The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau pg.61-62

Inspector McCormick reported on the Blackfeet Agency: “While I can’t substantiate it, yet, I have but little doubt that there has been what is called an “agency ring” at this place. Believing that the Agent, in the fight he is about to make with the cattlemen who are grazing on this reservation, will need men in his office that he can thoroughly rely upon, is the reason that I advised him to get rid of them and if my suspicions are correct as to their being members of what was an agency ring, it can readily be seen what damage can be done by them.”

A few days after McCormick left the reservation, Captain Cooke discovered that there were large herds of white stockmen’s cattle trespassing on the reservation, and he took out advertisements in the local papers to warn the trespassers he would penalize them $1 a head, which herds he estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 head. He fired the half breed agency interpreters, who he blamed for being “untrustworthy” and kept the agency prospector, and E.C. Garrett, the Chief Clerk. Captain Cooke spent his time eradicating the last vestiges of Indian culture of the Blackfeet Indians, even threatening Indian women with jail for beading, rather than pursuing his official duties in preventing cattle trespass and illegal mineral prospecting by the local squaw men. Captain Cooke had become leader of the “agency ring” in a short time, preventing mineral prospecting by “outsiders” while his son Irvin, employed as issue clerk, prospected with Chief Clerk Garrett in the mountain lands of the Blackfeet reservation targeted by James J. Hill.

“Jobbery” by Frontier Montana Society

The Anaconda Standard published an ‘expose’ on the opening of the Blackfeet Mineral Belt in 1896 with the headline-JOBBERY IS ALLEGED-sub-titled “A Rich Mineral Belt is said to be Under Covetous Eyes-In The Blackfoot Reserve-Rumor Has It That Influential Men Are Scheming to Gobble the Whole Tract When Congress Says the Word”: Great Falls, Sept. 11, “At different times during the past two years rumors of a sensational character have floated over the country regarding an alleged gigantic piece of jobbery and crookedness in connection with the opening up of what is known as the rich mineral belt of the Blackfoot reservation. These stories have been vigorously denied or cautiously suppressed only to be enlarged on and repeated a few months later in slightly different form or with more startling emphasis and elaborate details. Prominent politicians, alleged statesmen, members of Congress, federal officials, army officers, railway magnates, and well-known business men in and out of Montana have been charged with being members of a powerful “ring” which it is maintained, has been organized for the sole purpose of gobbling up the more valuable mineral properties and town site locations on the reserve, and utilizing the same to the personal advantage of members of the syndicate.
-The Sacred Buffalo Vision by Robert J. Juneau and Robert C. Juneau  
pg.61-62