None of the equipment nor any trace of them was ever found.

Nothwithstanding Spotted Tail's avowed friendship for the whites, and his expressed opinion of the uselessness of struggling against the white race, when Wiltse's surveying party reached the vicinity of White Earth Creek, one hundred and sixty-two miles west of Keya Paha river, a number of Indian scouts

armed with Winchester rifles came to meet them, and for a pow-wow. They said that Spotted Tail did not want the line run.

Wiltse told them that he cared not for what the Indian tribes wanted, he used stronger language than that, for the great father had told him to run it, and run it he would. And run it he did.

The trail, or road, from Ft. Laramie to Spotted Tail's agency, came farther down the river than that to the Red Cloud agency. The eastmost of the Red Cloud roads ran through the vicinity of Agate, while that to Spotted Tail crossed near Spotted Tail Springs, Wind Springs, and over the Box Butte table. It will be observed that the relays between watering places, from starting point to destination, are the shortest distance possible, and yet it is almost a direct route.

The establishing of Fort Robinson, in 1876, was practically contemporaneous with the adjustment of the Indians in their different agencies. It was nearer to Red Cloud because the Red Cloud Indians needed watching more than those under Spotted Tail. In 1876, Red Cloud was deposed by the whites, and he no longer ruled as chief. The "great red cloud" -- his warriors wore red blankets, and moved as a cloud -- ceased to be a menace of the prairie, and his descendants now live pursuing the arts of peace.