but the fact remains that even a very bad Indian will give the
mildest-mannered Negro imaginable all the room he wants, and to spare,
as any old regular army soldier who has frontiered will tell you.
The Indians, I fancy, attribute uncanny and eerie qualities to the
blacks."

"The cavalry troop to which I belonged soldiered alongside a couple of
troops of the 9th Cavalry, a black regiment, up in the Sioux country
eight or nine years ago. We were performing chain guard, hemming-in
duty, and it was our chief business to prevent the savages from
straying from the reservation. We weren't under instructions to riddle
them if they attempted to pass our guard posts, but were authorized to
tickle them up to any reasonable extent, short of maiming them, with
our bayonets, if any of them attempted to bluff past us. Well, the men
of my troop had all colors of trouble while on guard in holding the
savages in. The Ogalallas would hardly pay any attention to the white
sentries of the chain guard, and when they wanted to pass beyond the
guard limits they would invariably pick out a spot for passage that
was patrolled by a white 'post-humper.' But the guards of the two
black troops didn't have a single run-in with the savages. The Indians
made it a point to remain strictly away from the Negro soldiers' guard
posts. Moreover, the black soldiers got ten times as much obedience
from the Indians loafing around the tepees and wickleups as did we of
the white outfit. The Indians would fairly jump to obey the uniformed
Negroes. I remember seeing a black sergeant make a minor chief go
down to a creek to get a pail of water--an unheard of thing, for the
chiefs, and even the ordinary bucks among the Sioux, always make their
squaws perform this sort of work. This chief was sunning himself,
reclining, beside his tepee, when his squaw started with the bucket
for the creek some distance away. The Negro sergeant saw the move. He