to rest next day and were shown
everything of interest at the Cheyenne Agency, where there were over
two-thousand Indians. The principle chief was Little-no-Heart and among
the others were Rattling Rib, White Swan, The Charger and Four Bears.
These men were all peaceably disposed and belonged to the tribes that
farm and raise stock on the reservation. They were driven about two
miles from the fort to a tree in which a number of Indians, according
to the custom of their tribe, had been buried. It was a goodly sized elm
that had grown straight out of the ground to a height of twenty five
feet, at which point the trunk forked into a dozen gnarled and twisted
limbs, the peculiar black bark of which, gave them an unnatural
appearance. Everywhere among the yellow leaves were perched heaps of
decaying garments and bones. In some places, storms had torn away the
gaudy funeral paraphernalia and whole skeletons were exposed. All the
implements which the dead are supposed to need in the Happy Hunting
Grounds, were placed at the side of the corpse and in one branch there
was a trunk belonging to the skeleton just underneath it. So many
Indians had been placed in the branches of this ancient elm, that it was
said to have had a more vigorous growth than any other tree in its
neighborhood in consequence of the fertilization afforded by the bodies.
Since the establishment of the agency, however, the Indians have not
been permitted to keep up this disgusting practice.

There was an Indian school on the reservation, which was also visited.
The officials have a hard time of it to get the children to attend the
school. The older ones are opposed to educating the youngsters and do
not want them to learn to speak English. Some of the boys who were able
to speak it fluently were ashamed to do so. They are apt pupils and can
comprehend ideas with wonderful accuracy; the Government hopes that
time will remove their prejudices and so they will become more
civilized.

The journey was resumed next day at noon, pulling against a head wind;
but their long rest gave them strength to contend with it, and the storm
died out with the setting sun. Some of the buttes below Fort Sully are
shaped wonderfully like pyramids; walls and cones loomed up against the
sky and one could easily imagine himself on the Nile floating past the
sphinxes and temples of Egypt. Occasionally the voyagers would be
startled by the splash of a giga