Black Hills Gold: The Untold Story of Mad Bear and Big Wolf
It was 1880. Mad Bear and Big Wolf wouldn't have left Talking Rock Reservation if they hadn't been drunk, but they were, after three days and nights of drinking. The two were young and it was spring, a restless time for those who were born free on the open prairie and were now confined by boundaries of another culture's making. This was something the two young men couldn't tolerate.
Agent Tom didn't care about these two, but it was for defying him that he posted a two thousand dollar reward each for their capture, dead or alive, for insurrection against the United States Government.
All the young men talked about going to Canada to join Sitting Bull who had fled there after the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Custer's Last Stand, but, with Mad Bear and Big Wolf, the talk was now over. They had no other choice, there was no turning back to the reservation and there was no taking on the entire U.S. Army, drunk or not.
Cavalrymen were sent out from Ft. No Fort by General Wright to capture the renegade Sioux, outlaw soldiers led by Sgt. Hardy, but they intended to desert the Army and collect the reward for themselves.
Forced by Agent Tom against his will to pursue Mad Bear and Big Wolf and told not to come back to the reservation until he captured them, Black Heart, Chief of the Agency Police, began to plot against Agent Tom. Once Agent Tom was found dead, he believed, a new agent would be sent and he could return to the reservation and the comforts of the white man's life to which he had grown accustomed.
Mad Bear and Big Wolf made it safely into Canada with their wives, Whispering Wind and Many Tears, this was where they would rekindle their people's ancient way of life. Soldiers weren't allowed to cross the border, they knew, but Sgt. Hardy and his men did anyway. The border was a line no man could see and with four thousand dollars they could desert the Army and start a new life somewhere else.
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