The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.68

Treaty Commissioner Pollock then told the Indians the negotiations were ended, and the government would not force the Indians to sell, “The land is yours.” But, he knew the tribal land cession funds from the 1887 Agreement had been robbed by the agency ring and now the Chiefs negotiated for more cattle and exemption from allotment, which gave the Indians some hope for the future. Captain Cooke departed the reservation in 1895, and left under fire from his critics and the Blackfeet Indians who heartily disliked his military manner and racial prejudice, but he retained 27 mineral claims that might make him and his son Irvin richer for their tour of duty on the Blackfeet Reservation. The Blackfeet Chiefs reserved the buffalo grasses and timber reserves and water rights with which to rebuild the self-reliant tribal cattle industry in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five.

political resurrection of the “morphine eater”  

Agent George Steell, still “riding the dragon” made his triumphant return in 1895 to the scene of his cattle rustling in scattering the Blackfeet cattle herds toward his ranch on the reservation’s southern boundary. Tens of thousands of tribal dollars expended on the Willow Creek irrigation system by Captain Cooke were declared a waste by Agent Steell, but he expended thousands of more dollars to repair the system he had declared to be a waste, which irrigation system in turn was declared by Government Inspectors to be a waste of tribal funds. The ditches were built to transport tribal waters off-reservation to border-whites. The only successful irrigation systems on the Reservation were the short ditches built by Blackfeet ranchers off of the natural creeks which flowed through the reservation mountain meadows and valleys, which produced hay for sale and winter feed for the Indian’s cattle herds when the temperature reached 40 degrees below zero.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.68