OCR Text |
Show 6 ENEKAL llLBSl Ss AND THE. W V COPYRIGHT, 909 BV WA.PATTEEJON . 1 ited horses and over- I I ) ' ' ' ' o- J) ( TH ft Mil) 1 ) looking from a bluff the last great VtjJ ' I l I 1 'ifSpl H (N ill 'cJ&fflm camp of the Sioux Indians when com- SaX3 ' W II jLj H lv ing in from the warpath. The Sioux O jtt l tff'v&r ' fw5 surrendered to Gen. Miles in Janu- l Its Vil J- ary, 1891, but they came very near, y' I V- 'il Ali J I I V" a few days after the surrender, to S: i r K 1 1 J ;-rIy,SA ( I SLrk sUTfi as? once J y wk xWi ? Gray dawn was breaking at the ' ' 'I I W I I "- 1T Pine Ridge agency when an Indian ' ( I AY' II 1 ' i i Wf ASIIINGTON. A lithograph litho-graph that has survived the attacks of time nr.- .-...iMEia K'lows Gen. Nelson A. Miles and Col. W. F. r?S$a? Cody mounted on spir-ited spir-ited horses and overlooking over-looking from a bluff the last great camp of the Sioux Indians when coming com-ing in from the warpath. The Sioux surrendered to Gen. Miles in Jauu-ary, Jauu-ary, 1891, but they came very near, a few days after the surrender, to the point of breaking away once more. The story of it is this: Gray dawn was breaking at the Pine Ridge agency when an Indian runner broke headlong into the village vil-lage of the surrendered Sioux. He stopped at the tepees of the principal prin-cipal warriors long enough to shout a message, and then leaving the camp where its end rested against an abrupt hill, he made his way with a plainsman's stealth to the group of agency buildings, circling which and extending beyond, crowning ridge after- ridge, were the white Sibley tents of the soldiers. Breakfast was forgotten in the troubled camp of the Sioux. The chiefs and the greater braves rushed to quick council and the lesser warriors, war-riors, the squaws and the children stood waiting with dogged patience in the village streets. The council was over. An old chief shouted a word of command that was caught up and passed quickly to the farthest outlying tepee. An army might have learned a lesson from that which followed the short, sharp order. Mounted men shot out from the village and as fast as fleet-footed ponies, pressed to their utmost, could accomplish the distances every outlying out-lying ridge was topped with the figure fig-ure of rider and horse, silhouetted against the morning sky. S I Trumpet and bugle bu-gle calls of "boots and saddles" and "assembly" b u r-dened r-dened the air. The , troopers and "doughboys" "dough-boys" had fallen in, 5,000 strong. The column started west with flags and guidons gui-dons fluttering. The head of the command, com-mand, the greatest that had been gathered gath-ered together up to that time since the days of the civil war, reached the bluff above the Sioux village. A shout would have started the stampede stam-pede of the savages; a shot would have been the signal for a volley from the warriors lying between be-tween the white column col-umn and the vil- g 1 fore the enfeebiements of old age took the strength from his arm, ( Two Strike was a great warrior. He had fought on many a field and he had won his name from the overcoming of two warrior foes who had attacked at-tacked him when, he was alone on the prairie. Single handed he had fought and killed them and "Two Strike" he had been from that day. He was the leader in the last battle which took place between be-tween hostile bands of savages on the plains of America. For years without number the two nations, na-tions, the Sioux and the Pawnees, had hated each other. In one of Cooper's novels Hard Heart, a Pawnee, Paw-nee, taunts a Sioux thus: "Since waters ran and trees grew, the Sioux has found the Pawnee on his warpath." The fight in which Two Strike was the leader of the Sioux was fought against the Pawnees on the banks of a little stream known as "The Frenchman," in Nebraska in the year 1874. In the valley of the Platte river the buffalo were plenty, but the Pawnees had said that the Sioux should not hunt there and they defied them to come. "The Pawnee dogs called the Sioux women," wom-en," said the story-teller and old Two Strike sneered. It was when the grass was at its best that the Sioux started for the country of the Pawnee. The teller of the tale made no secret of the intention of the Sioux to exterminate the Pawnees, sparing neither women nor children if the chance for their killing presented itself. Two Strike and his Sioux reached the edge of the buffalo country and there they waited opportunity. oppor-tunity. They did not have to wait long. Runners told them that the Pawnees in full strength had started on a great hunting expedition led by Sky Chief, a noted warrior. When the name of Sky Chief fell from the lips of the interpreter old Two Strike smiled and closed "his fist. The Sioux left their encampment and struck into the heart of the hunting country. There a scout told them that the enemy was encamped in a pTairie gulch and that their women and children were with them to care for the hides and for the drying of the meat of the buffalo. Two Strike led his men by "a way around," as the interpreter put it, coming finally to a point less than half a sun's distance from the camp in the valley. The Sioux struck a sin all herd of buffalo buf-falo and they goaded the animals before them right up to the mouth of the gulch. When ..he buffalo were headed straight into the valley the Sioux pricked the hindmost with arrows and the herd went headlong toward the encampment of the Pawnees, who "were foolish men" and did not watch for an enemy. When the Pawnees saw the buffalo they mounted mount-ed their ponies and followed them out tiirough the far end of the valley to the level piain. leaving the women and children behind. Then the Sioux went in to the slaughter, sparing spar-ing neither infancy nor age, and they had almost ended the killing when the Pawnee hraves returned. re-turned. Then followed the last great battle which has been fought on the plains between tribes of red men. The story-teller in the tepee at Pine Ridge