protect the travelers who passed over it. This treaty contained a very wise provision, to the effect that each of the bands should select one great chief and ten subordinate chiefs, whom the government should recognize as having full authority in the band. These chiefs were to select a sufficient number of young men to form a strong police force to preserve order in the camp. The government was to clothe and furnish food for these chiefs and policemen. In view of the experience of recent years it is very certain that, had this wise plan been carried out, the government would have had little more trouble with the Teton Sioux, but Congress refused to ratify the treaty, or make provision for the uniforms and subsistence of the chiefs and police.
At this treaty council, Sitting Bull, then a boy eighteen years of age, first came to the attention of white men. He was an overgrown, boorish, low-caste man, who came in the capacity of horse herder to Chief White Swan.
Captain La Barge relates an amusing circumstance which occurred at this council. Chloroform was just coming into use among physicians, and all of its properties were not then very well understood. Harney, to impress the Indians, was making some strong boasts of the superior knowledge of the white men. "Why," he said, "we can kill a man and then bring him back to life. Here, surgeon," he commanded, "kill this dog and restore it to life again." The surgeon caught up an Indian dog and administered to it a strong dose of chloroform. In a few moments he threw its body to the chiefs, who examined it and pronounced it "plenty dead." After an interval
