Chapter VIII: Part 8

Some soldiers came to get water from the river, just as our old men had said they likely would do. The white men crept down a deep gulch and then ran across an open space to the water. Each one had a bucket, and each would dip his bucket for water and run back into the gulch. I put myself, with others, where we could watch for these men. I shot at one of them just as he straightened up after having dipped his bucket into the water. He pitched forward into the edge of the river. He went wallowing along the stream, trying to swim, but having a hard time at it. I jumped out from my hiding place and ran toward him. Two Sioux warriors got ahead of me. One of them waded after the man and struck him with a rifle barrel. Finally he grabbed the man, hit him again, and then dragged him dead to the shore, quite a distance down the river. I kept after them, following down the east bank. Some other Sioux warriors came. I was the only Cheyenne there. The Sioux agreed that my bullet had been the first blow upon the white soldier, so they allowed me to choose whatever I might want of his belongings.[40]

I searched into the man’s pockets. In one I found a folding knife and a plug of chewing tobacco that was soaked and spoiled. In another pocket was a wad of the same kind of green paper taken from the soldiers the day before. It too was wet through. I threw it aside. In this same pocket were four white metal pieces of money. I knew they were of value in trading, but I did not know how much was their value. In later times I have learned they were four silver dollars. A young Cheyenne there said: “Give the money to me.” I did not care for it, so I gave it to him. He thanked me and said: “I shall use it to buy for myself a gun.” I do not remember now his name, but he was a son of One Horn. A Sioux picked up the wad of green paper I had thrown upon the ground. It was almost falling to pieces, but he began to spread out some of the wet sheets that still held together. Pretty soon he said:

“This is money. This is what white men use to buy things from the traders.”

I had seen much other paper like it during the afternoon before. Wolf Medicine had offered to give me a handful of it. But I did not take it. I already had thrown away some of it I had found. But even after I was told it could be used for buying things from the traders, I did not want it. I was thinking then it would be a long time before I should see or care to see any white man trader.

I went riding over the ground where we had fought the first soldiers during the morning of the day before. I saw by the river, on the west side, a dead black man. He was a big man. All of his clothing was gone when I saw him, but he had not been scalped nor cut up like the white men had been. Some Sioux told me he belonged to their people but was with the soldiers.[41]

As some of us were looking at the body of an Indian who had been with the soldiers, an old Sioux said:

“This is a Corn[42] Indian, not a Crow nor Shoshone.”

He showed us the differences in appearance, especially the earrings and the hair dressing. The Crow men wore their hair cut off above the forehead and roached up. The Shoshones had almost the same way of placing this foretop. The Corn Indians kept their hair in braids, parted like that of the Sioux and Cheyennes, but the Corn Indian parting was not in the middle of the top, as ours was. I examined again the one I had helped in beating to death. I learned he also was a Corn Indian. I found yet a third one. We who had killed them were young men, and there was great excitement at the time, so we had not observed their tribal connection. We had supposed them to be the same Crows and Shoshones we had fought on the upper Rosebud creek a few days before. Now there began to be talk that maybe these soldiers were not the same ones we had fought there. Or, perhaps they had added the Corn Indians to their forces since that time. There were different opinions on the matter.

Some Sioux caught a mule that wandered out from the place where the soldiers were together on the hilltop. The animal was going down toward the river when the Indians got it. They tried to lead it toward their sheltered place behind a knoll, but it would not go. It appeared to be wanting a drink of water. One Sioux got behind it and whipped it, while a companion pulled at the leading strap. But the mule just stood there, would not move. On its back were packs of cartridges. The Sioux took these and let the mule go.

I went with other Cheyennes along the hills northward to the ground where we had killed all of the soldiers. Lots of women and boys were there. The boys were going about making coups by stabbing or shooting arrows into the dead men. Some of the bodies had many arrows sticking in them. Many hands and feet had been cut off, and the limbs and bodies and heads had many stabs and slashes. Some of this had been done by the warriors, during and immediately after the battle. More was added, though, by enraged and weeping women relatives of the Sioux and Cheyennes who had been killed. The women used sheathknives and hatchets.

A dog was following one of the Sioux women among the dead soldiers. I did not see any other dog there, neither on that day nor on the day before, when the fight was on. There were some Indian dogs tangling among the feet of the horses at the time of the fighting of the first soldiers, on the valley above the camps. But even here most of them were called away by the women and old people going to the western hilltops.

Three different soldiers, among all of the dead in both places of battle, attracted special notice from the Indians. The first was the man wearing the buckskin suit and who had the colored writing and pictures on his breast and arms. Another was the black man killed among the first soldiers on the valley. The third was one having gold among his teeth. We did not understand how this metal got there, nor why it was there.

