There was one house between Sidney and the bridge, a distance of fifty miles, and one house between Camp Clarke and Camp Robinson (the Red Cloud Sioux Indian Agency), seventy miles distant. This was a Sioux and Chevenne Indian country prior to the treaties. Mr. Clarke asked the government for protection. They furnished him a plan for Fort Clarke, which he built for the government: at its completion the War Department placed troops there. This was on the north end of the bridge, so that the range would take in the whole of the bridge. They also placed a company of cavalry at his place of busi-

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

ness on the south side of the river. Mr. Clarke asked the mail authorities to put in mail service to the Black Hills; the Postal Department declined to do so as it was Indian country. Some may recall the burning of Gordon*s outfit in the Black Hills country in 1875 by order of the War Department. Mr. Clarke contracted with the War Department to carry the army mail from Fort Sidney on the Union Pacific railroad to Camp Clarke, and to Camp Robinson on the north. He put on the Clarke Centennial Pony Express, supplying all towns in the Black Hills. He was postmaster at Camp Clarke, the government turning all mail over to him, accepting it from him, which was conducted until the government put on mail service. Hay was then from $100 to $150 a ton ; corn, 12c to 15c a pound. The Indians were troublesome. One of the pony riders, Rockafellow, at one time rode into a camp of haymakers and found four white men dead after an Indian attack.