Chapter X: Part 10

All of the scouts went for making war the next year after I enlisted. We were taken to Pine Ridge reservation. We were told the Sioux were going to fight against the Cheyennes in that country, so we were willing to help our own people. Our scouts were led by an officer we knew as Big Red Nose.[55] Willis Rowland, the half-Cheyenne, was our Sergeant. Soldiers from some other fort came to Fort Keogh and went with us to Pine Ridge.

When we got to Pine Ridge we learned that it was mostly the other Sioux tribes, not the Ogallalas, who were wanting to fight against the white people. The Cheyennes living there did not want any trouble, so the bad Sioux were angered also at the Cheyennes. Some Ogallalas joined the bad Indians. Our Cheyenne relatives had their lodges torn down and burned. Big Foot was the principal chief of the Sioux making the trouble. We knew him, and we were sorry at having to fight against him, but we were willing to be on the side of the whites and our own Cheyennes.

We Cheyenne scouts did not get into any battle. At one time we were all dressed and ready, but the officers made us stop behind a hill while the soldiers went on and killed many Sioux at a camp on a little valley just over the hill. A Sioux started that fight by killing an officer who was taking all guns from them. The soldiers then began to shoot, and many women and children as well as men were killed. This trouble was on Wounded Knee creek. At the time of our advance up the hill I was wearing a warbonnet for the first time at any battle.

Big Red Nose, our officer, was killed by a Sioux before this fight. White Moon and Rock Roads, two of our scouts, were out riding somewhere with him. They saw four or five Sioux coming on horseback. The Sioux were riding slowly, and it appeared they did not intend any harm. But while Big Red Nose had his head turned in another direction one of the Sioux fired his rifle. The bullet went through the head of the officer, from back to front, and he fell dead from his horse. The two Cheyennes whipped their horses and got away. The Sioux scalped Big Red Nose and took all of his clothing.

As the Wounded Knee fight was going on, the Sioux fled in all directions. The soldier officer now leading us was White Hat. He sent me out to a little hilltop to watch where the people running away might go. I saw one Sioux man ride to a big house. He limped when he got off and walked into the house. I told White Hat about him. After a while he got some soldiers, and all of us went to the place. From a distance, I called out in Sioux language for all people in the house to come out and surrender. Nobody came out. We went close to the door. I called to ask how many people were in there. A man’s voice answered me that there were three of them. I told him they must come out, but he did not answer me. White Hat knocked on the door. He knocked a second time and a third time. Then he and the soldiers smashed the door and went into the house. I followed them.

A Sioux man was lying on a floor bed. A boy was lying on another floor bed. A woman was sitting beside the boy. The man had a sheet covering all of him but his head and neck. I did not know what else might be under the sheet, but I said:

“You must give up your gun. You will be treated kindly.”

He at once drew a rifle out from under the sheet and handed it to me. We learned that he had bullet holes through both legs, but no bones were broken. The boy had been shot through the left arm. The woman was not injured. The soldiers got a wagon and took them to the agency. A soldier doctor there took care of them.

The troublesome Sioux were gathered out in what the Indians knew as the Bad Lands. It was a very rough country having no trees and not much grass. The Cheyennes went out with soldiers and camped between the agency and that country. We kept watching to try to find out how many were there and how many were going there or coming back to the reservation. It was winter, and the wind blows hard there much of the time. We had some cold rides.

One night our officer gave me a writing on paper and told me to take it to the agency. He had the interpreter explain to me which officer there was to receive it. The air was full of whirling snow. The gusts of wind appeared to come from everywhere except behind me. I wrapped my blanket tightly about me and kept my body humped up as my horse moved along the trail. At first I was not afraid, as it seemed the night was too stormy for any Sioux to be traveling. Then I began thinking that perhaps the Sioux might suppose the same thing about the Cheyennes and the soldiers, and so there might be many of them along the way. I was startled and my heart was jumping at every little doubtful sight or noise. But I could not do anything but keep on going. I tried to make myself feel better by thinking of what a good sleep I should have after so hard a ride.

