horses than he had been before his capture by the Indians. Were it not
for two considerations, he might have decamped with the proceeds.
Conscience was not one of them. In the first place, his Caucasian
instincts taught him to look ahead to larger things. In the second
place, his Indian blood would not let him lose sight of certain bits of
savagery he had in contemplation. So, instead of decamping, he
purchased with the money, in a town where he was unknown, five of the
new breech-loading rifles and nearly five thousand rounds of
ammunition. His tale here was simple. The trail was _not_ open, and a
wagon-train was soon to attempt the task of opening it. He loaded the
munitions on his five broncos, and joined Lone Wolf, who was outlying
near at hand.
In the course of the next six months a certain half-breed, with various
stores and outfits, was observed in several small towns on the border
of the frontier. In half of them he was headed east and sold his
outfit; in the other half he was headed west and bought rifles. At the
end of the year there remained no more schooners in the _cache_ of the
Bad Lands, but Lone Wolfs band was the best armed in all the West.
Michail Lafond had let slip the chance of embezzling some thousands of
dollars, but he had gained what was much mere valuable to him--power
over an efficient band of fighting men, and the implicit confidence of
a tribe of Sioux Indians. He was respected and feared. His unseen
influence was felt throughout the whole plains country.
Lafond was too shrewd either to repeat his venture or to become
identified with the tribe. His influence, as has been said, was unseen
and unsuspected. Lone Wolf's band was successful from the Indian
standpoint, pernicious from the white man's. That was all that
appeared on the outside. Lafond himself became a savage. He slept out
with little cover, and often rode with none at all. He ate dog and
rattlesnake, when dog and rattlesnake happened to be on the bill of
fare. He carried a knife deep in the recess of a long, loose buckskin
sheath; and from the ridge of his tepee hung five clotted horrors, torn
from the heads of the victims of his personal prowess. The number of
these might easily have been augmented, but Michail struck seldom in
his own person. When he did, not one of the victims escaped, for no
man must have seen Michail, the savage. Michail, the civilized, would
need a clear field before him when once again he appeared in the towns.
The life was fascinating to such as he. He loved it, but he did not
forget his purposes. When at last he had gathered firmly the reins of
his power, he shook them, and the twin steeds of Murder and Rapine
swept destroyingly through the land.
For the present there was peace on the plains. Wagon-trains came
across the Pierre trail, or further down along South Fork. Custer
explored. White men settled in the Black Hills, in spite of the
treaty. The Indians hunted buffalo, and their wives made robes, and
cut tepee poles from the valley of Iron Creek.
But in spite of all the seeming tranquillity, the seeds of discord had
been sown broadcast, and Lafond, with his devilish cleverness of
insight, could see that the struggle was not long to wait. Both sides
felt aggrieved, and both sides had more than a show of reason for
feeling so. Perhaps, in the long run, this was an inevitable result of
the advance of civilization; but it is a little unfortunate that the
provisional races must be set aside so summarily. That fact serves
occasionally to cast a doubt in reflective minds on the ultimate
benefit of the civilization.
We who look upon our tamed country, or those plainsmen who have
perforce to struggle in the thick of the avenging troubles which follow
injustice as surely as symptoms follow the disease, may not be able to
see the Indian's side of the question. We, the peaceful citizens,
enjoy the security of policed cities and fenced prairies; and we are
convinced that it is worth the price. They, the pioneers, fight, and
are maimed; they lose their worldly possessions, and their
heart-strings are twanged to the tuning of grief; and so they become
partisans, to whom the old scriptural saying that "he who is not for me
is against me" comes home with a sternness brewed of tears.
But to those others who looked on from the height, to the men who sat
safe, but moved the pawns on the board--to them there was a real
justice, and they infringed it; a real duty, and they failed it. They
held the whip hand and spared not the lash, and it shall be visited
unto them.
