should always want to get back where my children were born, and died, and were buried. That country is better than this in every respect. * * * There is plenty of good, cool water there—pure water—while here the water is not good. It is not hot there, nor so sickly. Are you going where my husband is? Can you tell when he is likely to be released?”
The Senators were obliged to reply to her that they were not going where her husband was, and they could not tell when he would be released.
In view of the accounts of the sickness and suffering of these Indians in 1877 and 1878, the reports made in 1879 of the industry and progress at the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Agency are almost incredible. The school children have, by their earnings, bought one hundred head of cattle; 451,000 pounds of freight have been transported by the Indians during the year; they have also worked at making brick, chopping wood, making hay, hauling wood, and splitting and hauling rails; and have earned thereby $7121 25. Two of the girls of the school have been promoted to the position of assistant teachers; and the United States mail contractor between this agency and Port Elliott, in Texas—a distance of one hundred and sixty-five miles—has operated almost exclusively with full-blooded Indians: “there has been no report of breach of trust on the part of any Indians connected with this trust, and the contractor expresses his entire approval of their conduct.”
It is stated also that there was not sufficient clothing to furnish each Indian with a warm suit of clothing, “as promised by the treaty,” and that, “by reference to official correspondence, the fact is established that the Cheyennes and Arapahoes are judged as having no legal rights to any lands, having forfeited their treaty reservation by a failure to settle thereon,” and their “present reservation not having been, as yet, confirmed by Congress. Inasmuch as the Indians fully understood, and were assured that this reservation was given to them in