Paper boxes of ammunition were in the leather bags carried on the saddles of the soldiers. Besides, in all of the belts taken from the dead men there were cartridges. Some belts had only a few left in them. In others the loops still contained many, an occasional one almost full. I did not see nor hear of any belt entirely emptied of its cartridges.

All during that forenoon, as well as during the afternoon and night before, both in the camps and on the battle grounds, Indians were saying to each other: “I got some tobacco.” “I got coffee.” “I got two horses.” “I got a soldier saddle.” “I got a good gun.” Some got things they did not understand.

One young Cheyenne took something from a dead soldier just after all of them had been killed. He was puzzled by it. Some others looked at it. I was with them. It was made of white metal and had glass on one side. On this side were marks of some kind. While the Cheyenne was looking at it he got it up toward his ear. Then he put it up close.

“It is alive!” he said.

Others put it to their ears and listened. I put it up to mine.

“Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick,” it was saying.

We talked about its use. We agreed generally it was that soldier’s special medicine. Many Indians came and wondered about it. The young man decided to keep it for his own medicine.

When I was getting ready the next morning to go and fight again the soldiers staying on the hilltop, the Cheyenne young man had a crowd around him again examining his strange white man medicine. They were listening, but it made no sound. After different ones had studied it, he finally threw it away as far as he could throw it.

“It is not good medicine for me,” he said. “It is dead.”

I saw another soldier medicine thing something like this one, but the other one was larger and it did not make the ticking noise. It acted, though, like it was alive. When it was held with the glass side up a little arrow fluttered around. When it was held quiet for a while the arrow gradually stopped fluttering. Every time it stopped the point of the arrow was toward the north, down the valley. There was talk then of other soldiers coming from that direction, so it was decided this medicine object was useful for finding out at any time where might be soldiers. Little Shield had it when I saw it. He gave it to High Walking. Another Cheyenne got a pair of field glasses. We understood them. This was a big pair.

Cleaners for the rifles puzzled us a while. They were in joints and were carried in a long hole in the end of the wooden stock. Pretty soon we learned what was their use. I saw one rifle that had a shell of cartridge in its barrel. A Sioux had it. He could not put into the gun any other cartridge, so he threw it into the river.

Yellow Weasel, a Cheyenne, got a bugle. He tried to make a noise with it, but he could not. Others tried. Different ones puffed and blowed at it. But nobody could make it sound out. After a while we heard a bugle making a big noise somewhere among the Sioux. The Cheyennes said: “The Sioux got a good one. This one Yellow Weasel has is no good. He might as well throw it away.” But he kept it, and it was not long until he was making it sound.

One Cheyenne got a flag. There were several others among the Sioux. I do not know just how many they got, but I believe I saw nine of them.

Bridle bits were thrown away, but the leather parts were kept. I got two sets of bridle reins, but no other parts of the bridles. A Cheyenne gave them to me. All of the soldier boots were taken from them. But they were not worn by the Indians. The bottoms were cut off and discarded. Only the tops used. These made good leather pouches, or the leather was cut up to make something else. Old men were allowed to have all of the saddles. But only a few of the Cheyenne old men got them. I saw lots of Sioux old men riding around on soldier saddles, either on the soldier horses or the Indian horses.

All of the soldier horses taken by the Indians were good. They were fat and sleek and strong and lively. They were better than any of the Indian horses. Some were killed or were so badly wounded we did not want them. But when we could scare them away from the soldiers as the fighting was going on, we did this. Any time that horses got among us we turned them toward the river, for the old men or the boys to capture. It was easy to do this, as they were very thirsty. One big band of them went down from the west end of the ridge.

Noisy Walking died during the night after the great battle. Six Cheyennes now had been killed. Another man, Open Belly, was badly wounded and was expected to die. He was about thirty years old, but he had neither wife nor children. The six dead were:

Lame White Man, age about thirty-eight, wife and two children.

Limber Bones, age twenty, not married.

Black Bear, age twenty, not married.

Noisy Walking, age eighteen, not married.

Hump Nose, age sixteen, not married.

Whirlwind, age sixteen, not married.

Others had wounds that crippled them but did not threaten to kill them. Little Bird got a bullet through a thigh. Many had scratch wounds. Sun Bear almost got killed. He went into the first great Cheyenne charge. A bullet glanced off his forehead. He was dazed and he fell down. But he got up right away and went on fighting.

Hump Nose and Whirlwind were killed during the first battle, above the camps. Hump Nose fell on the west side of the river, in the valley fighting. Whirlwind’s death took place on the east side, when he had the fight with the Corn Indian, who also was killed. Lame White Man and Noisy Walking received their bullets at the time of the first charge among the Custer soldiers who rode down toward the river. Open Belly, our man who died after we arrived east of Powder river, was hit by a soldier bullet when he was riding across the bench where the stone house of the Custer Battlefield National Cemetery now is standing. Limber Bones and Black Bear were killed on the steep slope just north of the present Custer stone monument. Both Limber Bones and Black Bear were a little taller than I was. After they were gone I was the tallest young man in the tribe, I believe. I heard of a few women riding out to watch the fighting, but I did not see any women there during that time. None of them was doing any fighting. All of them kept far back.

