The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1901-11-08
MERELY HELPED FRIEND.
Unfortunate Victim of More Unfortun-
ate Circumstances.

Lawrence Jardee is the name Of the
man arrested last Wednesday night
for supplying Medicine Tail, a Crow
Indian, with whiskey. The other man
said to be implicated in the matter
had not been arrested up to last night,
although the officers know who he is
and he is being kept under s%urveil-
lance and cannot get away. The rea-
son that he, too, is not now behind
the bars is that he has sickness of a
serious nature in his family and the
officers considered that to arrest him
at this time would be to work an un-
necessary hardship on those innocent
of any offense.
Jardee claims to be innocent and
processes to be the unfortunate victim
of circumstances. He says he is in
noWise connected with the offense al
legged and regards his arrest and incar-
ceration as nothing short of an out
rage on an honorable and patriotic
citizen, who has shown his regard for
his country by offering himself as one
of it's defenders in time of dire need.
Some years ago he lived on the res
ervation, but left when the war with
Spain was declared; he says he enlist
ed in the navy and served one year as
cook on one of the auxiliary cruisers
after which he was honorably dis
charged. At the close of his naval
career he again drifted out this way
and since then has lived in this city,
being engaged in various occupations.
While a resident of the reservation
he says he formed the acquaintance
of Medicine Tail, an acquaintance that
developed into friendship of the last
ing sort. 1t was this feeling of re-
gard for the copper colored native
that caused him to get into his pres
ent trouble, he claims.
A short time before officer Hayden
arrested the gentleman whose name
suggests the prescription case of a
drug store, he says Medicine Tail
came to him and told him that the
owner Of a restaurant had taken his
valise because of his inability to pro-
duce the necessary 'two bits" to pay
for a meal he had just eaten. Mind
full of the days when they were COM
p%anions and chums on the reservation,
Jardee says he fastened to the relief
of his distressed friend and accom-
panied him to the doughnut bank pre-
sided ovo by the heartless Monaghan
and after paying the o of the
heartless Monaghan, got the satchel
and turned it over to him. This, he
solemnly AYERS, is as far as his con-
-nection with the case extends.
The officer who arrested him and
Medicine Tail, however, tells a differ
ent story. He says that the little sat
chel which forms so important a fea-
ture in the story mas made many a
trip between this city and the agency,
and each time on the homeward way
was filled with the contraband article.
AS told by Mr.. Hayden, a man en-
ployed at. the agency is the owner OF
the valise and he has been in the habit
of sending it to the city by some of his
friends, always filling it with old
clothes that he said needed mending.
Arriving here the satchel was taken
to a house on the south side.
where it was left until the party to
whom it had been entrusted was ready
to return, when he would take it back,
but the clothes had Invariably by some
slight of hand, been transformed into
whiskey. In sending it up by the In
dian the owner seems to have made a
mistake, for Medicine Tail could not
resist the temptation to accumulate a