Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/435

 with him, "Spotted Tail" recognized the inevitable destruction of his kinsmen if they persisted in war and turned their backs upon overtures of peace. He exerted himself, and generally with success, to obtain the best terms possible from the Government in all conferences held with its representatives, but he was equally earnest in his determination to restrain the members of his own band, and all others whom he could control, from going out upon the war-path. If any persisted in going, they went to stay; he would not allow them to return.

There was a story current in army circles that years and years ago a young daughter of "Spotted Tail" had fallen in love with an officer just out of West Point, and had died of a broken heart. In her last hours she asked of her father the pledge that he would always remain the friend of the Americans—a pledge given with affectionate earnestness, and observed with all the fidelity of a noble nature. I have often seen the grave of this young maiden at Fort Laramie—a long pine box, resting high in air upon a scaffold adorned with the tails of the ponies upon which her gentle soul had made the lonesome journey to the Land of the Great Hereafter. I may as well tell here a romance about her poor bones, which insatiate Science did not permit to rest in peace. Long after her obsequies, when "Spotted Tail's" people had been moved eastward to the White Earth country, and while the conflict with the hostiles was at its bitterest, the garrison of Fort Laramie was sent into the field, new troops taking their places. There was a new commanding officer, a new surgeon, and a new hospital steward; the last was young, bright, ambitious, and desirous of becoming an expert in anatomy. The Devil saw his opportunity for doing mischief; he whispered in the young man's ear: "If you want an articulated skeleton, what's the matter with those bones? Make your own articulated skeleton." Turn where he would, the Devil followed him; the word "bones" sounded constantly in his ears, and, close his eyes or open them, there stood the scaffold upon which, wrapped in costly painted buffalo robes and all the gorgeous decoration of bead-work, porcupine quill, and wampum that savage affection could supply, reposed the mortal remains of the Dakota maiden A dark night, a ladder, a rope, and a bag—the bones were lying upon the steward's table, cleaned, polished, and almost adjusted, and if there was one happy man