During the winter, Major Allen had been appointed agent for the Blackfeet, and he reached the agency in the midst of the worst suffering, and before any effort had been made to relieve it.  He has told me a heart-rending story of the frightful suffering which he found among these helpless people.

In his efforts to learn exactly what was their condition, Major Allen one day went into twenty-three houses and lodges to see for himself just what the Indians had to eat.  In only two of these homes did he find anything in the shape of food.  In one house a rabbit was boiling in a pot.  The man had killed it that morning, and it was being cooked for a starving child.  In another lodge, the hoof of a steer was cooking,—­only the hoof,—­to make soup for the family.  Twenty-three lodges Major Allen visited that day, and the little rabbit and the steer’s hoof were all the food he found.  “And then,” he told me, with tears in his eyes, “I broke down.  I could go no further.  To see so much misery, and feel myself utterly powerless to relieve it, was more than I could stand.”

Major Allen had calculated with exactest care the supplies on hand, and at this time was issuing one-seventh rations.  The Indians crowded around the agency buildings and begged for food.  Mothers came to the windows and held up their starving babies that the sight of their dull, pallid faces, their shrunken limbs, and their little bones sticking through their skins might move some heart to pity.  Women brought their young daughters to the white men in the neighborhood, and said, “Here, you may have her, if you will feed her; I want nothing for myself; only let her have enough to eat, that she may not die.”  One day, a deputation of the chiefs came to Major Allen, and asked him to give them what he had in his storehouses.  He explained to them that it must be some time before the supplies could get there, and that only by dealing out what he had with the greatest care could the people be kept alive until provisions came.  But they said:  “Our women and children are hungry, and we are hungry.  Give us what you have, and let us eat once and be filled.  Then we will die content; we will not beg any more.”  He took them into the storehouse, and showed them just what food he had,—­how much flour, how much bacon, how much rice, coffee, sugar, and so on through the list—­and then told them that if this was issued all at once, there was no hope for them, they would surely die, but that he expected supplies by a certain day.  “And,” said he, “if they do not come by that time, you shall come in here and help yourselves.  That I promise you.”  They went away satisfied.

Meanwhile, the supplies were drawing near.  The officer in command of Fort Shaw had supplied fast teams to hurry on a few loads to the agency, but the roads were so bad that the wagon trains moved with appalling slowness.  At length, however, they had advanced so far that it was possible to send out light teams, to meet the heavily laden ones, and bring in a few sacks of flour and bacon; and every little helped.  Gradually the suffering was relieved, but the memory of that awful season of famine will never pass from the minds of those who witnessed it.