The answer came next day from the Secretary of War that the Department of the Interior which had the Indians in charge refused to allow any army supplies to be distributed. They gave as a reason that it would involve complexities in their relations with other departments. It was a very difficult thing for the general to explain to the Indians. They knew that both army and Indians were fed from the same source, and they could not comprehend what difference it could make when a question of starvation was pending. They could not be told, what we all knew, that had the War Department made good the deficiencies it would have reflected discredit on the management of the Department of the Interior. The chiefs were compelled to return to their reservations, where long ago all the game had been shot and their famishing tribe were many of them driven to join the hostiles. We were not surprised that the warriors were discouraged and desperate, and that the depredations of Sitting Bull on the settlements increased with the new accessions to his numbers.