#redcloud'swar

Red Cloud

Red Cloud (Makhpiya-luta, l. 1822-1909) was an Oglala Lakota Sioux chief, statesman, and military strategist who became the only Native American leader of the Plains Indians to win a war against the United States. Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) forced the US government to agree to Native demands without stipulation, establishing the Great Sioux Reservation in 1868.

Morning Star (Dull Knife) - Eastman's Biography

Morning Star (Vooheheve, l. c. 1810-1883, better known as Dull Knife) was a Northern Cheyenne chief who led his people in resistance to the US government's policies of genocidal westward expansion. He participated in Red Cloud's War (1866-1868), various engagements between 1868-1876, and was defeated at the Battle on the Red Fork (the Dull Knife Fight) in 1876.

Afterwards, he and his people were forced from their homelands in the Dakota territories onto the reservation in modern-day Oklahoma. The conditions there were terrible and many died of disease and starvation. In 1878, Morning Star and Chief Little Wolf (also known as Little Coyote, l. c. 1820-1904) led their people out of the reservation in what has come to be known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, hoping to reach and reclaim their homelands in the region of modern-day Montana.

Little Wolf's band separated from the group, heading toward the Powder River territory, while Morning Star's band continued on, hoping to reach the Sioux chief Red Cloud (l. 1822-1909) and safety at the Red Cloud Agency (later the Pine Ridge Reservation). They were apprehended in October 1878 by the US Cavalry and brought to Fort Robinson where they were imprisoned and told they would have to return south to the reservation. Morning Star told the authorities:

All we ask is to be allowed to live, and live in peace…We bowed to the will of the Great Father and went south. There we found a Cheyenne cannot live. So we came home. Better it was, we thought, to die fighting than to perish of sickness…You may kill me here, but you cannot make me go back. We will not go. The only way to get us there is to come in here with clubs and knock us on the head and drag us out and take us down there dead. (Brown, 332)

Negotiations between Morning Star and authorities went nowhere, and, in early January 1879, it was decided food, water, and firewood rations would be withheld from the prisoners to force their compliance in returning south. The Cheyenne instead broke out, using weapons they had hidden in blankets and clothing, in an event later known as the Fort Robinson Breakout and Fort Robinson Massacre (9 January 1879). 60 Cheyenne were killed, 70 captured and returned to the fort, while Morning Star and a few others escaped and fled to the Red Cloud Agency where they were protected by Red Cloud.

Morning Star was then able to negotiate terms, which resulted in the establishment of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana in 1884, although he would not live to see that, dying in 1883.

Eastman's Biography & Omissions

The Sioux physician, lecturer, and author Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939), includes Morning Star in his Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916) by his Sioux name "Dull Knife" (which he is better known by, largely due to Eastman's work). Almost nothing is known of Morning Star's life prior to his participation in Red Cloud's War, and Eastman's biography reflects that.

The work includes anecdotes of the chief's younger years but focuses on his life after 1875 and, especially, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus and Fort Robinson Massacre. For unknown reasons, considering the usual accuracy of Eastman's biographies, he claims that Morning Star (Dull Knife) was killed at Fort Robinson in 1879 when it is known he lived until 1883, dying of natural causes. No explanation for this is available. The rest of the work is considered accurate, however, especially regarding Cheyenne support for the Great Sioux War (1876-1877) and the Northern Cheyenne Exodus.

Many details are omitted, however, including how Morning Star was among the chiefs present at the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which ended Red Cloud's War and promised the Sioux their ancestral lands in the region of modern-day South Dakota, part of North Dakota, and Nebraska. This treaty was not honored by the US government, leading to further hostilities and, eventually, the Great Sioux War.

Morning Star was not present at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Battle of the Greasy Grass, 25-26 June 1876) but was inspired by the victory of Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890), Crazy Horse (l. c. 1840-1877), and Sioux war chief Gall (l. c. 1840-1894) to again take up arms against the US military. He and Little Wolf were defeated by troops under the command of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie (l. 1840-1889) and his Pawnee allies at the Battle on the Red Fork (the Dull Knife Fight) on 25 November 1876.

