Texas Jack, the famous scout in the employ of the army, and a companion,
in the late autumn of 1876 crossed the lonely battleground and halted
long enough to see that the graves had not been disturbed. They saw the
path of the sentinel leading from grave to grave. They saw the skeletons
of the red men slain by the shadow. They saw the shadow itself. They
were leaving the valley when their ears were greeted by a wild laugh,
and from a bed of rank grass and dry weeds a quarter of a mile away they
saw the shadow beckon them to come forward. The shadow was a man--a
tall, gaunt, heavy bearded and long-haired human being dressed in rags
that once had been an army uniform. He held up in the air and shook
at them a carbine and a sabre, and when they galloped away, he sent a
leaden ball whistling over their heads.
This was the last time this trooper was seen alive, no doubt he was
bereft of reason, and believed himself called upon to avenge his
comrades and so lurked in the valley, living like the wild beasts
around him and missing no chance to strike a blow.
Some years later, when peace was restored and Crow Dog with his son and
two warriors were hunting buffalo on the Little Big Horn, they were
themselves pursued by a hostile party of Crow Indians. They took refuge
among the shelving rocks along the river. Far into the deep recesses,
where the waves and winds for centuries had hollowed out a chamber, they
found a skeleton. By its side lay a carbine, two revolvers and a long
cavalry sabre; about the neck was a delicately wrought chain with a gold
locket attached. This and some other trinkets they carried away. After a
lapse of fourteen years from the time Custer and his soldiers fell,
these same Sioux Indians were again on the war path in the Bad Lands of
South Dakota. Custer’s old regiment was there, too. Many of them had
fought with Reno and Benteen on that fateful 25th of June, and by the
chance of war it was a part of their command under Colonel Forsythe who
fought the battle of Wounded Knee. Among them was Charles Wilson, the
beardless boy, who rode away with Reno, whilst his friend Jim Bristow
followed Custer. No longer a boy, but a bronzed and bearded soldier who
had stood the chance of fate in many an Indian fight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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