Nearly fifty years ago, a Lieutenant Warren, at the head of a small
exploring party, approached the Black Hills. He was met near the South
Fork by a friendly but firm deputation of Sioux chiefs. Pah-sap-pah
was sacred. Pah-sap-pah must not be entered. All the rest of the
country was open, by the courtesy of the red men, to their white
brothers, but sacred land must not be profaned. Warren acquiesced, and
contented himself with ascertaining the general extent and
configuration of the forbidden district. When, in the fulness of time,
the government entered into treaty with these Indians, Warren's policy
was continued, and the Black Hills were, by a special clause, exempted
from white invasion forever. According to the Indians, the place was
the abode of spirits, and each tree, each rock, each dell, had its own
especial _manitou_ whom it were sacrilege to offend by the touch of
profane hands.
For many years the treaty was respected. Then a Pawnee brought into
one of the reservations a small quantity of gold dust, which he
confessed to have found in the Hills.
The following spring, Custer, at the head of an expedition of one
thousand two hundred men, entered into a long scout with the avowed
purpose of exploring the Black Hills for indications of gold. In this
he acted directly under his governmental orders. Thus was the treaty
first broken.
Next year the Hills were overrun with miners, illegal miners, just as
the troops had been with illegal explorers. They scattered through the
wilderness in vast numbers, and about a hundred of them staked out,
near the centre of the Southern Hills, a town which they named Custer
City. The irony was unconscious. What followed was farcical, and was
relished as such by the participants. Bodies of troops were sent to
enforce the treaty. Legally they did so. Although inferior in numbers
to the miners, and no better armed, they succeeded several times in
sweeping all the trespassers together into one band. The latter
submitted good-naturedly. The culprits were then turned over to civil
authority. Civil authority waited only for the disappearance of the
troops to set the miners at liberty; whereupon they scurried, as fast
as their animals could carry them, back to the prospect-holes of their
choice. It was all a huge joke, and everybody knew it.
In the meantime the Indians were becoming restive. It may not be known
to the general reader, but it is a fact, that one of the strongest
virtues of the red man's character is his fidelity to his given word.
A liar is, in his moral code, the most despised of men. He cannot
conceive the possibility of broken faith, and there are recorded
instances wherein an Indian condemned to capital punishment has been
set free on his oral promise to return for his hanging; and he has
returned. Therefore the Sioux could not understand the infraction of
the treaty.
They had viewed with alarm the scouting expedition by Custer. On the
invasion by the horde of miners, the following spring, an outbreak was
only avoided by the prompt action of the troops in evicting the
trespassers; but now, this winter of 1875, the more sagacious of the
Indian leaders were beginning to suspect the truth, namely, that the
eviction had been nothing but a form, and that Pah-sap-pah, in spite of
the treaty, was lost to them forever. Affairs were ripe for a great
Indian war; and, realizing this, the department set on foot Crook's and
Reynolds' unfortunate expedition toward the Big Horn.
The savages at once began to gather under a famous chief, Sitting Bull.
The storm rumbled, and Custer was despatched to effect a junction with
his brother officers somewhere north of the Hills.
VIII
THE MAKING OF A HOSTILE
Meanwhile a personal animus had sprung up against that general because
of a mild stroke of justice on his part against a singularly proud man.
It seems that the personnel of Custer's former expedition to the
Yellowstone included two civilians, a Dr. Honzinger and a Mr. Baliran.
These men were not, of course, subject to the full rigor of military
discipline, and so were accustomed to depart from, and return to, the
main line of march at will. When they did not reappear in due time
from one of these little trips, search was made; and they were found
killed with arrows. Dr. Honzinger's skull was crushed in, but neither
man was scalped, for the doctor was bald and the other wore his hair
clipped short. Some time later, knowledge of the murderer's identity
came to light, through information stumbled upon by one of Custer's own
scouts.
At that period, rations and ammunition were distributed regularly at
the various agencies. In return the savages promised to be good
Indians and to submit to the white men's laws. This promise they kept
faithfully enough, but according to their own standards. At the times
of distribution, when inevitably a great many of the Indians were
gathered together, the occasion was signalized by feasting and ghost
dances. The latter are uncouth exhibitions enough, consisting
decoratively of much cheap body-paint, many eagle feathers, and trashy
jewelry; musically of most unmusical pounding and screaming; and
physically of a crouching posture and a solemnly bounding progression
from one foot to the other around a circle. They are accompanied by a
recital of valorous deeds.