The Indians supposed all the time that these were the same soldiers we had fought on the upper Rosebud valley. Little Wolf and his people, arriving just after the fight ended, explained to us that these men just killed came from another direction. Then, when we learned that the Indians with these soldiers at the Little Bighorn were Corn Indians, not Crows or Shoshones, it began to appear that the Little Wolf band had it right, that these really were not the Rosebud battle soldiers.

During the afternoon it was learned that yet another band of white men were coming up the Little Bighorn valley.[43] All of the young men wanted to fight them. A council of chiefs was held. They decided we should continue in our same course--not fight any soldiers if we could get away without doing so. All of the Indians then got ready to move.

Mourning families abandoned and left behind their meat, robes, cooking pots and everything else they owned, as well as their vacated or destroyed lodges. That was a custom among all of the Sioux tribes the same as with the Cheyennes. I saw several Sioux tepees left standing. I supposed there were dead warriors in some of them, or perhaps in all of them. Some Cheyenne tepees were left standing. These had belonged to families wherein a member had been killed. But, except the lodges and property abandoned by mourning people, all of the possessions of the Indians were taken with us.

Late in the afternoon the procession of tribes was in movement. Again, as at all other times, the Cheyennes went ahead and the Uncpapas came last. Several parties of young men went aside to go across the river and shoot again among the soldiers camped on the high hill. A few stayed there until darkness came. Uncpapa scouts watched behind, observing particularly the new band of soldiers coming up the Little Bighorn valley.

We set out southwestward up the small valley of a creek just south of the present Garryowen railroad station. Soon we mounted to the benchland and traveled southward. Late in the night, the whole caravan stopped and rested a few hours, all sleeping in the open, with no lodges. At daylight we traveled on, now following up the Little Bighorn valley. During the afternoon we stopped for camping. The Cheyenne circle, at the leading or southern end, was about two miles below the mouth of Greasy Grass creek, below the place where now is located the town of Lodge Grass, Montana.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] In a letter published in Brady’s book, Private Wm. E. Morris tells of the death of Tanner, of Troop M, while he was after water for the Reno wounded men.--T. B. M.

[41] Isaiah, a negro, Sioux interpreter for the Seventh cavalry.--T. B. M.

[42] The Arikaras were known as Corn people.--T. B. M.

[43] The Terry-Gibbon forces. They camped that night on the site of the present Crow Agency.--T. B. M.

XI

_Rovings after the Victory._

All of the lodges were set up here below the mouth of Greasy Grass creek. All of the six tribal camp circles were arranged as they had been before the soldiers came and troubled us. The Cheyennes again were on one of their favorite old camping spots. They still were at the advance side of the group of circles. The Uncpapas still were at the opposite side.

I was stationed as a wolf to keep lookout from a hill near our camp. As I sat there, an Indian young man rode up to me. He asked me, in Sioux language, “Who are you?” I said, “I am a Cheyenne.” He got down from his horse. He had tobacco and a pipe, and we had a smoke together. He told me he belonged to the Waist and Skirt people, but I already could see that, by his earrings. All of the Waist and Skirt men wore elk teeth hanging from their ears. After we had smoked and visited a while, he said:

“I think the big chief of the soldiers we killed was named Long Hair. One of my people killed him. He has known Long Hair many years, and he is sure this was him. He could tell him by the long and wavy yellow hair.”

This was the first time I ever had heard of any such person as Long Hair. The news was interesting to me at first, but after I had thought a few moments about it the story seemed not very important. I recalled myself having seen at least three soldiers having long and light-colored hair. One of these I had shot after he was dead. Just after the end of the fighting I saw this long-haired soldier lying there without any appearance of wounds on him. So I put the muzzle of my rifle against the side of his head and sent a bullet through it. This man’s clothing was gone when I first saw him. I had not any thought about whether or not he was a chief.

A great council was held at the Greasy Grass camp that night. Chiefs of all of the tribes were there. It was out of doors, in the midst of the camp circles. I believe it was at the Ogallala camp, but I am not sure. At this council I heard an Uncpapa Sioux war chief say:

“Long Hair was big chief of the soldiers. I saw him there, and I killed him. I know it was him. I could not mistake the long and wavy yellow hair.”[44]

I did not hear anyone else during that time make claims of knowing who was the soldier big chief. There was some talk, though, that all of those soldiers had been chosen specially for their bravery and had been sent out direct from Washington. It was generally agreed that whoever was the big chief of them, he must have been the big chief of all of the white man soldiers in the world.