did not say so, but it is known from the account of a white man, Adabel Ellis, who knew the circumstances, cir-cumstances, that the Pawnees fought that day as they had always fought, bravely and to the death. Sky Chief, the Pawnee, rode out in front of his men, shook his hand and called out that Two Strike, the Dakota, was a coward. Then Two Strike called back that the Pawnee was a dog's whelp and he rode out, armed with his knife, which was the only weapon Sky Chief held. The two leaders met and fought. They dismounted, dis-mounted, turned their ponies loose and grappled. The story-teller lingered not on the details of the fight. He said simply, "the Tawnees heard Sky Chief's death cry." The tale ended. Two Strike rose. tared hi right arm, drove his hand downward end tl n upward, and smiled. Every sentinel warrior had his eyes on the camps of the white soldiery. Suddenly Sud-denly from the east of th agency, where lay the Sixth cavalry, there came a trumpet call that swelled and swelled and ended in one ringing note that sang in and out of the valleys and then, subdued to softness, floated on to be lost in the prairie wilderness beyond. The motionless figure of one of the hilltop sentinels sen-tinels was moved to instant life. A signal ran from ridge to ridge, finally to be passed downward down-ward into the camp of the waiting Sioux, who sprang into action at its coming. The pony herds of the Sioux were grazing on the hills to the west, unrestrained of their freedom by lariat or herdsman. In number they nearly equaled the peopie of the village, a few ponies for emergency emer-gency use only having been kept within the camp. Vpon the ponies in the village jumped waiting warriors, who broke out of the shelter of the tepees for the hills where the herds were foraging on the snow-covered bunch grass, it seemed but a passing moment before every pony in that great grazing herd was headed for the village. The animals were as obedient to the word of command as is a brave to the word of his chief. During the gathering of the ponies the women of the camp had slung their papooses to their backs, had collected the camp utensils and were standing ready to strike the tepees, while the braves, blanketed and with rifles in their hands, had thrown themselves between the village and the camps of the soldiers of Gen. Miles. The Sioux, who had surrendered less than a week before, were preparing to stampede from the agency and to make necessary the repeating of a campaign that had lasted for months. The Indian runner had brought word that Great Chief Miles had ordered- his soldiers to arms early in the morning and that the surrendered Sioux were to be massacred to the last man, woman and child. The medicine men had told the Indians that this was to be their fate and the' runner's word found ready belief. Miles sent a courier with a reassuring message to the chiefs, but they would not believe. The braves prepa. :d to kill before they were killed and everything was in readiness for the flight of the squaws and papooses, while the warriors, war-riors, following, should fight the soldiers lusting for the Sioux blood. Gen Miles had planned a review of the forces In the' field as a last act of the campaign, and it was the order for the gathering and the maich- ing tlf.t had been taken as an order of massacre 'i by the eu ipicJous Sioux. lage. The soldiers passed on and the review began, but out on the hills the Indian sentinels still stood, and between the marching whites and the village were the long lines of braves still suspicious sus-picious and still ready to give their lives for the women and children in the heart of the valley. What a review was that on the snow-covered South Dakota plains that January morning 15 years ago! Gen. Miles on his great black horse watched the 5,000 soldiers pass, soldiers that had stood the burden of battle and the hardships of a winter's campaign and had checked one of the greatest Indian uprisings of history. The First infantry, led by Col. Shafter, who afterward aft-erward was in command in front of Santiago, was there that day. Guy V. Henry, now lying in peaceful peace-ful Arlington cemetery, rode at the head of his black troopers, the "buffalo soldiers" of the Sioux. Capt Allen W. Capron was there with the battery that afterward opened the battle at Santiago. The Seventh cavalry was there, two of its troops, B and K, having barely enough men left in the ranks to form a platoon. These two troops had borne the brunt of the fighting at Wounded Knee a month before when 90 men of the Seventh fell killed or wounded before be-fore the- bullets of the Sioux. When the two troops with their attenuated ranks rode by, the reviewing general removed his cap, an honor otherwise oth-erwise paid only to the colors of his country. The column filed past, broke into regiments, then into troops and companies, and the word of dismissal was given. The Indian sentinels on the ridges, signaled the camp in the valley. In another anoth-er minute there wa? a stampede, but it was only that- of the thousands of Sioux ponies turned loose and eager to get back to their breakfast of bunch grass on the prairies. Two Strike, the Sioux, watched the review that day. Old Two Strike was one or the warriors who went out with a following of braves on the warpath the month previous. Two Strike wore no ghost shirt. He was above such superstition, even though he took no pains to urge his comrades com-rades to follow his shirtless example. Two Strike was glad of the craze that had brought war, for he hated the whites harder than he hated anything on earth except the Pawnees, the hereditary enemy of his people. Two Strike knew in his soul that the buffalo were not coming back as the medicine men had declared, and that no Messiah was to be raised to lead his people against the pale faces to wipe them from off the face of the continent. What he did know was that he was to have one more chance to strike at the encroachers on the lands of his people be- ft |