Such a dance was organized at the Standing Rock Agency, below Fort
Lincoln, in the winter of 1875. As usual, besides the gathering of old
warriors and squaws, assembled to watch the dance, the audience
included a number of white men, present on business or pleasure. Among
them was Charley Reynolds, one of Custer's scouts. This man stood
exchanging idle comment and chaff with another scout, and throwing an
occasional glance in the direction of the vortex of dancers, swirling
about in gaudy confusion, like a whirlwind of autumn leaves. Suddenly
he closed his mouth with a snap and leaned forward at keen attention.
He had caught a few words that interested him.
The dancers had reached the point of frenzy. They leaped forward with
solemnity still, but it was a quivering solemnity held in leash. Their
bodies were tense, and the trailing knives and hatchets trembled with
nervous force. Each warrior, nostrils distended and eyes flashing, was
declaiming his deeds with an ecstasy that bordered on madness, rolling
out tale after tale of murder, theft of horses--the only sort of theft
countenanced by the Indian code--and fortitude under suffering.
Noticeable among these dancers was a young warrior painted in the
manner of the Uncpapa Sioux. He was of magnificent physique and
striking countenance, but the most remarkable feature of his appearance
was a huge, ragged scar across the muscles of his back. When the scout
looked toward him, he was shaking in the air the chain of a watch, and
declaiming at the top of his voice in the Sioux language.
"And he was great in body," he chanted, "and he fell, and I killed him
with a stone, and the other fled, and I shot him, and so they died! I
killed them! I am a great warrior, for I killed two white men, and
these things are tokens that I speak the truth!"
He rattled the chain, and went through a vivid pantomime of the slaying
of the two white men. Charley Reynolds recognized the trinket as
belonging to Dr. Honzinger.
The young warrior was called Rain-in-the-Face, and he was at that time
esteemed as the bravest of the northern Sioux. Others, such as Crazy
Horse or Sitting Bull, might have been greater in generalship, but
neither had the Uncpapa youth's reputation for sheer personal bravery.
In the sun dance he had hung for four hours. The incisions behind the
great muscles of the back, through which the rope was threaded, had
been cut too deep, and the flesh failed to give way when
Rain-in-the-Face was suspended. For some time he hung in midair, his
whole weight depending from the loops of torn muscles, the blood
streaming over his limbs, and the hot sun beating down upon him. Then
the chiefs attempted to cut him down, but Rain-in-the-Face refused to
permit it. Four hours later the flesh rent away from his bones, and he
fell. That day made him the idol of the Sioux nation.
Charley Reynolds lost no time in informing Custer of his discovery, for
the policy of the period was to punish as many culprits as possible, in
order that the whites might establish, as soon as might be, a moral as
well as military supremacy over the turbulent savages. The commander
resolved to arrest Rain-in-the-Face. To that end he detailed a hundred
men under Captain Yates.
Contrary to what one unused to the Indian character might expect, no
difficulty was anticipated in finding the culprit. To be sure, the
plains were broad and the hiding places many, but Rain-in-the-Face was
at once an agency Indian and a reckless man. He drew his rations and
he drew them boldly. With his blanket wrapped about him and his rifle
peeping from its folds across his left arm, he stalked here and there
among the agency's few buildings. Any distribution day at the
reservation would discover him there.
But, on the other hand, the captain was not at all sure of being able
to arrest him when found. A hundred men would stand but small chance
in a fight with six hundred well-armed savages; whereas the appearance
of a larger expedition would serve merely to frighten every agency
Indian out into the wilds. The situation was not encouraging. How not
to alarm the quarry, and how still to possess strength enough to seize
it, was the problem that confronted Captain Yates.
His first move may seem, when cursorily examined, most unwise. He
detailed a lieutenant and forty of his little command, whose orders
were to proceed farther down the river, ostensibly for the purpose of
making inquiries concerning three Osage Indians wanted for murder.