At this council I heard chiefs of the different tribes announce the number of their killed. The Cheyennes had lost 6. Uncpapas, 7. Arrows All Gone, 4. Minneconjoux, 3. Ogallalas, 2. I have forgotten the numbers from the Waist and Skirt, Burned Thigh and Blackfeet Sioux. I think, though, that all of these three tribes together might have lost 7 or 8. Total deaths, about 30.[45]

The Cheyenne warriors had a dance at this Greasy Grass camp. Charcoal Bear, our medicine chief, brought the buffalo skin from the sacred tepee and put it upon the top of a pole in the center of our camp circle. We danced around this pole. No women took part in the dancing. Many of them had sore legs from the mourning cuts. Our dance was not carried very far into the night. It was mostly a short telling of experiences, a counting of coups. My father told, in a few words, what his two sons had done. When he had ended the telling of my warrior acts, he said: “The name of this son of mine is Wooden Leg.” Up to this time some people still used my boyhood name, Eats From His Hand. But now this old name was entirely gone.

Some of the Sioux people had little dances here, the same as the Cheyennes were having. But not all of them did this. The Uncpapas did not dance. They said it was not time, that we ought to mourn yet a while. Some of them came to look on quietly at our gathering.

Only one sleep we stayed at the Greasy Grass location. The great band of Indians trailed from there on up the Little Bighorn valley. Our next stop was near where is the present town of Wyola.

An accidental killing took place during the time we were at this next camp. That afternoon, as we were traveling, a Cheyenne named Coffee was among the men who hunted buffalo along the way. He got a load of meat on his pack horse and joined us just after the camp had been set up. He belonged to our tribal medicine lodge, as a helper for the chief medicine man. He rode to the medicine lodge and made a movement to dismount from his horse. He had a rifle strapped in front of his body. As he swung himself from the horse, his rifle accidentally was discharged. Coffee originally had been a Southern Cheyenne, but for many years he had been a member of our tribe. He was an old man, but he never was married. He said that one having his position as helper to the medicine chief ought not to have a wife. But Charcoal Bear, the medicine chief, had a wife and two children.

After one sleep at this place we turned eastward and went over the hills to the extreme upper Rosebud. One sleep at this place. We moved on down, going past the ground where we had fought the soldiers on this creek. We camped a few miles below where this fight had taken place. One sleep here. The movement was kept up down this valley. The next camp was pitched near the present Busby. After one sleep here we traveled on northward. This time we stopped at our favorite old camping place on the Rosebud above the mouth of Muddy creek.

I was not with the camps at all of these stopping places. Like many others, I was out a part of the time looking for meat. I took it to my people when I could get any. Buffalo were scarce along the line of travel, so most of the game killed was elk, deer or antelope. Many people among the Indians were hungry for more food. Partly because of the fast traveling and partly because the hunters were not going far on account of soldiers in the country, the food demands of the people could not be supplied to their full satisfaction.

I went out with one party, though, as far as the present town of Sheridan, Wyoming. We found there plenty of buffalo. We loaded our pack horses and started to return to the moving Indians. But somebody saw soldiers, or it was said they had been seen. I did not see them. But I quickly threw off the meat from my pack horse, the same as the others did, and we rode away southward as fast as our horses could go. Not far off we got into a wooded canyon and hid there until darkness came. At night we went back and picked up all of our meat. We then traveled on, and the next day we got to our people.

We Cheyennes had a dance at our camp near the mouth of Muddy creek, on the Rosebud. I do not recollect any dance in any other tribal circle at this place. Our warriors again talked in public of acts at the great battle. One would dance, flourish a gun, and say, “I killed a white man soldier.” Another would do the same. Each one who did this had to have witnesses to verify his claims. A few women took part in the dance. My grandmother was one of them. She had the bearded face scalp I gave to her, and she told of my doings in the fight with the first soldiers. After this dance, she threw away the scalp.

One sleep we stayed here. Then we continued down the Rosebud. The next stop was below the mouth of Lame Deer creek, as it now is known. We moved from there on down to the mouth of the stream now called Greenleaf creek. All along the Rosebud we had seen the trail of the soldiers we had killed at the Little Bighorn. We now had full proof that they had come up this valley from the Yellowstone. After one sleep at the Greenleaf camping place we left the Rosebud valley.

The direction of movement was turned eastward. We followed the little branch stream to its head and went on over the divide to Tongue river. Stopped there, one sleep. Next day, traveled up this valley to Otter creek and on up this little valley several miles. One sleep in the camp on Otter creek. The next camp was set up at the head of Otter creek. The day after that our great band of tribes went over another divide and camped on what the white people call Pumpkin creek. One sleep, then eastward to a branch of Powder river. Next, to Powder river. Following, one day of travel down Powder river and one more camping beside this stream. Crossed the river and went up a creek flowing into its east side. This creek is the next one south of that one where the combined Indians had traveled in starting from east of Powder river toward the valleys westward from there.

