The most utterly reckless, dare-devil savage of the copper hue
stands literally in awe of a Negro, and the blacker the Negro the more
the Indian quails. I can't understand why this should be, for the
Indians decline to give their reasons for fearing the black men,
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.
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