At the agency I found the officer and gave to him the paper. Then I lay down on the floor behind his stove and went to sleep. Pretty soon the interpreter awakened me. The officer wanted me. He said: “You are a good scout. I want you now to take a message for me back to your officer.” I was yet half asleep. But right away I became all awake again and got myself ready to go. I was as much afraid on the way back as I had been in coming. The snow and the wind whirling it were the same. I did not freeze, though, and I got to our camp and gave this paper to my officer. He said: “Good. Now you may go and sleep.” It was almost morning. I slept far into the day. Nobody awakened me this time.

All of the scouts and Long Yellow Neck, the officer now with us, were out one night after some Sioux who had been seen. The Cheyennes were afraid. We thought there might be many more Sioux not seen. I went off a little distance aside from the others, to look and listen where there was more quietude. I saw the flash of a match. I went cautiously in that direction. I got down into a deep gulch. I could hear Sioux voices talking above me. My heart seemed to be jumping all around in my breast. I kept still until the sound of the voices went beyond my hearing. I could not see anybody, but the sounds told me the direction the Sioux were traveling. I went back to the band and told of what had occurred. All of us then followed a trail along the rim of the gulch. It led us to two lodges. We surrounded them and then let them know we were there. They did not fight us. We captured ten Sioux. We made them give us their guns. I was one of ten scouts appointed to take them to the agency.

Some Ogallalas were with the Cheyennes as scouts. All together our band must have numbered sixty or more. I do not know exactly how many there were of either Cheyennes or Ogallalas, but I know there were more of the Cheyennes. Three Cheyennes and three Ogallalas were sent out one night to watch the trails. I was one of the three Cheyennes. Long Yellow Neck said: “I want you to find out how many bad Indians are going out from the reservation.”

The six of us got upon our horses and rode away together into the night storm. One Ogallala and I separated off and dismounted, to look and listen. We watched particularly for match lighting, as any Indian who had tobacco was likely to stop long enough to light a match for smoking. After a little while, we saw what we were looking for. We moved quickly, but carefully, toward where we had seen the flash. We heard voices.

“Yes, they are Sioux,” we whispered in agreement.

We rejoined our companions and told them. Everybody said we ought to go back and tell the officer. All of us went then to our camp. An Ogallala knocked on the post at our officer’s tent. “Come in,” he said. All of us went into the warm shelter. Long Yellow Neck was writing. He put aside his paper and called the interpreter. We told what we had seen.

“How many of them were there?” the officer asked one of the Ogallalas.

“I don’t know,” the Indian replied.

“You are foolish,” the officer told him.

He asked others. Each one said: “I don’t know.” I said the same. But we explained that it was too dark to see anybody, that only the flash of the match had been seen and the voices had been heard. The officer said:

“Good. Now, all of you go out again. If you see any Sioux, count them.”

We found a fresh trail of horses going toward the Bad Lands. By a creek we saw that different campings had been made. Many carcasses of cattle were there. They were white men cattle that had been stolen and butchered by the Sioux.

We three Cheyennes separated off from the three Ogallalas. The two parties scouted at a little distance from each other. After our three had traveled only a short while, I left my horse to be held by one of the others while I crept to the top of a bluff for looking and listening. A commonly traveled trail followed along past this bluff. Pretty soon I heard horses coming. I hugged close to the ground behind a rock. Four Sioux men rode past me toward the Bad Lands. They were almost close enough to reach out and strike me. I kept as still as the rock, except for my shivering from fright. When they were gone far enough I slid back a little distance and then jumped up and ran to my two companions. We found the three Ogallalas. They also had seen the four men. All six of us hurried back to our camp. The others appointed me to do the talking for our report. I told of how I had hidden behind the rock and counted them as they had passed by me. “There were four of them,” I said. Long Yellow Neck wrote my name on a piece of paper. Then he said:

“Good. All of you may go now and sleep.”

