Whoever it was who planned or placed Fort Minneconjou, one blunder at least could be laid at his door--that it had enabled the enemy to "locate" almost at the door of the fort. An odd condition of things was this that resulted from the discovery of precious metals in the magnificent tract misnamed the Black Hills--black presumably only in the dead of winter, when their pine-crested peaks and ridges stood boldly against the dazzling white of the Dakota snows. In '75 the Sioux had bartered their secret to chance explorers, and Custer came down with his scouting columns and confirmed the glittering rumor. In '76 the Sioux squared accounts with Custer afar to the northwest in the affair of the Little Big Horn, but while they were about it the miner and settler swarmed in behind and staked out claims and cities from which they could never be driven, for Crook's starved horses and starving men were fortunately so numerous they kept the southward tribes of the savage confederation too busy to bother with settlers. _They_ could be settled later, after the warriors had dealt by Crook as they did by Custer. When winter came, however, with Sitting Bull and the Uncapapas thrust beyond the British line, and Crazy Horse, raving, done to death by the steel of the guard he so magnificently defied, with Red Cloud disarmed and deposed, with Dull Knife disabled, with Lame Deer doubled up by the sturdy Fifth Infantry, and old Two Moons hiding his light in some obscure refuge of the wilderness, and the old men, the women and children herded on the reservation under the rifles of the army and the young men scattered or slain, there was nothing left for the hard-fighting, proud-spirited lords of the Hills--Ogalalla, Brulé and Minneconjou--but sullen acceptance of the great father's terms; and in this wise came Silver Hill to the heart of the fair valley, nestling under the screen of the Sagamore and its eastward spurs and the shield of Uncle Sam, who sliced off for military purposes a block from the Minneconjou reserve, and by way of compliment and consolation named the cantonment therein established after the tribe thereof dispossessed. All went swimmingly for the emigrant, the miner, the settler and the subsequent supremacy of the white man until in course of time a big post had to be built to replace the old log barracks, and from motives of economy, in order to reduce to a minimum the expense of hauling supplies and materials of the quartermaster's department, the new buildings were planted at the extreme eastern edge of the reservation, and before the first coat of paint was dry on the lintels the opposite bank of the stream, a short pistol shot from the line, was planted thick with shacks, shanties and saloons, and every known device of the devil to prey upon the soldier.