The epidemic broke out early in spring and continued through the summer; it began in the Kiowa school, and its terribly fatal consequences were due largely to the course pursued by the superintendent, who insisted on sending the sick children back to the camp, where it was impossible for them to receive necessary attention, instead of caring for them in the school. The result was that the infection spread throughout the Kiowa and Apache tribes, and as the Indians, in their ignorance, endeavored to _wash out the blotches_ by drenching the children in cold water, nearly every case was fatal. Watching and anxiety brought fevers and other sickness to the parents, so that there was not a family in the two tribes that did not suffer the loss of a near relative. The feeling already existing among the Kiowa against the superintendent, on account of the death of the schoolboys the year before, was now so intensified that he was obliged to leave the country. [Illustration: FIG. 192--Summer 1892--Measles; Grass payment.] When the author returned to the Kiowa in the early summer of that year, the epidemic had nearly spent its force, although deaths were still occurring every day or two. The condition of the Indians was pitiable in the extreme; nearly every woman in the tribe had her hair cut off close to her head and her face and arms deeply gashed by knives, in token of mourning, while some had even chopped off a finger as a sign of grief at the loss of a favorite child. The men also had their hair cut off at the shoulders and had discarded their usual ornaments and finery. On one occasion, while driving near the camp, the author's attention was attracted by a low wail, and on looking for the cause he saw, sitting in the tall grass near the roadside, a bereaved father stripped to the breech-cloth, with his hair cropped close to the head and the blood dripping from gashes which covered his naked body; he did not look up or turn his head as the wagon passed, but continued the low wail, with his eyes cast to the ground. Wagons, harness, tipis, blankets, and other property were burned, and horses and dogs shot over the graves of their owners, to accompany them to the world of shades, the destruction of property in this way amounting to thousands of dollars. Every night and morning the women went into the hills to wail for their lost ones, and returned to camp with the blood dripping from fresh gashes in their faces and arms; this continued for weeks and months, far into the fall.