He went with an old mining inspector, the two of them dragging a cottonwood sledge over the ice.

The walls of the canyon are so sheer and the water so rough that it can be descended only when the stream is frozen.

However, after six days' labor and hardship the descent was accomplished; and the surveyor, in concluding, described his experience in going through the Crow Reservation.
This turned the conversation upon Indians, and it appeared that both of our hosts had been actors in Indian scrapes which had attracted my attention at the time they occurred, as they took place among tribes that I knew and in a country which I had sometime visited, either when hunting or when purchasing horses for the ranch.

The first, which occurred to Captain Edwards, happened late in 1886, at the time when the crow Medicine Chief, Sword-Bearer, announced himself as the Messiah of the Indian race, during one of the usual epidemics of ghost dancing.
Sword-Bearer derived his name from always wearing a medicine sword--that is, a sabre painted red.

He claimed to possess magic power, and, thanks to the performance of many dexterous feats of juggling, and the lucky outcome of certain prophecies, he deeply stirred the Indians, arousing the young warriors in particular to the highest pitch of excitement.
They became sullen, began to paint and armed themselves; and the agent and the settlers nearby grew so apprehensive that the troops were ordered to go to the reservation.