We now were in the same region where all of the tribes had come together three months before this time. In coming back to the gathering place all of the Indians traveled together, as we had done in going westward from it. The Cheyennes still were moving in the advance and camping in the advance. The Uncpapas still were following last and camping last. On the return we hurried from place to place. There was no stopping for special hunting. I believe we remained only one sleep at each of the camps. I may have forgotten one or two places of our camping. I think, though, that it was sixteen or more sleeps from the battle camp on the Little Bighorn back to this place on the creek east of Powder river.

Open Belly, our badly wounded man, died here east of Powder river. One wounded Sioux had died along the way. This brought the Cheyenne loss from the battle up to seven. Some Sioux count also was increased by one. All of the Indians then had lost about thirty-two warriors as a result of the great battle. The wounded men had been carried during all of the journey on travois beds. That makes easier riding than any other way I know. But it may have been they could have become well if during all the time they had been quiet in a lodge.

The Indians were hungry. Our meat was all gone. The horses had been traveling hard every day and were tired. The fat and sleek soldier horses we had were more tired than the Indian ponies. It was said this was because they were not used to living on grass alone, as the Indian ponies were.

We stayed four or five sleeps at this camping place. Every day the chiefs met in council. Finally, they decided on a separation of the tribes. It seemed there was no danger just now from soldiers. By traveling separately, or in small bands, more meat and skins could be taken by each tribe or band. The horses all could get more grass when scattered. Everybody agreed it was best to separate. I think this was the intention of the chiefs all the time, but we were staying together for yet a few days of final visiting in a quiet camp before the separation.

The Cheyennes went first down the Powder river. We followed it to where it flows into Elk river. We found a big pile of corn in sacks by Elk river. We fed some of it to our soldier horses. Some people cooked a little and ate it. We emptied out most of the remainder and took the sacks.

By Powder river we saw lying dead an old man and an old woman. They were Sioux. Both of the bodies were humped down close together among some brush as if they had been in hiding there when they had been shot. Many bullet wounds were in both of them, all of the holes in the back of the head and back of the body. There were lots of tracks of soldier horses there. The old man was scalped, but the woman was not.

We saw a steamboat on Elk river. Soldiers were on the boat. As they passed along, some of the Cheyennes shot at them. I do not know whether or not any soldier was hit by the shots. They did not shoot back at us. The boat did not stop.

We moved back up Powder river. We camped and hunted all along far above the forks of the Powder and the Little Powder. We went over to Tongue river, to the upper Rosebud, to the upper Little Bighorn branches. We moved back and forth among the valleys of these higher regions. We got plenty of game and our horses had plenty of grass.

Four Cheyennes, Bear Man, Bullets Not Harm Him, Big Nose and myself Wooden Leg, went out from a camp on the upper Rosebud to get buffalo meat. We went far out southward. We got our pack horses loaded and started back. We heard many shots following close after each other.

“Soldiers are after somebody,” we agreed.

We hurried away from that neighborhood. None of us went to look. The next day at camp we learned what had happened. Some soldiers had been after a mixed hunting party of Sioux and Cheyennes. Tall Bear, a Cheyenne, had been killed.

All during the remainder of the summer the Cheyennes traveled and hunted. We kept mostly in the upper parts of the valleys. Not many of our people went to the reservation. But some more came out and joined us. Dull Knife, the old man chief, was with us soon after the separation of the tribes. All of the four old men chiefs now were here. Charcoal Bear kept our tribal medicine lodge set up at every place of camping. When the leaves began to fall we were on Powder river. We camped and hunted along up its valley. As the snows of winter began to fall we moved farther up.

Ten of us young men decided to go on a war party against the Crows. Black Hawk and Yellow Weasel were the big men or leaders of this party. We left the tribal camp on a small creek flowing into the west side of Powder river. It was located then almost in the Big Horn mountains, far up beyond where now is Buffalo, Wyoming.

Six sleeps we ten Cheyenne warriors traveled westward and northward, looking all the time for Crows. We would kill any Crow found, if we could, or whatever horses of theirs we might find would be made ours if we could get them. Our sixth sleep was on the west side of the Bighorn river, just below the place where in past times had been the soldier fort.[46] We now were in Crow land. But we had not yet seen any Crow Indian.

We followed on down the west side of the Bighorn to its mouth. We crossed there to its east side and went a little distance down the Elk river. There we saw a Crow man, woman and some children traveling up the valley with only their one lodge. We hid back. They did not see us. We decided not to harm them. We turned back and set off up the east side of the Bighorn. When we got to the mouth of the Little Bighorn we followed up this valley. Our tenth sleep of the war journey found us camping where now is Crow Agency, only a short distance down the river from where had been the great combined camp when we had fought the soldiers during the early summer.

