Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/462



THE MANAGEMENT OF THE INDIAN AGENCIES—AGENT MACGILLICUDDY'S WONDERFUL WORK—CROOK'S REMAINING DAYS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE PLATTE—THE BANNOCK, UTE, NEZ PERCÉ, AND CHEYENNE OUTBREAKS—THE KILLING OF MAJOR THORNBURGH AND CAPTAIN WEIR—MERRRITT'S FAMOUS MARCH AGAINST TIME—HOW THE DEAD CAME TO LIFE AND WALKED—THE CASE OF THE PONCAS—CROOK'S HUNTS AND EXPLORATIONS; NEARLY FROZEN TO DEATH IN A BLIZZARD—A NARROW ESCAPE FROM AN ANGRY SHE-BEAR—CATCHING NEBRASKA HORSE-THIEVES—"DOC" MIDDLETON'S GANG

After Doctor Irwin the Indians at Red Cloud had as agent Doctor V. T. MacGillicuddy, whose peculiar fitness for the onerous and underpaid responsibilities of the position brought him deserved recognition all over the western country, as one of the most competent representatives the Indian Bureau had ever sent beyond the Missouri. Two or three times I looked into affairs at his agency very closely, and was surprised both at the immense amount of supplies on hand—running above a million pounds of flour and other parts of the ration in proportion—and the perfect system with which they were distributed and accounted for. There were then eight thousand Indians of both sexes at the agency or on the reserve, and the basis of supplies was either Pierre, in Dakota, on the Missouri, or Sidney, Nebraska, on the Union Pacific; the former two hundred and the latter one hundred and twenty-five miles distant. MacGillicuddy was kept on the go all the time from morning till night, and managed to do the work of twenty men. His salary was the munificent sum of twenty-two hundred and fifty dollars per annum. I could not help saying to myself that this man was carrying upon his shoulders the weight of a force equal to one-third the United States Army; were he in the army, MacGillicuddy