Part 33 (1/2)

The order for the detention of Sitting Bull has been rescinded

You are hereby ordered to return to Chicago and report to General Miles

BENJAMIN HARRISON, President

That ended ot safely through the country, though there were plenty of chances that I would be killed or wounded in the attempt

I returned to the Post, turned back my presents at a loss to myself, and paid the interpreter fifty dollars for his day's work He was very glad to have the fifty and a whole skin, for he could not figure how the five hundred would be of much help to him if he had been stretched out on the Plains with an Indian bullet through him

I was supplied with conveyance back to Mandan by Colonel Brown and tookAfterward, in Indianapolis, President Harrison inforainst ment, and said he was very sorry that he had not allowed me to proceed

It developed afterward that the people who had moved the President to interfere consisted of a party of philanthropists who advanced the argu Bull would be killed, and it was to spare the life of this man that I was stopped!

The result of the President's order was that the Ghost Dance War followed very shortly, and with it ca Bull

I found that General Miles knew exactly why I had been turned back fro Bull But he was a soldier, and made no criticislad to hear that I had been eneral, but he was still more pleased with the fact that I knew sothem,” he said, ”and learn their intentions better than any other man I know”

I remained with General Miles until the final surrender of the North American Indians to the United States Government after three hundred years of warfare

This surrender was eneral of the ar that a ainst them and had dealt with them so justly and honorably should have received their surrender

With that event ended one of theIt ith that that I was identified froe, and in the tireatest severity and its highest develop chapters I have sketched briefly so of my adventures on the Plains It has been necessary to omit much that I would like to have told For twenty years my life was one of almost continuous excitement, and to tell the whole story would require reat interest in the West, and my belief that its development would be assisted by the interest I could awaken in others, that I decided to bring the West to the East through the reatly I was to succeed in this venture I had no idea when it first occurred to me As I have told you, I had already appeared in a s Indians to the East and exhibit theive any real impression of what Western life was like Only in an arena where horses could be ridden at full gallop, where lassos could be thrown, and pistols and guns fired without frightening the audience half to death, could such a thing be atteether a ree-coach drivers, and other typical denizens of my own country under canvas I found myself almost immediately prosperous

We showed in the principal cities of the country, and everywhere the novelty of the exhibition drew great crowds As owner and principal actor in the enterprise Icitizens of the United States socially, and never lost an opportunity to ”talk up” the Western country, which I believed to have a wonderful future I worked hard on the progra care to e, the Indian war-dance, the chant of the Great Spirit as it was sung on the Plains, the rise and fall of the famous tribes, were all pictured accurately

It was not an easy thing to do Sometimes I had to send ht kind of war-bonnets, or to make correct copies of the tepees peculiar to a particular tribe It wasthe West, to depict it as it was I was ratified in after years to find that scientists who had carefully studied the Indians, their traditions and habits, gavevery valuable contributions to the sue of the Aiven in May, 1883, at Omaha, which I had then chosen aspractically every irand entrance I made a spectacle which comprised the most picturesque features of Western life Sioux, Arapahoes, Brules, and Cheyennes in war-paint and feathers led the van, shrieking their hoops and waving the weapons hich they were armed in a manner to inspire both terror and admiration in the tenderfoot audience

Next came cowboys and soldiers, all clad exactly as they hen engaged in their ca in the rear were the old stage-coaches which carried the settlers to the West in the days before the railroad made the journey easy and pleasant

I am sure the people enjoyed this spectacle, for they flocked in crowds to see it I know I enjoyed it There was never a day when, looking back over the red and white men in my cavalcade, I did not know the thrill of the trail, and feel a little sorry that my Western adventures would thereafter have to be lived in spectacles

Without desiring to dilory of any individual I can truthfully state that the expression ”rough riders,” which afterward becae As I rode out at the front of my parade I would bow to the audience, circled about on the circus benches, and shout at the top of entleh riders of the world!”

For three years we toured the United States with great success One day an Englishman, whose name I never learned, came to see me after the show

”That is a wonderful perforreat appreciation, but you have no idea what a sensation it would be in the Old World, where such things are unheard of”

That set ether considering the matter, I had made up my mind that Europe should have an opportunity to study Ah the ed In March, 1886, I chartered the steamer _State of Nebraska_, loaded e-coaches on board, and set sail for another continent