It was this defeat that led to the Northern Cheyenne being forcibly removed to the Southern Cheyenne Reservation in "Indian Territory" of modern-day Oklahoma in April 1877. The terrible conditions there then resulted in the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878.

Sioux Warrior Rain-in-the-Face (Eastman's Biography)

Rain-in-the-Face (Ite Omagazu, l. c. 1835-1905) was a Lakota Sioux warrior and war chief during Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) and at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876), after which he became famous as the man who killed Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, his brother Capt. Thomas Custer, or both of them.

How Rain-in-the-Face first became identified as Custer's killer is unclear, but the claim was popularized by the poem The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – the bestselling American poet of his age – published in Keramos and Other Poems (1878). Although modern-day writers cite the poem as claiming Rain-in-the-Face killed Thomas Custer, it seems clear "White Chief with yellow hair" (line 9 of the poem) alludes to George Custer, and it is George's heart, not Thomas's, that Rain-in-the-Face rides off with at the end of the piece.

Rain-in-the-Face is best known today from two accounts of his life and the part he played at the Battle of the Little Bighorn – the 1894 report given by American journalist W. Kent Thomas based on an "interview" given at Coney Island, and the 1905 biography by the Sioux author and physician Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939) – which contradict each other.

In the Thomas interview, Rain-in-the-Face claims he killed Thomas Custer, cut out his heart, and spat part of it in his face at Little Bighorn as revenge for being unjustly arrested by Capt. Custer in 1874. In Eastman's account, he denies killing either of the brothers and, further, describes the Battle of Little Bighorn as so chaotic no one could have known who they had killed for certain.

As the W. Kent Thomas interview was given after the journalist got Rain-in-the-Face drunk, for the express purpose of getting the "real story" on Custer's death, while Eastman's account is a respectful transcript of the old warrior's life story, the latter is usually understood as more historically accurate.

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The following is taken from Eastman's Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916), the 1939 edition, republished in 2016. It has been edited in the interests of space, but the full account will be found below in the External Links section.

The noted Sioux warrior, Rain-in-the-Face, whose name once carried terror to every part of the frontier, died at his home on the Standing Rock reserve in North Dakota on September 14, 1905. About two months before his death, I went to see him for the last time, where he lay upon the bed of sickness from which he never rose again, and drew from him his life-history.

It had been my experience that you cannot induce an Indian to tell a story, or even his own name, by asking him directly.

"Friend," I said, "even if a man is on a hot trail, he stops for a smoke! In the good old days, before the charge there was a smoke. At home, by the fireside, when the old men were asked to tell their brave deeds, again the pipe was passed. So come, let us smoke now to the memory of the old days!"

He took of my tobacco and filled his long pipe, and we smoked. Then I told an old mirthful story to get him in the humor of relating his own history.

The old man lay upon an iron bedstead, covered by a red blanket, in a corner of the little log cabin. He was all alone that day; only an old dog lay silent and watchful at his master's feet.

Finally, he looked up and said with a pleasant smile:

"True, friend; it is the old custom to retrace one's trail before leaving it forever! I know that I am at the door of the spirit home.

"I was born near the forks of the Cheyenne River, about seventy years ago…When I was a boy, I loved to fight," he continued. "In all our boyish games I had the name of being hard to handle, and I took much pride in the fact.

"I was about ten years old when we encountered a band of Cheyenne. They were on friendly terms with us, but we boys always indulged in sham fights on such occasions, and this time I got in an honest fight with a Cheyenne boy older than I. I got the best of the boy, but he hit me hard in the face several times, and my face was all spattered with blood and streaked where the paint had been washed away. The Sioux boys whooped and yelled:

"‘His enemy is down, and his face is spattered as if with rain! Rain-in-the-Face! His name shall be Rain-in-the-Face!'

"Afterwards, when I was a young man, we went on a warpath against the Gros Ventres. We stole some of their horses but were overtaken and had to abandon the horses and fight for our lives. I had wished my face to represent the sun when partly covered with darkness, so I painted it half black, half red. We fought all day in the rain, and my face was partly washed and streaked with red and black: so again, I was christened Rain-in-the-Face. We considered it an honorable name.

