On the Plains with Custer: The Western Life and Deeds of the Chief With the Yellow Hair, Under Whom Served Boy Bugler Ned Fletcher, When in the Troublous Years 1866–1876 the Fighting Seventh Cavalry Helped to Win Pioneer Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota for White Civilization and Today's PeaceSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
General
On the Plains with Custer: The Western Life and Deeds of the Chief With the Yellow Hair, Under Whom Served Boy Bugler Ned Fletcher, When in the Troublous Years 1866–1876 the Fighting Seventh Cavalry Helped to Win Pioneer Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota for White Civilization and Today's Peace
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Custer, George A. (George Armstrong), 1839-1876 -- Fiction; Western stories
When halt was made at the temporary camp just outside, speedily was
it known to all why Rain-in-the-Face had been arrested. A couple of
weeks before, the Sioux gathered at the agency had a great dance,
during which the warriors had recited their biggest deeds. They spoke
in Sioux, but Charley Reynolds the scout was sitting near, watching.
He understood Sioux. When Rain-in-the-Face had entered the circle, and
boasted of his career, suddenly Charley pricked his ears, but gave no
sign that he heard; for Rain-in-the-Face was vaunting how, a year and a
half before, he had killed two white men.
One was a fat man with no hair; him he had shot from his horse and had
finished with the war-club. The other was a younger man, the fat man’s
companion, who had taken refuge in a clump of trees. He had signed for
peace, and had offered his hat; but he also had been shot, with bullet
and arrow. No scalps were taken, because the fat man had been bald and
the other man had very short hair.
Then Charley Reynolds knew that he had found one of the murderers
of Veterinary Surgeon Honzinger and Sutler Baliran, killed when
inoffensive and unarmed, on the Yellowstone expedition of the summer of
1873. Out slipped Charley, as soon as he could, and hastened with the
news to General Custer at Fort Lincoln.
General Custer had kept the news quiet, lest the Sioux should be
alarmed and send word to Rain-in-the-Face. He was accounted a mighty
warrior, for he had made a record by hanging four hours, in a Sun Dance
ceremony, by ropes fastened to splints thrust through his chest and
back. He had five well-known brothers—Bear’s Face, Red Thunder, Iron
Horn, Little Bear, and Shave Head: warriors all. So whatever was to be
done must be done cunningly. And so it had been done.
Waiting there in the agency store, until the Indians should give
glimpses of their features, when Rain-in-the-Face finally had dropped
his blanket a little Lieutenant Tom, with a leap from behind, had
clasped him about both arms.
At Fort Lincoln Rain-in-the-Face confessed to the murders. He evidently
expected to be hanged at once, for he dressed himself in black. His
brother Iron Horn, and other leading Sioux, tried to comfort him, and
in council with the general they pleaded for him. But all actions and
talk were conducted in a solemn dignified manner, as befitting the
great Sioux nation.
While the general waited specific orders from the War Department,
Rain-in-the-Face must be confined in the guard-house. Here he stayed
for almost four months. He remained ever calm, ever proud, looking at
nobody when he was permitted to walk back and forth, chained to another
prisoner, for exercise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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