We rode next morning all about the camping places of the Indians when the soldiers had come. We looked where had been the little shelter camps after the battle with them. We went then across the river and over to the ridge where we had killed all of the soldiers. The weather was clear and chilly, but not cold. There was no snow on the ground. We led our horses as we walked all over the battle field. Each man told the others of his own experiences during the fight. I showed them where Noisy Walking had been found and where my brother and I came upon the body of Lame White Man. The places where all of the killed Cheyennes and many of the Sioux had fallen were known by some one or other of us. We visited all of these places and talked of the dead Indian friends.

Dirt and sagebrush mounds now were at the places where had been the dead soldiers. In a few places we could see some parts of their bodies exposed. But mostly the graves were good, except they had no stones piled over them. At one end of many different ones of the graves was a straight board stuck into the ground, to stand up there. They were straight boards, not crosses. Dead horses were lying in decay here and there among the graves. Wolves had been eating at the horses. I did not notice any place where it appeared wolves had been at the graves.

I found a folding knife that had belonged to some soldier. Another of our party found a Sioux sheathknife. Soldier boot bottoms and other pieces of soldier belongings were scattered here and there. I saw some broken Cheyenne spears. There were many hundreds of arrows lying all along the ridge and on its sides. Some were Cheyenne arrows, but mostly they were from the bows of the Sioux.

I hunted specially for cartridges. The others also picked them up, but they were getting them to give to friends. I was the only one of this party having a soldier rifle. There were lots of empty shells, and from place to place we picked up loaded ones. Near a dead horse I found a whole pasteboard boxful of good cartridges. There were forty of them in the box. The box had been rotted by rain and had fallen apart, but the cartridges were good. They only needed to be wiped dry. I filled my belt and put the remainder into my pockets. Others found other boxfuls.

We went on southward over the hills to the place where the first soldiers had hidden themselves on the hilltop. We found other cartridges here. After having looked a while at this place we forded the river to the west side and walked about over the valley where the first fight had taken place. One other man and myself were the only two in this party who had been in this battle. We told our companions about how we chased the soldiers and killed them. I showed them right where I had taken my rifle from the soldier and where I had helped in killing the Corn Indian. I pointed out to them the place where I was hidden and where was the soldier when I shot him as he was dipping up water. I told of my getting the wet tobacco from a hip pocket and the metal money from another pocket. They laughed when I told of having thrown aside the wet paper money the soldier had folded and laid into a little paper box.

We slept this night only a little distance up the valley from this first battle ground. Here we made for ourselves the same kind of little brush shelters we had been making each night. We slept by twos or in groups, to keep warm.

The next morning we set out over the divide eastward toward the Rosebud. We followed the same trail regularly used by the Indians traveling this region, the same that had been used by the soldiers in coming to us. Four more sleep camps we made in going on eastward to Tongue river and up this valley. Somewhere below the mouth of Hanging Woman creek our scouts caught sight of Indians coming down the valley. All of us got to where we might see. Most of the Indians were afoot. Only a few had horses. We watched and wondered. Who were these people?

The band of walking Indians were our Cheyennes, the whole tribe. They had but little food. Many of them had no blankets nor robes. They had no lodges. Only here and there was one wearing moccasins. The others had their feet wrapped in loose pieces of skin or of cloth. Women, children and old people were straggling along over the snow-covered trail down the valley. The Cheyennes were very poor.

Our people told us of soldiers and Pawnee Indians having come to the camp far up Powder river where we had left them. The Cheyennes had to run away with only a few small packs, as our small band had done on lower Powder river during the late winter before this time. The same as we had done, they had to see all of their lodges burned and most of their horses taken. Many of our men, women and children had been killed. Others had died of wounds or had starved and frozen to death on the journey through the mountain snow to Tongue river. Three Cheyenne women and a boy had been captured by the Pawnees.[47]

The tribe were hunting now for the Ogallala Sioux, where Crazy Horse was the principal chief. These Sioux were somewhere in this region. We crossed to the east side of Tongue river just above the present white man town of Ashland, Montana, and went over the benches to Otter creek. After a night of sleep here we moved on eastward over the little mountains. Travel and sleep, travel and sleep, we kept going. Eleven sleeps the tribe had journeyed when we arrived at the place on Beaver creek where now is a white man trading store and a postoffice called Stacey. Here we found the Ogallalas.

The Ogallala Sioux received us hospitably. They had not been disturbed by soldiers, so they had good lodges and plenty of meat and robes. They first assembled us in a great body and fed us all we wanted to eat. To all of the women who needed other food they gave a supply. They gave us robes and blankets. They shared with us their tobacco. Gift horses came to us. Every married woman got skins enough to make some kind of lodge for her household. Oh, how generous were the Ogallalas! Not any Cheyenne was allowed to go to sleep hungry or cold that night.

