The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1882-09-21
THE DREADFUL SAVAGE.

Frontiersmen nowadays runthe most
frlghtful risks Of injury and s~poliation
at the hands of the fierce reservation
Indians. These Indians, as is well
known, are fierce, ~reyengeful, brave,
naughty, ~stoical, dirty, and red. An
affair which has just taken place at
Deadwood recalls a long list of out
RACES perpetrated during the past "a
son on the peaceable miners and cat
tie men living in the country north of
Cheyenne. Half a dozen roughs from
the Sioux reservation rode in broad
daylight through the streets of the city
until they reached the shop of the pop
ular blacksmith, Sandy johnson. Here
they engaged him to shoe their ponies.
Mr.. johnson worked at the job all day
long and In the evening saw the last
buck mount bis newly shod animal,
and ride away and disappear. It then
occurred to Mr.. johnson that his Gus
toners had not paid him, and he now
knows he has been the subject of a
fendish outrage after the improved
manner of a reservation savage.
As already mentioned, his is not an
Isolated case. Freighters who have In
the passed summer crossed Crazy Horse
creek, found out to their cost how dew
ilishly ingenious a reservation gang with
a permit to be outside the line can be.
just this side of the fording on the Fort
Crook road is a deep gully about two
miles long, and the roadway in 1t Is
only wide enough to allow one wagon
to pass down. At the end of the road
is an open space of about two acres.
Last spring the aforesaid gang planted
Il row of potatoes In the open space
across the road in front of the river,
called 1t their farm, and waited for a
wagon train to approach. When Mike
MCGEE wound down the gully one day
with t~hirty-two wagons, he was met at
the opening by the band of fierce reser-
walton Indians, with a constable, who
demanded damages for his intention of
despoiling their potato farm. Mike
swore up and down the gulley for two
straight hours, but at the end Of that
time, finding that he couldn't turn a
single wagon around in the gulley, and
that he must go forward, he undertook
a compromise. Five dollars a wagon
was the toll. Mr.. MCGEE never related
this story, and was followed down the
gulley in the course of the summer by no
less than ifty-one trains, averaging If
teen wagons each, at five dollars apiece
toll. Any arIthmetician can compute
how much those untutored savages
made on the half peck of potatoes plant.
ed on their farm.
Another form of outrage is the ento-
biological and astronomical perform
ance which two squaws execute in the
presence OF hdies in connection with
their ave locks, with the hope of be-
ing bribed to stop it.
The vengeful character of the Indian
is also shown in what he calls the "pony
racket One of a party waits upon an
unsuspecting white man and sells him a
fine pony at two-thirds its value. The
next day the rest of the party wait upon
the white man and Inform him that he
has bought a stolen animal, hat they
are the owners of it, and he must give
it up.
No police officer can ever lay his
hands on an Indian brave without
drinking deep in the founts OF regret
for the act. He will be doing battle
with "reminiscences from the redskin
for months afterward.
1t will thus be seen that not only are
the effects of contact on the part of the
frontiersman with the Indian trightful
to the former, but that he can expect
no redress.