The Morrills and Reminiscences - C. H. Morrill

with these two gentlemen, and of listening to many stories describing past experiences in or near this locality. They had had many adventures and narrow escapes. General Miles stated that in this part of Wyoming Indian skeletons had been found seven and one-half feet in length.
     Colonel Cody was a natural-born entertainer and story teller. He had a very graphic and interesting way of relating his participation in Indian battles and as United States scout during the Indian wars. The town of Cody, at this time, had very few people; less than one hundred as I was informed. There were five saloons. The ranch owners and cowboys came to Cody to do their trading, and shooting up the town was a favorite pastime. There was very little irrigation in the Big Horn country and the nearest railroad point was Billings, about one hundred miles distant.
     On this trip Mr. Calvert and myself were chosen by the Burlington railroad officials to drive over the country and report on general conditions, so that it might be determined whether or not it was the proper time to construct a line of railroad into the territory. We traveled together for thirty days, driving to nearly every part of the Big Horn Basin.
     Mr. Calvert was a most agreeable, scholarly and pleasant companion, always ready to sacrifice his own personal comforts for the benefit of his associates. For twenty years we traveled over prospective railroad lines. I am proud to say that he was always one of my very best friends. No citizen of the West has done

more towards its upbuilding. During the years in which he was an official of the Burlington, he was the real pioneer, sent in advance to inspect new territory for projected lines.
     He was graduated in the Yale Scientific School in 1870, and after doing post-graduate work for the major part of a year, began his engineering career with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Company in April, 1871. His services have been continuous since that date. He was appointed general superintendent and engineer in 1886, and in 1904 was promoted to chief engineer of the entire Burlington system. Under his able management, this road grew rapidly from 70 to 5,000 miles. (Mr. Calvert died January 12, 1917.)
     Another of my traveling companions was Colonel H. B. Scott of Burlington, Iowa. Together we made many extended trips to inspect lands in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana,. with the intention of purchasing. These lands were always located on the extreme frontier and as it was often difficult to get transportation, we walked together for many hundreds of miles, and he proved to be a most congenial and trustworthy companion. He was always sanguine, and believed in the possibilities of the Great West. His happy temperament, pleasing stories, and general cheer robbed hard tramps of their tedium.
     On my different return trips through Montana and Wyoming, I often stopped at the Crow Indian Agency which is located about half way between Sheridan,

Wyoming and Billings, Montana. In 1876 the Crow Indians were located near Fort Robinson, Nebraska. At that time they numbered about five thousand, but in 1912 there were less than two thousand. The Government established schools at the Crow Agency and endeavored to educate the Indians, as well as to help them by teaching them how to farm. Teachers in Indian schools informed me that they were obliged to separate the sexes. In order to control young Indians, the boys and girls must be kept apart until they reached an age suitable for marriage. Before leaving the care of the Government and their teachers, the young squaws, with the consent of their parents, were generally married to young Indian men.
I traded with the Crow Indians many times for gewgaws of Indian work, which I afterwards placed in the University Museum. About this time I purchased a collection of Indian relics containing about two thousand specimens. This collection is loaned to the Nebraska State Historical Society and is on exhibition in its Museum on the University campus.
The Crow Indians have made very little progress in agriculture, for what they receive from the Government is sufficient to support them in idleness. The young Indians are generally indolent and their land remains uncultivated. It seems to be their highest ambition to own a pony and ride from one Indian camp to another. Indians refuse to dwell in houses and where the Government has constructed cottages for them they are used as stables for their horses while

the Indians live in tepees or tents near by. If an Indian is sick or dies in one of these tents it is immediately removed to another location to prevent other sickness or death. It is a tradition among them that sickness and death is the work of the "Evil One" and that the ground where a person dies is cursed. This explains why the Indians refuse to live in houses, as the removal of the same would be difficult and often impossible.
     I have often seen Indian men at the Agency painted from head to feet in different colors and without clothing. They seem to delight in decorating their bodies with paint, with strings of beads about their necks, enormous rings attached to their ears, and heavy brass bracelets about their wrists. The stomach of an Indian seems to digest food that would nauseate a white man; they relish meat that has turned green with decay, they eat the entrails of animals that have been dead several days, and they seem to thrive on an all meat diet, even without salt.
     After living among the Indians for more than three years I have come to believe that the efforts of the Government to educate them have, to a very large degree, been a failure. This is the conclusion of most men who have lived among them.
     On one of my trips in company with Mr. T. E. Calvert, we stopped overnight at a roadhouse called "Eagle's Nest," on the Shoshone River. When we arrived it was quite late in the evening and supper was over. We informed the proprietress that we had driven


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