We had traveled and hunted much during past times with these Sioux people. At all times there was some one or more families of them with us or some of our Cheyennes with them. Of our friendly intermarrying, there was more connection with the Ogallalas than with any other tribe. Their people during the summer and fall had been going to and from the agency more than ours had been. Our few incoming Cheyennes had brought us some news about the soldiers we had fought on the Little Bighorn. But the Ogallalas informed us more fully. From them we learned that the big chief of the soldiers was Long Hair, the same man who several years before this time had fought the Southern Cheyennes.

After we had rested with the Ogallalas a few days the chiefs counciled together and decided that the tribes should join in movement up the Tongue river. All of us then followed our back trail over to Otter creek and on to Tongue river. We moved slowly and hunted along the way. The Cheyennes got a new supply of buffalo meat and many more skins for enlarging their lodges. We crossed Tongue river on the ice, to the east side. Not far up the valley we went back over the ice, to the west side. We traveled then on up the benchland trails, to Hanging Woman creek. The Ogallalas had some cattle they had taken from white people or from soldiers. These were butchered along the way. They had yet also a few of the horses taken at the battle on the Little Bighorn. But these horses that had been so fat and strong were now poor and weak. Most of them already had died. They did not know how to find winter food like the Indian ponies could find it.

At Hanging Woman creek it was decided the two tribes would separate. The Ogallalas would go eastward up this stream. The Cheyennes would continue on up the Tongue river valley. As usual, a few Cheyennes joined the Sioux and a few of their people decided to come with us. My sister Crooked Nose started with the other people. Chiefs Crazy Horse and Water All Gone and a few other Ogallalas came to us. Just as the tribes were about to separate, some scouts brought in the report:

“Soldiers are coming!”

The two bands of Indians began to come again together. The warriors mingled themselves as being of one tribe. The women and children and older men of both sets of people moved together up the Tongue river. The young men put themselves behind their fleeing people. Somebody said to me:

“They have captured some women. Your sister is one of them.”

My heart jumped when this news came to me. I lashed my horse into a run toward where it was said they had been captured. There I saw tracks of soldier horses. The trail led to the river ice. On the opposite side of the river, the west side, were soldiers. They began shooting at me. I had to get away. I did not see any of the women, so I supposed they had been killed. My heart then became bitter toward these white men.

I hid my horse in the brush at the foot of a ridge where some warriors were on its top. I walked up there. Many Indians were hidden behind rocks and were shooting toward the soldiers. I chose for myself a hiding place and did the same. I had my soldier rifle and plenty of cartridges. Many soldiers were coming across on the ice, to fight us. But we had the advantage of them because of our position on the high and rocky ridge.

Big Crow, a Cheyenne, kept walking back and forth along the ridge on the side toward the soldiers. He was wearing a warbonnet. He had a gun taken from the soldiers at the Little Bighorn battle. He used up his cartridges and came back to us hidden behind the rocks, to ask for more. Cheyennes and Sioux here and there each gave him one or two or three. He soon got enough to fill his belt. He went out again to walk along the ridge, to shoot at the soldiers and to defy them in their efforts to hit him with a bullet. All of us others kept behind the rocks, only peeping around at times to shoot. Crazy Horse, the Ogallala chief, was near me. Bullets glanced off the shielding rocks, but none hit us. One came close to me. It whizzed through the folds of my blanket at my side.

Big Crow finally dropped down. He lay there alive, but apparently in great distress. A Sioux went with me to crawl down to where he was and bring him into shelter. Another Sioux came after us. When we got to the wounded man I took hold of his feet and the two Sioux grasped his hands. The three of us crawled and dragged him along on the snow. Bullets began to shower around us. We let loose our holds and dodged behind rocks. When the firing quieted, we crept out and again got him. My brother just then called out to me: “Wooden Leg, come, we are going away from here.” I let loose again and went to my brother. The two Sioux continued to drag Big Crow.

The Indians moved back and forth, down and up, fighting the soldiers at different times all day. After darkness came, the fighting stopped. The group where I was built a little fire, so we might warm ourselves. As soon as the light of it showed, the bullets began to sing over our heads. We quickly threw snow upon the fire. Then we moved to another place. I got down where I had left my horse. It was still there. I mounted and joined my friends. All of the Indians left there during the night. Some of the Ogallalas already had gone on up Hanging Woman creek. Chiefs Crazy Horse and Water All Gone, with many lodges of their people, attached themselves to the Cheyennes. We went up Tongue river. We traveled all night and all the next day before we stopped to camp.

