It is no secret that Red Cloud’s ponies were looked upon as legitimate prey by the Whites living near the reservation. One man told me he had seen a bunch of cattle driven around the beef corral twice in order to figure in a double count, and corn and provisions had been passed twice through a certain building in order that some one might make just 100 per cent off the Indians. During the early ’70’s horse-stealing was carried on to a surprising extent, and Indian ponies were openly sold in frontier towns. A deputy United States marshal, who had twenty years’ experience on the reservation of the Sioux, told me that some detectives and trailers employed by the Government were in league with the thieves and received two compensations—one from the Government and the other from their confederates. Stolen stock was seldom recovered. The warriors, becoming desperate, would steal stock from some ranchman in retaliation. Another method of getting even was to complain to the officers at Fort Robinson, who would give the Sioux an escort of troops. Along the trail of the robbers the combined forces traveled as rapidly as possible, and, upon reaching any ranch or town where ponies were assembled in large numbers, the warriors would claim, and apparently identify as their property, a number of horses. Protests on the part of the Whites were of no avail, and the triumphant party would return with some of the stolen stock, and, perhaps, some which had never been on their pastures. I asked an old Indian about this and he said it seldom happened, but as they lost thousands of horses which were never recovered, and as nearly all white men living near the reservation were there to rob the Indians, and as every white man (whether he had or had not Sioux ponies on hand) would deny knowledge of the location of stolen stock, he thought it was fair and just to seize everything in sight!