"I had been on many warpaths, but was not especially successful until about the time the Sioux began to fight with the white man…

"Some , Crow King, and others.

"This was the plan decided upon after many councils. The main war party lay in ambush, and a few of the bravest young men were appointed to attack the woodchoppers who were cutting logs to complete the building of the fort. We were told not to kill these men, but to chase them into the fort and retreat slowly, defying the white men; and if the soldiers should follow, we were to lead them into the ambush. They took our bait exactly as we had hoped! It was a matter of a very few minutes, for every soldier lay dead in a shorter time than it takes to annihilate a small herd of buffalo.

"This attack was hastened because most of the Sioux on the Missouri River and eastward had begun to talk of suing for peace. But even this did not stop the peace movement. The very next year a treaty was signed at Fort Rice, Dakota Territory, by nearly all the Sioux chiefs, in which it was agreed on the part of the Great Father in Washington that all the country north of the Republican River in Nebraska, including the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains, was to be always Sioux country, and no white man should intrude upon it without our permission. Even with this agreement Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were not satisfied, and they would not sign…

"It was when the white men found the yellow metal in our country, and came in great numbers, driving away our game, that we took up arms against them for the last time. I must say here that the chiefs who were loudest for war were among the first to submit and accept reservation life. Spotted Tail was a great warrior, yet he was one of the first to yield, because he was promised by the Chief Soldiers that they would make him chief of all the Sioux. Ugh! He would have stayed with Sitting Bull to the last had it not been for his ambition.

"About this time, we young warriors began to watch the trails of the white men into the Black Hills, and when we saw a wagon coming, we would hide at the crossing and kill them all without much trouble. We did this to discourage the whites from coming into our country without our permission…

"There were a few Indians who were liars, and never on the warpath, playing ‘good Indian' with the Indian agents and the war chiefs at the forts. Some of this faithless set betrayed me and told more than I ever did. I was seized and taken to the fort near Bismarck, North Dakota of the Long-Haired War Chief and imprisoned there. These same lying Indians, who were selling their services as scouts to the white man, told me that I was to be shot to death, or else hanged upon a tree. I answered that I was not afraid to die.

"However, there was an old soldier who used to bring my food and stand guard over me—he was a white man, it is true, but he had an Indian heart! He came to me one day and unfastened the iron chain and ball with which they had locked my leg, saying by signs and what little Sioux he could muster:

"‘Go, friend! Take the chain and ball with you. I shall shoot, but the voice of the gun will lie.'

"When he had made me understand, you may guess that I ran my best! I was almost over the bank when he fired his piece at me several times, but I had already gained cover and was safe. I have never told this before, and would not, lest it should do him an injury, but he was an old man then, and I am sure he must be dead long since. That old soldier taught me that some of the white people have hearts," he added, quite seriously.

"I went back to Standing Rock in the night, and I had to hide for several days in the woods, where food was brought to me by my relatives…

"In the spring the hostile Sioux got together again upon the Tongue River. It was one of the greatest camps of the Sioux that I ever saw…We had decided to fight the white soldiers until no warrior should be left."

At this point Rain-in-the-Face took up his tobacco pouch and began again to fill his pipe…

"There was excitement among the people, and a great council was held. Many spoke. I was asked the condition of those Indians who had gone upon the reservation, and I told them truly that they were nothing more than prisoners. It was decided to go out and meet Three Stars at a safe distance from our camp.

"We met him on the Little Rosebud. I believe that if we had waited and allowed him to make the attack, he would have fared no better than Custer. He was too strongly fortified where he was, and I think, too, that he was saved partly by his Indian allies, for the scouts discovered us first and fought us first, thus giving him time to make his preparations. I think he was more wise than brave! After we had left that neighborhood, he might have pushed on and connected with the Long-Haired Chief. That would have saved Custer and perhaps won the day.

"When we crossed from Tongue River to the Little Big Horn, on account of the scarcity of game, we did not anticipate any more trouble. Our runners had discovered that Crook had retraced his trail to Goose Creek, and we did not suppose that the white men would care to follow us farther into the rough country.

"Suddenly the Long-Haired Chief appeared with his men! It was a surprise."

