St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-07-06

Stanton, stands log shanty, the owner
of which is character. He lives there
alone, save for the surly looking shep-
herd dog that guards the door. This
shack, welcome to many weary traveller
who wants to rest between the twenty
five miles that lie behind him and the
forty-five that are ahead, is warm inside,
and its occupant has warm place in
his heart for some of his callers. The
merely curious, and the relic hunters
who may be willing to pay for the
curioSities that hang on the
walls of the low rooted building,
receive but little encouragement at his
hands. Fortunately for the temper of
''Dan the Scout" a hill hides the view
of his shack from the main travelled
road, and not one man in ten who goes
up that way, except the old-timerS, are
aware that there is anything near i'll the
shape of human habitation. The oc-
cupant of this ricllety-looking building
seems to be about seventy years of age,
but he says that he is only fifty. He
has not been more than ten miles east
of the Missouri river for thirty years.
which pUrsues him in his dreams when
he is Oh the east side of that muddy
stream.
Two weeks ago bad fortune took me
past this shack-bad fortune | say. l
always forgive the i'll luck that leads
me in this direction when the weather
is bad, if am successful in finding Dan
at home, for l always meet with the
best of cheer at his hearthstone, and he
is full of stories that he is willing to I'M
load in the ears of listeners who are as
willing as l am to hear him. 1t IS an
art to listen to Dan. He has spent so
much of his eventful life among the In
dams of the Missouri valley that nothing
but grunt will suit him as your eX-
preston of appreciation. He hates
questions. and steadily ignores them.
He appears to be great reader, and
has been all his life, and partly as a
result of this, and partly because he
had very good educational advantages
when he was young, he uses excellent
English, except for an occasional lapse
into slang that would no pass muster in
the parlors of the elite.
A blizzard was bowling without.
Thanks to the radiating qualities of the
funny, old-fashioned stove that Dan
used, the shack was as warm as toast.
The fire had been made up for the night
when | got inside. My horse was COM
Portable in the dug-out stable to the
west of the house, and was comfort
able and at least temporarily happy.
Driftwood from the river bottoms and
Ignite coal dug a few feet from the
shack were the fuel, and there was
enough of it indoors to outlast the
longest blizzard. | pulled out pecu-
liar brand of tobacco that to me was ex-
ecrable, but which l knew from ex-
perience suited Dan to dot, and our
pipes were soon going.
THAT Internal wind" presently be-
gan Dan between puffs, reminds me of
aday in the early months of 81. [ was
young fellow then, but tough, A biz
card had to be shorter to worry me,
and then it worried me more OH account
of the horse | might be riding than for
myself. The Indians were bad in those
days. The Mandans were nearly all
dead from the smallpox that had car
ried them off some years before, but the
Sioux were the fellows that used to
come in occasional bands and play the
devil. They lowered around in this
than suited me. They were after buff
falo, and l can tell you the
beasts were plenty then. The
woods just over here in the bottom
used to be great source of attraction
to the buffalo in the bliZZardy days of
the winter months, and immense herds
used to hang around within few miles
of this vicinity, so that they might be
near the sheltering timber when the
worst storms came. Queer how those
animals could tell day or two before a
blizzard that it was coming. They beat
your signal service fellows all to bits
The sky might be as clear as summer
day, not breath would be stirring, and
suddenly you would see hundreds of
buffalOeS come trOoping towards the
woods. 1t was no trick in those days to
kill buffaloeS. The trick came in getting
the skins to market. An old Mandan
Indian, who claimed direct descent from
the famous chief, Mah-to-toh-pa, struck
up quite an acquaintance with me in
'56, and he gave me a good many
wrinkles in the hunting business. We
lived together in dug-out that l made
in side hill few miles above where
Stanton now stands, and we used to
take our skins and pelts to Benthold to
sell. L had a wing to the place for his
especial benefit, for though my appetite
was good, and my digestion like that of
a rhinoceros, L could hardly
stomach his too close proximity
in the house, and he liked the ar
rangement. He had no heightened
notions, and he would have been will
ing to eat at the second table if l had
made the suggestion. 1t was about the
18th of February in 1857 when the buff
faloes began to troop through thcwoodS,
and / could see them coming past the
hill hundred yards from the dug-out.
We were little short of meat, and
good buffalo would not come amiss.
Mandan, as called my Indian, left the
house as soon as we saw the butfaloeS
coming, and went into ambush so that
he might pick out the bull he wanted.
But other visitors were on the way.
Without being seen by Mandan, thele
was band of Sioux in the vicinity, and
took but a flash for them to
fire into the herd, and
dozen of the noble beasts were
licking the dust. The remainder of the
herd, which proved to be small one,
passed the spot with their tails elevated
and snorting as they dashed past at a
railroad gait. But my dusl1y friend had
been seen by the redskins, who were in
truding themselves upon my domain.
They knew by his hair that he was a
Mandan, and the long feud between the
two tribes made him a shining mark.
They did not pick him off with their
guns; they proposed to have some fun
with him. With one wild whoop they
dashed upon him, and he did not resist
or try to run, for he saw his
case was hopeless if he did. l
was watching the whole perform
ance from the window of nv
shack. / saw the Sioux scoundrels lead
my friend to the talleSt cottonwood tree
that stood there, overlooking the bot
tom lands of the river, and with his