he agency, and considerable apprehension on the part of the agent.
Nothing in the nature of an outbreak occurred, however: the strangers
gradually went away to their summer hunt on the Powder River; and the
agency was brought back to its usual condition. But, while this was
being effected, a ranchman named Powell, who had a large drove of cattle
near Fort Laramie, was robbed and murdered. The bloody details were soon
known; for Indians are such inveterate gossips that they can keep no
secret, however dangerous disclosure may be to them. The murderers were
Northern Indians, who had instantly left for their own country. At two
successive councils, both the civil and the military authorities
demanded the surrender of the guilty parties and the return of the
stolen stock. The chiefs present and the great body of their followers
most unmistakably disapproved and regretted the act, if for no better
reason than because they apprehended the consequences; but they
disclaimed any responsibility therefor,--the murderers not being of
their own proper number,--pleaded their inability to arrest the
fugitives with their bloody spoils, and, for the rest, did nothing. The
government, for that matter, after much expostulation, did the same:
troops were not marched northward to seize the murderers; the rations of
the Sioux were not ordered to be stopped until satisfaction had been
given; and the murder of Powell remains to-day unpunished by the
government of the United States.

A second condition on which peace is maintained is the subsistence of
certain tribes at the expense of the government, without reference to
their ability or disposition to work. Every five or seven days, twenty
thousand Sioux, big and little, assemble around the agencies for the
distribution of food. Soldiers' rations are dealt out: flour by the
hundred sacks is delivered to them; beeves by the score are turned loose
to be shot down and eaten up in savage fashion. The expense of this
service is a million five hundred thousand dollars a year,--one-seventh
the total cost of poor-support in the United States. About one million
more is expended for the total or partial subsistence of other tribes,
especially in the South-west. Coincidently with this, occasions for
increased expenditure have arisen in connection with tribes not upon
the feeding-list; so that the average cost of the Indian service has
gone up from four millions in 1866, 1867, and 1868, to seven millions a