eer'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.

There is a record of between four and five hundred Indians who died of
hunger at this time, and this inc