ey
were attacked by fever and ague, a disease wholly new to them. Food was
scanty, and they began to starve. The agent testified before a committee
of the Senate that he never received supplies to subsist the Indians for
more than nine months in each year. These people were meat-eaters, but
the beef furnished them by the government inspectors was no more than
skin and bone. The agent in describing their sufferings said: 'They have
lived and that is about all.'

"The Indians endured this for about a year, and then their patience gave
out. They left the agency to which they had been sent and started north.
Though troops were camped close to them, they attempted no concealment
of their purpose. Instead, they openly announced that they intended to
return to their own country.

"We have heard much in past years of the march of the Nez Perces under
Chief Joseph, but little is remembered of the Dull Knife outbreak and
the march to the north led by Little Wolf. The story of the journey has
not been told, but in the traditions of the old army this campaign was
notable, and old men who were stationed on the plains forty years ago
are apt to tell you, if you ask them, that there never was such another
journey since the Greeks marched to the sea....

"The fugitives pressed constantly northward undaunted, while orders were
flying over the wires, and special trains were carrying men and horses
to cut them off at all probable points on the different railway lines
they must cross. Of the three hundred Indians, sixty or seventy were
fighting men--the rest old men, women, and children. An army officer
once told me that thirteen thousand troops were hurrying over the
country to capture or kill these few poor people who had left the
fever-stricken South, and in the face of every obstacle were steadily
marching northward.

"The War Department set all its resources in operation against them,
yet they kept on. If troops attacked them, they stopped and fought
until they had driven off the soldiers, and then started north again.
Sometimes they did not even stop, but marched along, fighting as they
marched. For the most part they tried--and with success--to avoid
conflicts, and had but four real hard fights, in which they lost half a
dozen men killed and about as many wounded."

It must not be overlooked that the appeal to justice had first been
tried before taking this desperate step. Little Wolf had gone to the
agent about the middle of