"What part of the camp were you in when the soldiers attacked the lower end?" I asked.

"I had been invited to a feast at one of the young men's lodges . There was a certain warrior who was making preparations to go against the Crows, and I had decided to go also," he said.

"While I was eating my meat, we heard the war cry! We all rushed out and saw a warrior riding at top speed from the lower camp, giving the warning as he came. Then we heard the reports of the soldiers' guns, which sounded differently from the guns fired by our people in battle.

"I ran to my teepee and seized my gun, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows. I already had my stone war club, for you know we usually carry those by way of ornament. Just as I was about to set out to meet Reno, a body of soldiers appeared nearly opposite us, at the edge of a long line of cliffs across the river.

"All of us who were mounted and ready immediately started down the stream toward the ford. There were Ogallala, Miniconjou, Cheyenne, and some Hunkpapa, and those around me seemed to be nearly all very young men.

"‘Behold, there is among us a young woman!' I shouted. ‘Let no young man hide behind her garment!' I knew that would make those young men brave.

"The woman was Tashenamani, or Moving Robe, whose brother had just been killed in the fight with Three Stars. Holding her brother's war staff over her head, and leaning forward upon her charger, she looked as pretty as a bird. Always when there is a woman in the charge, it causes the warriors to vie with one another in displaying their valor," he added.

"The foremost warriors had almost surrounded the white men, and more were continually crossing the stream. The soldiers had dismounted and were firing into the camp from the top of the cliff."

"My friend, was Sitting Bull in this fight?" I inquired.

"I did not see him there, but I learned afterward that he was among those who met Reno, and that was three or four of the white man's miles from Custer's position. Later he joined the attack upon Custer but was not among the foremost.

"When the troops were surrounded on two sides, with the river on the third, the order came to charge! There were many very young men, some of whom had only a war staff or a stone war club in hand, who plunged into the column, knocking the men over and stampeding their horses.

"The soldiers had mounted and started back, but when the onset came, they dismounted again and separated into several divisions, facing different ways. They fired as fast as they could load their guns, while we used chiefly arrows and war clubs. There seemed to be two distinct movements among the Indians. One body moved continually in a circle, while the other rode directly into and through the troops.

"Presently some of the soldiers remounted and fled along the ridge toward Reno's position; but they were followed by our warriors, like hundreds of blackbirds after a hawk. A larger body remained together at the upper end of a little ravine and fought bravely until they were cut to pieces. I had always thought that white men were cowards, but I had a great respect for them after this day.

"It is generally said that a young man with nothing but a war staff in his hand broke through the column and knocked down the leader very early in the fight. We supposed him to be the leader, because he stood up in full view, swinging his big knife .

"After the first rush was over, coups were counted as usual on the bodies of the slain. You know, four coups is entitled to the ‘first feather.'

"There was an Indian here called Appearing Elk, who died a short time ago. He was slightly wounded in the charge. He had some of the weapons of the Long-Haired Chief, and the Indians used to say jokingly after we came upon the reservation that Appearing Elk must have killed the Chief, because he had his sword! However, the scramble for plunder did not begin until all were dead. I do not think he killed Custer, and if he had, the time to claim the honor was immediately after the fight.

"Many lies have been told of me. Some say that I killed the Chief, and others that I cut out the heart of his brother , because he had caused me to be imprisoned. Why, in that fight the excitement was so great that we scarcely recognized our nearest friends! Everything was done like lightning. After the battle, we young men were chasing horses all over the prairie, while the old men and women plundered the bodies; and if any mutilating was done, it was by the old men.

"I have lived peaceably ever since we came upon the reservation. No one can say that Rain-in-the-Face has broken the rules of the Great Father. I fought for my people and my country. When we were conquered, I remained silent, as a warrior should. Rain-in-the-Face was killed when he put down his weapons before the Great Father. His spirit was gone then; only his poor body lived on, but now it is almost ready to lie down for the last time. Ho, hechetu! "

Sioux Chief Two Strike (Eastman's Biography)

Two Strike (Numpkahapa/Nomkahpa, l. c. 1831-1915) was a Lakota Sioux chief of the Brule band, who fought against the US military consistently from Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) through the Great Sioux War (1876-1877) and was present at the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. He was later an outspoken critic of US policies toward Native peoples of North America.