We did not know where these soldiers had come from.[48] We did not know either how far they might follow us. But our scouts remaining behind saw them go back down Tongue river. At the camp, Big Crow’s relatives went about inquiring for him. I told where I last had seen him. Finally, they found the two Sioux who had been with him when I left him. These men said he was dead. That was our one man lost in the battle. Two Sioux were killed.

The missing Cheyennes were: Sweet Woman, an old woman, age fifty or older. Lame White Man’s widow and her two girls. Little Chief’s wife, their girl and their boy. My sister Crooked Nose, past twenty-one years old. A boy belonging to some other family. There were four women and five children. These were said to be in one group together, and all were captured by the soldiers. We were not sure, though, but some of them or all of them might have been wounded or killed.

The Cheyennes and the few Ogallalas now with us traveled far up Tongue river. We found plenty of buffalo there. We went on west to the upper Little Bighorn. After camping and hunting there, we went farther west to the Bighorn at the mouth of Rotten Grass creek. We did not stay here long. We returned to the Little Bighorn. Most of the last part of the winter was spent in camp on this valley. All of the time during the next few months we had good hunting. Soldiers did not trouble us nor we did not trouble them.

Almost the entire Northern Cheyenne tribe was in this winter camp on the upper Little Bighorn. Little Wolf, Dull Knife, Dirty Moccasins and Old Bear, our four old men chiefs, were here. Charcoal Bear, the medicine chief, had kept possession of the sacred buffalo head through all of our distress. We had now as good a medicine lodge for it as we ordinarily had. This lodge was at its usual place at the back part of the space within our horseshoe camp circle. All of the people had good lodges. In every way we were living yet according to our customary habits. We were not bothering any white people. We did not want to see any of them. We felt we were on our own land. We had killed only such people as had come for driving us away from it. So, our hearts were clean from any feeling of guilt.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] In fact, his wife and others to whom he was well known assert that General Custer was not wearing his hair long at the time he was killed. For some time before that occasion he had kept his hair cut short.--T. B. M.

[45] The small loss is explainable by the extensive suiciding among the soldiers.--T. B. M.

[46] Fort C. F. Smith.

[47] This Powder river fight was on November 26th, 1876.--T. B. M.

[48] These soldiers were commanded by Colonel Nelson A. Miles. They had come from Fort Keogh, which he had established on the Yellowstone just above the mouth of Tongue river. This fight was on January 1, 1877.--T. B. M.

XII

_Surrender of the Cheyennes._

Just before the grass began to show itself in the early part of the spring, two visitors arrived at our camp on the Little Bighorn. One of these was our captured old woman, Sweet Woman. The other was a half-breed Sioux we called White.[49] Each had a horse to ride and each was leading a pack horse. In their packs were tobacco and other things, for gifts to the principal chiefs. The visitors said they had been sent out from the soldier fort at the mouth of Tongue river, to invite us to come there and surrender peaceably. They brought a promise from Bear Coat,[50] the soldier chief there, that we should not be harmed and should be given plenty of food.

Sweet Woman told us all of the captives were well. She said they had been treated well, that they had a lodge for themselves and that Bear Coat had a soldier guard near their lodge at all times to keep other soldiers from bothering them. This Sweet Woman was a sister of White Bull’s wife. She was a widow. Her husband had been dead many years. He had been a black man, and the name for him was Black Man. As a boy he had been captured by the Cheyennes. She was a tall and thin woman, but she was healthy.

Our chiefs counciled about this proposal. It was decided quickly that we might as well go in that direction. The final decision could be made at some other place. We moved then eastward by camps and sleeps of one night each. We stopped one night at the mouth of Hanging Woman creek, where we had fought the soldiers in the middle of the winter before. Some other young men and I climbed up among the rocks where we had fought. We searched for Big Crow’s body. We found it. It was lying with the back partly propped up against a bush in a thin group of small pines. The right hand was up and behind the head. The left hand was over the breast. We could not decide whether he had been dead when left there or had put himself into this position and had frozen to death. We stretched out the dead man and covered him with stones. His people felt better when we told them what we had done.

The half-breed Sioux traveled with us to Tongue river. Some of the chiefs decided to go with him to the soldier fort and find out what might happen to the Cheyennes if all should go there. They left us and went down the valley. The Cheyennes going on this journey of peacemaking were: Old Wolf and Crazy Head, tribal big chiefs. Little Creek and Two Moons, little chiefs of the Crazy Dog and Fox warrior societies. White Bull, a medicine man but not a chief. The Elk warriors did not send any chief.

The tribe and the Ogallalas with us kept on moving eastward. At Powder river it was decided to wait for the return of the chiefs who had gone to the fort. The Ogallalas with us separated from us and traveled on. Most of them said they were going to the agency. A little band of them went down Powder river. All of the Cheyennes remained in tribal circle camp on the west side of Powder river, above the mouth of Little Powder river, only a short distance above the place where we had been burned out a year before this time.