The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-06-18


 headquarters. From these remote posts furs were carried to and supplies brought from the towns on the lower river and the Mississippi. The small flatboat or bateau-manned often by less than half dozen men, because wages were high and profits must be made-dared the peril of these journeys with a hardihood such as pioneer en- terprise has exhibited ever since the days of the Jesults and the Pilgrims.
 These boats had always to run the gauntlet of the Sioux and other tribes, and often met with exciting and peril GUS adventures, and not infrequently with disaster. But the Indians, armed almost entirely at this period, with the bow and arrow, were cautious and bushwhacking in their attacks, and, though boatmen were shot from the CO., verts of the bank in every season of open water, the craft might usually be relied upon to reach it's destiny and land its freight unharmed.
 But when gang of river pirates as- sailed one of these boats the outcome was usually the capture of it's cargo and the loss of some if not all of it's de- lenders.
 It was about the year 1919 or 1920 that the notorious Bill Harke, who had been driven out of Missouri (Missouri was admitted in 1S20) for lawlessness, and who had lived for some years a va grant, renegade life among the Sioux, gathered a band of white and half breed desperadoes and began to prey upon the boats of the traders.
 This gang of outlaws numbered, at different times, from dozen to eigh- teen or twenty of as villainous cut threats as were gathered upon our iron tier. Their headquarters. if they had any, were never discovered, but that they were harbored by the different tribes of the Sioux scattered along the river seems evident. Armed to the teeth and supplied with Indian canoes, they bounced upon the up or down go- ing boat in the dead of night, when half the crew were wrapped In their blan- kets, If resistance was made the men were shot down mercilessly; If not the crew were tied hand and foot, the boat relieved of it's freight, and it's men left to free themselves of their bonds as best they could, These depredations occurred at different points along the whole stretch of the river from the mouth of the Platte to the Yellowstone. In these attacks the robbers were inva- riably disguised as Indians, painted and befeathered, and the identity of some of them was never established. Several of them were known, however, and among them the leader, Harke or Two Fin gers" as the Sioux called him, through the reports of Indians friendly at differ ent trading stations.
 | This gang of river pirates, or most of them at least met terrible and richly deserved fate at the hands of few trappers who, through the leadership | and strategy of Sim Battis, blew them | to Kingdom come" as Yankees have it. A company of trappers had built for | their headquarters, defence and storage | of furs blockhouse, with the usual | safe barricade, at the mouth of the riv- | CT Niobrara. This station they occu- pied when Two Fingers" and his men | infested the river. Twice in each sea- | son of open water their bateau descend | ed the river with the annual catch of | furs. The craft was manned by five or | six of their number who, with the ex- 1 ception of Simon Battis, an experienced young boatman and pilot, took turns in making the trip. Battis, reared on the extreme frontier, the son of trader, trained to the river from the time he safest and most wary boatmen of the | Missouri.
 l He usually made his runs through l dangerous territory in the daytime, putting his boat into the cover of a se- l cluded and easily defended nook upon 1 some island selected in advance, where his men spent the night in alternate watch and relief. He had never lost a bale of fur.
 Up to the time of the incident here re- lated his goings and comings had appa- rently escaped the outlook of Bill Harke's marauders. It was just after the going of the ice and after winter of successful trapping in the vicinity of the station, that one morning white man and a number of Indians-Hunk- l papa Sioux-came to the block house | with furs, beaver and otter, to ex- change for ammunition and blankets.
 Battis, with two or three of the mer
 
 him, was busy at the time overhauling caulking and putting the bateau in re. pair. No suspicion would have beer | aroused against the trading party, per. | haps, but while the Indians were bar tering with the blockhouse trader the white man sauntered down to the boa and hung around the workmen. H.
 talked carelessly, giving information freely of himself and his companions
 the Hunk-p pas; said he had put ir
 the winter at their village on the Ba6 river, that he had made good catch o | beaver and otter, and had more buffalo pelts at the Hunk pa pa town than tho Indians had ponies to pack in.
 A SPY DETECTED.
 He then asked when the boat would
 start down the river, whether the
 Shift" would be mostly beaver how
 many men would be at the oars; sait
 he would like to go along if he did no
 have to go back to Bad river to gathel
 ponies to bring in his buffalo belts which the squaws were now tanning
 said he would bring down in June tht
 biggest and finest lot of "Iniun tans'
 ever carried by that boat. Battis lis tened shrewdly to this talk, and wher
 the man finally returned to the station
 and rode off up the river with the Indi