Show 1 elal 1 ahls i k U nom scott wadom batio lilt re leased by western newspaper union yellow wolf indian patriot S OIX ix years ago there died on the colville indian reservation in washington a patriot of a lost cause you may never have heard of him for his name was demene which translated into the white mans language mean yellow wolf an indian a patriot of a lost cause yes for yellow wolf was as truly a patriot as was any ragged continental who plodded through the snows of valley forge and the lost cause in which he served was that of Ws his people the nez perces who some 60 years ago were fighting against injustice in the face of overwhelming wh elming odds the story of that struggle is not an unfamiliar one and there is no brighter page in military annals than that which tells of the masterly skill with which chief joseph led his people on their retreat from the banks of the clearwater river in idaho to the bear paw mountains in montana between june and october of 1877 yellow wolf shares in the glory of that achiel achievement ement for he was a cousin of chief joseph and one of his chief lieutenants in n that epic march but interesting though yellow wolf may be as the last great nez perce warrior he is a more important figure in history than that characterization indicates he not only helped make history but he helped write about it later thirty al 47 taking dou down n yellow wolfs story let left to right thomas hart interpreter ter preter yellow wolf L sic whorter three years ago lie he began telling the story of his life to a frontier historian L mcwhorter of yakima wash the tale was complete before his life ended and recently it was published in book form by the caxton printers of caldwell idaho there have been many accounts of the nez perce war but virtually all of them have been written from the viewpoint of the white man yellow wolf his own story gives for the first time a complete account of that tragedy as seen by one of its victims it tells how the nez perces were defrauded of their ancestral homes by land hungry white settlers and how gen 0 0 howard acting upon orders from washington showed the rifle and precipitated the crisis which chief joseph had tried to avert then the nez perce chief burdened with the women and children of his tribe began his flight over some of the roughest country on the north american continent repeatedly attacked he either beat olt off his assailants or outmaneuvered them in a way which won the admiration of the army officers sent against him then with his haven of refu refuge refue e across the canadian border almost in sight he paused to let his weary people rest attacked in the bear paw mountains by col nelson A miles who was later joined by howards pursuing column the fugitives were forced to surrender in the light of yellow wolfs story the history of that campaign must be rewritten for instance it shows that chief josephs fighting force was only on ay a fraction of the number of warriors which his opponents said he had and that fact odds adds to the glory of his achievement it shows that on the whole the nez perces were more humane toward noncom non com batanus than some of their white opponents were for chief josephs treatment of the tourists whom he captured while passing through the yellowstone park region is in in marked contrast to the unnecessary killing of indian women and children in several of the attacks on chief josephs camps and there are other examples which show that a victors version of his conquest is not necessarily the true one has this warrior speaking for the vanquished talked with a straight tongue any impartial student of indian history after reading his book can not help believing that he has and that is why the publication li of yellow wolf his own story is an historical highlight of the past year some of chief josephs warriors escaped to canada among them yellow wolf who lived for nearly a year among sitting bulls sioux before returning to the united states then he was taken to indian territory where chief joseph and his people in violation of the th e terms term teri s of of their surrender had been sent S t in I 1 1885 they were settled on the colville reservation in washington and there chief joseph died in 1904 thirty one years later on august 21 1935 yellow wolf olf joined his chief in land above |