He fought alongside Red Cloud (l. 1822-1909), Sioux Chief Spotted Tail (l. 1823-1881), Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890), Crazy Horse (l. c. 1840-1877), Roman Nose (Cheyenne Warrior) (l. c. 1830-1868) and other famous figures including the Cheyenne chiefs Morning Star (Dull Knife, l. c. 1810-1883), Little Wolf (l. c. 1820-1904), and Black Kettle (l. c. 1803-1868) but never received the same attention as his more famous contemporaries.

This may have been due, at least in part, to his shyness and a reluctance to call notice to himself. He fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Battle of the Greasy Grass, 25-26 June 1876), for example, which Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are famous for – even though no one knows, precisely, what they did during the conflict – but is rarely mentioned in accounts of that battle.

He was one of the four Sioux chiefs who led the attack on the Pawnee at the Battle of Massacre Canyon in 1873, alongside Spotted Tail, Charging Bear (l. c. 1836-1918), and Little Wound (l. c. 1835-1899), which, according to some scholars, resulted in the Pawnee's choice to relocate to "Indian Territory" (modern-day Oklahoma) and encouraged more Pawnee warriors to enlist in the US military as scouts to fight against the Sioux.

This conflict was in keeping with traditional Native American warfare whereas engagements with the US military were not. Two Strike condemned the US policy of westward expansion and the US treatment of the Plains Indians, specifically the Sioux, strenuously, especially after the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, and was imprisoned in 1891 for inciting rebellion, serving three years in federal prison for objecting to the massacre. After his release, he continued his criticism of the US government's policies until his death, of natural causes, on the Rosebud Reservation in 1915.

The Sioux physician and author Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939) includes Two Strike in his Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916) alongside many of the others mentioned above. Eastman honors the shy spirit of Two Strike by focusing on stories of his youth, not on his military career. From the historical perspective, this is unfortunate, since Eastman knew Two Strike personally and so could have, perhaps, persuaded him to share his perspective of events such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn or the Wounded Knee Massacre, but, at the same time, the Eastman biography is respected as it honors the humble spirit of Two Strike, who, most likely would have refused to discuss his role in either of those or any other conflicts.

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The following text is taken from Eastman's Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, the 1939 edition, republished in 2016. He begins his account with a reference to Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses (Tasunka Kokipapi, l. c. 1836-1893), an Oglala Lakota Sioux chief who also fought in Red Cloud's War and was associated closely with Two Strike afterwards.

It is a pity that so many interesting names of well-known Indians have been mistranslated, so that their meaning becomes very vague if it is not wholly lost. In some cases, an opposite meaning is conveyed. For instance, there is the name, "Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses." It does not mean that the owner of the name is afraid of his own horse—far from it! Tashunkekokipapi signifies "The young men fear his horses." Whenever that man attacks, the enemy knows there will be a determined charge.

The name Tashunkewitko, or Crazy Horse, is a poetic simile. This leader was likened to an untrained or untouched horse, wild, ignorant of domestic uses, splendid in action, and unconscious of danger.

The name of Two Strike is a deed name. In a battle with the Utes this man knocked two enemies from the back of a war horse. The true rendering of the name Nomkahpa would be, "He knocked off two."

I was well acquainted with Two Strike and spent many pleasant hours with him, both at Washington, D. C., and in his home on the Rosebud reservation. What I have written is not all taken from his own mouth, because he was modest in talking about himself, but I had him vouch for the truth of the stories. He said that he was born near the Republican River about 1832. His earliest recollection was of an attack by the Shoshones upon their camp on the Little Piney. The first white men he ever met were traders who visited his people when he was very young. The incident was still vividly with him, because, he said, "They made my father crazy," . This made a deep impression upon him, he told me, so that from that day he was always afraid of the white man's "mysterious water."

Two Strike was not a large man, but he was very supple and alert in motion, as agile as an antelope. His face was mobile and intelligent. Although he had the usual somber visage of an Indian, his expression brightened up wonderfully when he talked. In some ways wily and shrewd in intellect, he was not deceitful nor mean. He had a high sense of duty and honor. Patriotism was his ideal and goal of life.