Thus his available force was reduced to sixty, and with that handful he
intended to capture and take away, in the face of ten times the number,
one of the most popular fighting men of the Sioux nation.
But, as a matter of fact, in so dividing his forces the captain was
correct in his tactics. He realized that surprise was his only
effective weapon, and his ruse made surprise certain by lulling any
suspicion as to the object of the expedition.
Arrived at the agency, a cursory examination disclosed the fact that
Rain-in-the-Face was not among the groups of Indians camped on the
prairie. He must, therefore, be inside the agency building itself.
Captain Yates distributed his men near the little structure, and
Colonel Tom Custer went inside with half a dozen soldiers.
The room was found to be full of blanketed Sioux warriors, muffled to
the eyes, indistinguishable in the half light, except as
eagle-feathered silhouettes. Greetings were exchanged, pipes filled,
and a grave silence fell on the little group. The minutes passed, but
no one moved. The atmosphere was dense with smoke, and still the
parties watched each other--the whites with veiled eagerness, the
Indians with unsuspicious stolidity. Finally the agent piled dry wood
on the fire, and the blaze leaped up the chimney. The heat became
oppressive, so after a moment the warrior nearest the fireplace threw
back the blanket from his shoulders. It was Rain-in-the-Face himself.
On this rather dramatic disclosure, one of the troopers uttered an
exclamation. The Indian, always suspicious, at once leaped back and
cocked his rifle; but before he could raise the piece or pull the
trigger, Colonel Custer wound his arms around him from behind. The
other Indians rushed from the room.
The captive's hands were tied as rapidly as possible, but by the time
he was brought to the door, the Indians were running angrily from all
directions toward the building.
Captain Yates had succeeded in intimidating the first comers by a show
of force, but he was soon outnumbered and a struggle seemed imminent.
However, an old chieftain began to declaim in the violent, high-pitched
monotone so much affected by Indian orators. This delay afforded the
soldier a much needed respite, but it tended also to concerted action
later. The white man seized his opportunity. Through the interpreter
he called upon the chiefs to stand forward for a parley.
"My brothers will hear me," said the interpreter for him, "because it
is right, for they wear the Great Father's blankets and his food is in
their bellies. This young warrior is brave and his enemies are as the
feeble wind to him. But his eye became blinded. He thought he saw
before him the Pawnees, the enemies of his people; but they were old
men of my race. He killed those old men, and now the Great Father
would know why. He must tell the Great Father of his blindness.
Therefore it is well that he should go.
"So restrain your young men and I will restrain mine. It might be that
your young men would kill many of mine; and it might be that my young
men would kill many of yours. But why kill them? It is useless, for
first of all, by my hand, this young warrior would die."
At the advance of the chiefs, the Sioux warriors had suddenly, from the
wildest confusion, calmed to the deepest attention. They stood
motionless against the white background of the snow, only their fierce
eyes rolling from the speaker to their own chiefs and back again. One
of the latter replied--
"It is not well to talk so," he said brusquely. "The words of my
brother are idle words and mean nothing. My young men are many, and
yours are few; yet shall your young men go unharmed if you give to us
our warrior."
He swept his blanket over his shoulder with a sudden gesture, and
scowled. For answer Captain Yates drew from its holster his army
revolver and presented it at Rain-in-the-Face's breast. The Sioux
looked far away beyond the horizon, but his nostrils dilated.
"It is well," said the chief hastily, "for my brother's words are words
of wisdom. Take _two_ warriors to the Great Father, but leave us this
young man, that he may teach us that blindness is not wise."
In answer to his gesture two Indian youths stepped forward, proud of
the distinction.
"See," went on the chief, "these shall go with your young men, and all
will be well."
Yates lowered his pistol, and turned.
"Tell him," he said to the interpreter, "that this man goes with us.
If I see the muzzle of a rifle, I'll shoot him dead."
The savages listened gravely. Their first burst of rage had passed,
and, as always with their race, they were loath to engage in a stand-up
fight in cold blood. The Indian is brave enough, but he likes to be
brave in his own way. The chief turned and waved his hand. Ten
minutes later bands of savages were speeding swiftly away in all
directions, and the agency was entirely deserted.
