SITTING BULL.



country surrounded by " bad-lands," which prevented the whites
from near approach, except on great and protracted expeditions,
like that led by Stanley. To form an idea of the " bad-lands,"
the eastern reader can use a familiar illustration. You have all
no doubt seen a clay-field after a long and hot drought in sm.m-
mer, how it is seamed over with innumerable cracks, perfectly
perpendicular, leaving miniature chasms between. Such, mag-
nified by a hundred, are the "bad-lands" of the north-west.
They are patches of clay soil, baked by the long and intense
droughts of that climate into chasms four or five feet wide and
perhaps twenty feet deep, absolutely impassable for wagons
where they occur, quagmires in the early spring freshets, a lab-
yrinth of ravines in the summer. These bad-lands surrounded
the country of the hostiles in 1873, and surround them now.
   So.much for the natural advantages of Sitting Bull's position,
considered in a defensive point of view, but a greater advantage
accrues to him from the strategic lines of the countrv and the
existence of the Indian agencies. A second look at the map will
reveal how the agencies affect the strategic position.
   Observe that the Missouri River, beginning in the north-
west corner of the map, describes nearly a perfect circle around
the country of the " hostiles," and remember that all the Indian
agencies are on this river, and you will begin to realize what is
meant by the "strategic advantages" of Sitting Bull. Begin-
ning at the mouth of the Cheyenne River, there are Cheyenne
Agency, Brule Agency, Grand River Agency, Standing Rock
Agency, Fort Berthold and Fort Peck and several other places,
all full of friendly Indians, supported by Government, and ready
to join the hostiles in the summer, bringing arms and ammu-
nition with them. To give an idea of the supplies of the latter,
let us take what went through in the spring of 1876 alone, for
distribution to Indians. Our evidence is contained in the private
letter of an officer on the spot. This officer has investigated the
matter, and finds that the following shipments were made by
river steamer to these agencies, and to Forts Benton, McLoud



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