Boys' Book of Indian Warriors Part 46

Bull Ghost, who was called "One-eyed Riley" by the white people, and who was his chief a.s.sistant in medicine making, took the note to the agency. This was December 13. The note said, as far as Agent McLaughlin could read it, that Sitting Bull had decided to go to Pine Ridge, in order to know more about the prayers. He did not like to be called a fool, and to have his prayers interrupted by gun and knife.

Lieutenant Bull Head was as smart as he. The lieutenant knew exactly what was in Sitting Bull's mind; and he, too, sent a note to Agent McLaughlin, saying that if Sitting Bull got away on his fresh ponies, the police would not be able to catch him. The arrest ought to be made at once.

The troops already had been directed to arrest Sitting Bull. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, the famous scout, had arrived, to manage the arrest by help of the soldiers. But Agent McLaughlin warned that if the soldiers went down, there surely would be a fight, and many persons would be killed.

He was certain that his Indian police could do the work with less trouble. By return courier, who was Second Sergeant Red Tomahawk, this evening of December 14 he sent orders in English and in Sioux, to Lieutenant Bull Head, that Sitting Bull should be arrested the first thing in the morning, and must not be permitted to escape.

Sergeant Red Tomahawk rode the forty miles in the dark, over a rough trail, in four hours and a quarter.

Other couriers were dispatched, to take orders to the police squads stationed elsewhere. Lieutenant Bull Head was to have thirty-eight regular police and four specials, with First Sergeant Shave Head as his a.s.sistant.

Two troops of the Eighth Cavalry under Captain E. G. Fechet were to be stationed on the trail part way to Sitting Bull's camp, in readiness to support Lieutenant Bull Head, if necessary.

The Ghost Dancers had been guarding Sitting Bull's house, for several nights; but this night of December 14 they had danced until they were tired out.

When before sunrise in the morning Lieutenant Bull Head led his troops into the camp, few persons were stirring. Before the camp, which extended several miles along the Grand River, could pa.s.s the word that the police were there, Lieutenant Bull Head had rapidly thrown a line of dismounted police around the houses of Sitting Bull.

There were two log cabins, one larger than the other. The police did not know in which cabin Sitting Bull would be found. Lieutenant Bull Head ordered eight policemen to enter the smaller cabin; he and First Sergeant Shave Head and ten other policemen entered the larger cabin.

Sitting Bull was here, asleep on the floor, with his two wives and his son Crow Foot, seventeen years old.

His wives saw the police standing over them, and began to cry. Sitting Bull sat up.

"What is wanted?" he asked, but he knew very well.

Lieutenant Bull Head briefly told him.

"You are under arrest, and must go to the agency."

"Very well," answered Sitting Bull, calmly. "I will dress and go with you."

"Bring me my best clothes," he said to his wives. "And I shall want my best horse--the gray horse."

His clothes were brought. Sergeant Shave Head ordered one of the policemen to saddle the gray horse and have it at the door.

While he dressed, Sitting Bull began to complain, and to scold the police for arresting him, who was a Sioux and an old man, when they were Sioux, themselves. But Lieutenant Bull Head said nothing. He was here to do his duty.

He placed himself upon one side of Sitting Bull; First Sergeant Shave Head took the other side, Second Sergeant Red Tomahawk closed in behind; and they all went out.

Now trouble awaited them. One hundred and fifty angry Ghost Dancers had gathered. They were armed, they were yelling threats, they were jostling the line of police and shoving them about. The stanch police were holding firm, and keeping the s.p.a.ce before the door cleared. At the same time they argued with their friends and relatives and acquaintances in the crowd, telling them to be careful and not cause blood-shed.

Sitting Bull's gray horse was standing in the cleared s.p.a.ce. He started for it, as if to go with the police, when young Crow Foot, his son, taunted him.

"You call yourself a brave man. You said you would never surrender to a blue-coat, and now you give up to Indians in blue clothes!"

That stung Sitting Bull. He resisted. He began to speak rapidly to his Ghost Dancers.

"These police are taking me away. You are more than they. You have guns in your hands. Are you going to let them take me away? All you have to do is to kill these men on either side of me. The rest will run. Our brothers are waiting for us in the Bad Lands, before they make the whites die. When the whites die, only the Indians will be left. But the whites mean to try to kill us all first." Suddenly he shook an arm free, and raised it. "Shoot!" he cried. "Kill the police. They are none of us!"

Two of the Ghost Dancers, Catch-the-bear and Strikes-the-kettle, sprang through the line of police, and fired.

