of maiming them, with our bayonets, if any of them attempted to bluff past us.  Well, the men of my troop had all colors of trouble while on guard in holding the savages in.  The Ogalallas would hardly pay any attention to the white sentries of the chain guard, and when they wanted to pass beyond the guard limits they would invariably pick out a spot for passage that was patrolled by a white ‘post-humper.’  But the guards of the two black troops didn’t have a single run-in with the savages.  The Indians made it a point to remain strictly away from the Negro soldiers’ guard posts.  Moreover, the black soldiers got ten times as much obedience from the Indians loafing around the tepees and wickleups as did we of the white outfit.  The Indians would fairly jump to obey the uniformed Negroes.  I remember seeing a black sergeant make a minor chief go down to a creek to get a pail of water—­an unheard of thing, for the chiefs, and even the ordinary bucks among the Sioux, always make their squaws perform this sort of work.  This chief was sunning himself, reclining, beside his tepee, when his squaw started with the bucket for the creek some distance away.  The Negro sergeant saw the move.  He walked up to the lazy, grunting savage.”

“‘Look a-yeah, yo’ spraddle-nosed, yalluh voodoo nigguh,’ said the black sergeant—­he was as black as a stovepipe—­to the blinking chief, ‘jes’ shake yo’ no-count bones an’ tote dat wattuh yo’se’f.  Yo’ ain’ no bettuh to pack wattuh dan Ah am, yo’ heah me.’”

“The heap-much Indian chief didn’t understand a word of what the Negro sergeant said to him, but he understands pantomime all right, and when the black man in uniform grabbed the pail out of the squaw’s hand and thrust it into the dirty paw of the chief the chief went after that bucket of water, and he went a-loping, too.”

[Illustration.]

“The Sioux will hand down to their children’s children the story of a charge that a couple of Negro cavalry troops made during the Pine Ridge troubles.  It was of the height of the fracas, and the bad Indians were regularly lined up for battle.  Those two black troops were ordered to make the initial swoop upon them.  You know the noise one black man can make when he gets right down to the business of yelling.  Well, these two troops of blacks started their terrific whoop in unison when they were a mile away from the waiting Sioux, and they got warmed up and in better practice with every jump their horses made.  I give you my solemn word that in the ears of us of the white outfit, stationed three miles away, the yelps those two Negro troops of cavalry gave sounded like the carnival whooping of ten thousand devils.  The Sioux weren’t scared a little bit by the approaching clouds of alkali dust, but, all the same, when the two black troops were more than a quarter of a mile away the Indians broke and ran as if the old boy himself were after them, and it was then an easy matter to round them up and disarm them.  The chiefs afterward confessed that they were scared out by the awful howling of the black soldiers.”