The little command shortly after set out on its return trip. Yates
fully expected to be attacked before he rejoined his chief; but
although many savages were at various times visible, hurrying by, the
troops arrived at Fort Lincoln in due course, and Custer stood face to
face with his future slayer.
There is little need to repeat here the details of Rain-in-the-Face's
captivity. It is interesting, but not of the story. He received
visits from great warriors representing various tribes of the Sioux
nation--Brule, Yankton, Teton, Ogallala--all uniting to honor him. To
the surprise of the few white spectators, these visitors kissed the
young captive on the cheek, a mark of respect and affection almost
unheard of among this savage people. Two of the younger warriors asked
and received permission to share his captivity for a time.
Rain-in-the-Face bore the imprisonment well; was docile, friendly,
apparently happy. He had many talks with General Custer, and came to
be well liked.
But he had much leisure for thought, and he was a proud man.
After some months, two white men, grain thieves, were placed in the
same guard house. Being enterprising pioneers, they promptly sawed a
hole and escaped. Rain-in-the-Face availed himself of the opening.
Once under the open sky, he adjusted his moccasins and struck boldly
across the prairie for the West. Rain-in-the-Face was no longer an
agency Indian, but a hostile.
IX
THE BROTHER OF GODS
Rain-in-the-face had no very definite idea of where he should go. The
main and pressing need was to put a certain distance between himself
and his pursuers as rapidly as possible.
To this end, he pushed diligently north-west in a bee line. At first
he covered his trail skilfully, so that Custer's men would have to
guess his direction of flight as any one of the three hundred and sixty
degrees of the complete circle. After a little, this was unnecessary.
It became desirable to fall in with a camp of the Sioux, in order that
he might be directed to his own tribe of that people, the Uncpapa.
But as day followed day, Rain-in-the-Face owned himself puzzled. In
the space of time that had elapsed since his escape, he should have
encountered a dozen bands, for he was intimately acquainted with the
country and with the Indian habit of life. The village sites were
deserted, the plains were empty. The Indian did not know of the two
expeditions, commanded respectively by Crook and Terry, which, the one
from the south and the other from the north, were converging at the Big
Horn; nor that in that district nearly every plains Indian had
encamped, either openly allied with Sitting Bull, or near enough to
become so should such a move seem expedient.
So for a week he subsisted alone as only an Indian can.
Let loose a tired pony at night on the plains, and in the morning he
will turn up well fed and full of vigor. It is the same with a savage.
He knows expedients for getting food, for preparing it, for combating
thirst, for sleeping in bad weather with some degree of comfort, which
a white man never acquires without a long and hazardous apprenticeship.
It is a case of the survival of the fittest; and the Indian always
survives.
Toward the end of the week, Rain-in-the-Face drew near the low hills of
the Cheyenne River, in good condition, except that his moccasins were
nearly worn out. Then he became aware of a camp. As beseemed a good
warrior, he scouted carefully until he had satisfied himself that the
lodges were those of people of his own nation. Then he allowed himself
to be captured by the herd boys and escorted to Lone Wolf, the chief of
the band.
Lone Wolf had been easily persuaded by Lafond that it was not good
policy to join Sitting Bull. The tribe was well fed and rich. It
could gain nothing by such a war, and could lose much. Now was the
time to prepare against the coming winter; now, in the early summer,
when the energy of the band was at its flood. War it had enjoyed but
recently with the Pawnees; so the hearts of the young men were big with
valor. Let them equally enjoy the chase, the other branch of a brave's
education.
These, and a hundred like reasons, Lafond had urged so plausibly that
the chief had come, without difficulty, to his way of thinking. After
all, why not at least await the plum season, and the great gathering of
prairie chickens which was invariably consequent on the ripening of the
fruit? With that plan in view, the warrior had moved his band and all
its household goods to the banks of the Cheyenne, where he settled down
peaceably to a season of plenty. There Rain-in-the-Face found him.