He helped Jack during haying and harvest, and when their tasks were done the two boys wandered away to the bank of the river and there, under some great basswood tree on delicious sward, they lay and talked of wild animals and Indians and the West.

At this time the great chieftains of the Sioux, Sitting Bull and Gall, were becoming famous to the world, and the first reports of the findings of gold in the Black Hills were being made.

A commission appointed by President Grant had made a treaty with the Sioux wherein Sitting Bull was told, "If you go to this new reservation and leave Dakota to the settlers, you shall be unmolested so long as grass grows and water runs." But the very guard sent in to protect this commission reported "gold in the grass roots," and the insatiate greed of the white man broke all bounds--the treaty was ignored, and Sitting Bull, the last chieftain of the Sioux, calling his people together, withdrew deeper into the wilderness of Wyoming.

The soldiers were sent on the trail, and the press teemed for months with news of battles and speeches and campaigns.
All these exciting events Harry and his friend Jack read and discussed hotly.

Jack was eager to own a mine.