As a young man he was modest and even shy, although both his father and grandfather were well-known chiefs. I could find few noteworthy incidents in his early life, save that he was an expert rider of wild horses. At one time I was pressing him to give me some interesting incident of his boyhood. He replied to the effect that there was plenty of excitement but "not much in it." There was a delegation of Sioux chiefs visiting Washington, and we were spending an evening together in their hotel. Hollow Horn Bear spoke up and said:

"Why don't you tell him how you and a buffalo cow together held your poor father up and froze him almost to death?"

Everybody laughed, and another man remarked: "I think he had better tell the medicine man (meaning myself) how he lost the power of speech when he first tried to court a girl." Two Strike, although he was then close to eighty years of age, was visibly embarrassed by their chaff.

"Anyway, I stuck to the trail. I kept on till I got what I wanted," he muttered. And then came the story.

The old chief, his father, was very fond of the buffalo hunt; and being accomplished in horsemanship and a fine shot, although not very powerfully built, young Two Strike was already following hard in his footsteps. Like every proud father, his was giving him every incentive to perfect his skill, and one day challenged his sixteen-year-old son to the feat of "one arrow to kill" at the very next chase.

It was midwinter. A large herd of buffalo was reported by the game scout. The hunters gathered at daybreak prepared for the charge. The old chief had his tried charger equipped with a soft, pillow-like Indian saddle and a lariat. His old sinew-backed hickory bow was examined and strung, and a fine straight arrow with a steel head carefully selected for the test. He adjusted a keen butcher knife over his leather belt, which held a warm buffalo robe securely about his body. He wore neither shirt nor coat, although a piercing wind was blowing from the northwest. The youthful Two Strike had his favorite bow and his swift pony, which was perhaps dearer to him than his closest boy comrade.

Now the hunters crouched upon their horses' necks like an army in line of battle, while behind them waited the boys and old men with pack ponies to carry the meat. "Hukahey!" shouted the leader as a warning. "Yekiya wo!" (Go) and in an instant all the ponies leaped forward against the cutting wind, as if it were the start in a horse race. Every rider leaned forward, tightly wrapped in his robe, watching the flying herd for an opening in the mass of buffalo, a chance to cut out some of the fattest cows. This was the object of the race.

The chief had a fair start; his horse was well trained and needed no urging nor guidance. Without the slightest pull on the lariat, he dashed into the thickest of the herd. The youth's pony had been prancing and rearing impatiently; he started a little behind - yet, being swift, passed many. His rider had one clear glimpse of his father ahead of him, then the snow arose in blinding clouds on the trail of the bison. The whoops of the hunters, the lowing of the cows, and the menacing glances of the bulls as they plunged along, or now and then stood at bay, were enough to unnerve a boy less well tried. He was unable to select his victim. He had been carried deeply into the midst of the herd and found himself helpless to make the one sure shot, therefore he held his one arrow in his mouth and merely strove to separate them so as to get his chance.

At last, the herd parted, and he cut out two fat cows, and was maneuvering for position when a rider appeared out of the snow cloud on their other side. This aroused him to make haste lest his rival secure both cows; he saw his chance, and in a twinkling his arrow sped clear through one of the animals so that she fell headlong.

In this instant he observed that the man who had joined him was his own father, who had met with the same difficulties as himself. When the young man had shot his only arrow, the old chief with a whoop went after the cow that was left, but as he gained her broadside, his horse stepped in a badger hole and fell, throwing him headlong. The maddened buffalo, as sometimes happens in such cases, turned upon the pony and gored him to death. His rider lay motionless, while Two Strike rushed forward to draw her attention, but she merely tossed her head at him, while persistently standing guard over the dead horse and the all-but-frozen Indian.

Alas for the game of "one arrow to kill!" The boy must think fast, for his father's robe had slipped off, and he was playing dead, lying almost naked in the bitter air upon the trampled snow. His bluff would not serve, so he flew back to pull out his solitary arrow from the body of the dead cow. Quickly wheeling again, he sent it into her side, and she fell. The one arrow to kill had become one arrow to kill two buffalo! At the council lodge that evening Two Strike was the hero.