Catch-the-bear's bullet struck Lieutenant Bull Head in the side.

Strikes-the-kettle's bullet struck Sergeant Shave Head in the stomach.

Private Lone Man shot and killed Catch-the-bear. With his revolver Lieutenant Bull Head instantly shot Sitting Bull through the body. Red Tomahawk shot him through the head. Then, down together, fell Sitting Bull, Bull Head and Shave Head.

Now it was a big fight, of the forty-one police against almost two hundred Ghost Dancers. Lieutenant Bull Head and First Sergeant Shave Head were mortally sick from their wounds; Second Sergeant Red Tomahawk took the command.

The fighting at first was hand to hand, with clubbed guns and knives.

The squaws helped the Ghost Dance men.

"Do not hurt the women and children," shouted Red Tomahawk. And as fast as possible the women were grabbed and hustled into the small cabin.

The police were trained soldiers, and used their revolvers freely, although not trying to kill. They drove the Ghost Dancers into the timber along the river south of the Sitting Bull place.

"I will run and tell the soldiers," cried Hawk Man No. 1.

"Bun!" panted Red Tomahawk, to Hawk Man No. 1. "Tell the soldiers."

And Hawk Man No. 1 did run, like a deer, through the storm of bullets.

His uniform was cut, but he was unharmed. He ran eight or ten miles.

Bull Head and Shave Head were disabled. Fourth Sergeant Little Eagle, Private Afraid-of-soldiers, were lying dead; Special Policeman Hawk Man No. 2 and John Armstrong were nearly dead; Private Middle was bleeding badly.

Sitting Bull was stone dead. So was young Crow Foot; so were Ghost Dancers Catch-the-bear, Blackbird, Little a.s.siniboin, Chief Spotted Horn Bull; Chief Brave Thunder and Chase, another Dancer, were fatally wounded.

The fight had lasted only a few minutes. Now the Red Tomahawk men carried their dead and wounded into the Sitting Bull large cabin, to stand off the Ghost Dancers until the soldiers came.

They occupied the corral, too, and kept the Ghost Dancers from getting the ponies that had been put there in readiness for fleeing to the Bad Lands.

For two hours they held their own, against the raging mob, because they had been sworn into the service of the United States Government. But they did not shoot to kill, except in defense of their own lives. They were Sioux, and had relatives and old-time friends among those people outside.

When the cavalry galloped into sight, over the hill beyond, Red Tomahawk raised a white flag, as a signal. But the soldiers either did not see, or else thought it was a trick; for they brought a cannon and fired two sh.e.l.ls at the cabin.

So Red Tomahawk ordered his men out of the cabin, and mounted them in line upon their horses. Then he took the white flag and rode forward alone, until the soldiers saw who he was, and that the men behind him were the loyal police.

The fighting Ghost Dancers ran away. Captain Fechet did not pursue them far. He sent word to them that they had better come back, and they would not be harmed. Sitting Bull was dead, and their religion had not protected them from bullets.

Many did come back, cured of their craze. Only a few joined the Bad Lands Ghost Dancers.

When the news of the death of Sitting Bull, by bullets, was carried into the Bad Lands, and several leaders on the reservation had surrendered, the Indians in the Bad Lands broke camp, to return to their reservations. But some clung to their Ghost shirts. Their hearts were set upon the promises of the Messiah.

When they were gathered near Wounded Knee Creek, on the Pine Ridge reservation, and the soldiers were about to disarm them, on the morning of December 29 Yellow Bear, one of the medicine prophets, suddenly called upon them to resist--now was the hour--their Ghost shirts would make the soldiers powerless. Young Black Fox, a Ghost Dancer of the Cheyenne River reservation, threw up his gun, from under his blanket, and fired at a soldier. All the soldiers fired; the Indians fought back; the machine guns opened; and in a twinkling two hundred Sioux men, women and children, and sixty soldiers, were piled, dead or wounded, upon the snowy ground.

This was the battle of Wounded Knee, and was the last of the Ghost Dancers.

Meanwhile, after the cavalry had rescued the police, Red Tomahawk put the body of Sitting Bull into a wagon, and with two prisoners took his troop up to the Standing Rock agency, to report.

Little Eagle, Afraid-of-soldiers, John Armstrong and Hawk Man No. 2 were dead; Lieutenant Bull Head and First Sergeant Shave Head died in the hospital several days later. Bull Head had four wounds.

The four dead police were buried in the reservation cemetery on the second day, December 17. A company of the Twenty-second Infantry fired three volleys over their graves, and a great throng of the Sioux were present, to mourn. The police had been brave men.