This proved
to be one of Major McLaughlin's Indian scouts. He bore a telegram
reading:
COLONEL WILLIAM F. CODY, Fort Yates, N.D.:
The order for the detention of Sitting Bull has been rescinded.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 my mission to Sitting Bull. I still believe I could have got
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 took
my departure the next morning. Afterward, in Indianapolis, President
Harrison informed me that he had allowed himself to be persuaded
against my mission in opposition to his own judgment, 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
argument that my visit would precipitate a war in which Sitting 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 came the death of Sitting Bull.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313