The following story is equally characteristic of him, and in explanation it should be said that in the good old days among the Sioux, a young man is not supposed to associate with girls until he is ready to take a wife. It was a rule with our young men, especially the honorable and well-born, to gain some reputation in the hunt and in war, — the more difficult the feats achieved the better, — before even speaking to a young woman. Many a life was risked in the effort to establish a reputation along these lines. Courtship was no secret, but rather a social event, often celebrated by the proud parents with feasts and presents to the poor, and this etiquette was sometimes felt by a shy or sensitive youth as an insurmountable obstacle to the fulfilment of his desires.

Two Strike was the son and grandson of a chief, but he could not claim any credit for the deeds of his forbears. He had not only to guard their good name but achieve one for himself. This he had set out to do, and he did well. He was now of marriageable age with a war record, and admitted to the council, yet he did not seem to trouble himself at all about a wife. His was strictly a bachelor career. Meanwhile, as is apt to be the case, his parents had thought much about a possible daughter-in-law, and had even collected ponies, fine robes, and other acceptable goods to be given away in honor of the event, whenever it should take place. Now and then they would drop a sly hint, but with no perceptible effect.

They did not and could not know of the inward struggle that racked his mind at this period of his life. The shy and modest young man was dying for a wife yet could not bear even to think of speaking to a young woman! The fearless hunter of buffaloes, mountain lions, and grizzlies, the youth who had won his eagle feathers in a battle with the Utes, could not bring himself to take this tremendous step.

At last, his father appealed to him directly. "My son," he declared, "it is your duty to take unto yourself a wife, in order that the honors won by your ancestors and by yourself may be handed down in the direct line. There are several eligible young women in our band whose parents have intimated a wish to have you for their son-in-law."

Two Strike made no reply, but he was greatly disturbed. He had no wish to have the old folks select his bride, for if the truth were told, his choice was already made. He had simply lacked the courage to go a-courting!

The next morning, after making an unusually careful toilet, he took his best horse and rode to a point overlooking the path by which the girls went for water. Here the young men were wont to take their stand, and, if fortunate, intercept the girl of their heart for a brief but fateful interview. Two Strike had determined to speak straight to the point, and as soon as he saw the pretty maid, he came forward boldly and placed himself in her way. A long moment passed. She glanced up at him shyly but not without encouragement. His teeth fairly chattered with fright, and he could not say a word. She looked again, noted his strange looks, and believed him suddenly taken ill. He appeared to be suffering. At last, he feebly made signs for her to go on and leave him alone. The maiden was sympathetic, but as she did not know what else to do she obeyed his request.

The poor youth was so ashamed of his cowardice that he afterward admitted his first thought was to take his own life. He believed he had disgraced himself forever in the eyes of the only girl he had ever loved. However, he determined to conquer his weakness and win her, which he did. The story came out many years after and was told with much enjoyment by the old men.

Two Strike was better known by his own people than by the whites, for he was individually a terror in battle rather than a leader. He achieved his honorable name in a skirmish with the Utes in Colorado. The Sioux regarded these people as their bravest enemies, and the outcome of the fight was for some time uncertain. First the Sioux were forced to retreat and then their opponents, and at the latter point the horse of a certain Ute was shot under him. A friend came to his rescue and took him up behind him. Our hero overtook them in flight, raised his war club, and knocked both men off with one blow.

He was a very old man when he died, only two or three years ago, on the Rosebud reservation.

Black Elk on Crazy Horse

Black Elk Speaks (1932) is the popular and controversial book of the narrative by the Oglala Lakota Sioux medicine man Black Elk (l. 1863-1950) on his life and people as given to the American poet and writer John G. Neihardt (l. 1881-1973). Crazy Horse (l. c. 1840-1877), Black Elk's second cousin, is among the many featured in the work.

Red Cloud's War

Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) was a conflict between the Lakota Sioux-Cheyenne-Arapaho alliance and the US government over the westward expansion of the United States into the Powder River territory. It was the only war won by the Plains Indians and it halted further US expansion in the region until the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1876.