I believe I slept, but I am not sure whether I was sleeping and dreaming or was only lying there and thinking. I kept my cartridge belt buckled on me and I hugged my rifle to my body. It seemed that angry Sioux Indians were all about me. They were searching for me, to kill me. Some of them were striking at me with war clubs and slashing at me with knives. I heard calling of my name: “Wooden Leg.” I jumped up and stood there wide awake.

Long Yellow Neck and a soldier with him were in our tent. The soldier was reading off our names from a paper he had in his hands.

“The same six are to go and scout again,” he said.

Another Cheyenne was added to us. The seven of us got our horses. We were about to go when an Ogallala rode into camp. He had come from the agency. We wondered what was his errand. We waited to find out. He went to Long Yellow Neck’s tent. Pretty soon everybody was saying:

“All of the scouts and soldiers go back to Pine Ridge.”

I do not know how the others felt, but my own heart fluttered in pleasure. I did not want then to fight any Sioux. We were only a short time in getting all of the camp ready to move. When we were about to start on our way, Long Yellow Neck said: “Now, I want someone to stay behind and watch, to see if any of the Sioux are following us.” He asked if I would stay. I said, “No, I do not want to stay behind.” He asked Bad Horses, Foolish Man, White Bird, Sweet Grass and others. Some Ogallalas were asked. Everybody asked said, “No.” While this was going on, three of the Ogallalas slipped away afoot, leaving their three horses. Long Yellow Neck told us he had thought all of us were brave men, but he had learned now that we were not brave. Finally I said: “I will stay behind and watch.” Little Thunder, an Ogallala, then said he would stay with me.

We two caught the three horses left by the Ogallalas who had run away afoot. Little Thunder said: “I am hungry.” I too was hungry, but we had no food. We drove the three horses ahead of us and hurried forward. Soon we caught up with the scouts and soldiers. “Give us something to eat,” we asked. A soldier took a big box of crackers from a pack mule and gave it to us. He gave us also plenty of bread. We ate until we were full up, and then we put what was left upon one of the three horses we had been driving. We led the three now and followed on far behind the other people.

The three Ogallalas afoot came to us. They asked us for bread and crackers. “If you will stay with us we will give you some,” we told them. They agreed. We gave them all they wanted. We let them have their horses. They rode with us all of the remainder of the way to the agency, helping us in watching back to see if any Sioux were following. We kept ourselves far behind. None of us saw any of the bad Indians anywhere along the way. When we rode into the agency camp, all of the soldiers and scouts were already there. We told Long Yellow Neck that we had not seen any Sioux following us. He said:

“Good. Now you may sleep.”

During the time we were scouting for the soldiers at Pine Ridge I got a Sioux head dress. It was a cap of some kind of skin having at its front a buffalo horn. I got it while the soldiers and scouts were camped on lower Wounded Knee creek. I was wearing it as I rode into camp. A soldier Sergeant said to me: “I wish you would give that to me.” “What would you give to me?” I asked him. “Five dollars,” he said. He gave me the five dollars and I gave him the buffalo horn head dress.

About four hundred Cheyennes came with us when we left Pine Ridge to return to Fort Keogh. These were people of ours who had fled from the South with Little Wolf and Dull Knife, and who had been staying since then among the Ogallalas on the Pine Ridge reservation. But now they were allowed to come and join the main body of Cheyennes in Montana. A few Cheyennes still remained with the Ogallalas, but this movement of the big band brought together what was considered to be the entire Northern Cheyenne tribe. An officer known to us as Small Chief[56] brought us back.

Cheyenne visitors from the Rosebud and Tongue river lands were camped at all times near Fort Keogh. We scouts who had families kept lodges for them among the visiting campers. Relatives and friends were shifting constantly to or from the fort, Miles City and our Cheyenne country seventy miles south of us. I had my food with the other scouts, from the soldier supplies and at our eating room at the fort. But I spent much of my time at the home lodge. One day I saw the old man Little Wolf at the camp. I said to my wife:

“I see Little Wolf. He is my relative. One of his wives is a sister of my father. I think I ought to invite him to eat at our lodge.”

“I am glad to hear you say that,” she answered me. “Tell him to come now.” Right away she began to prepare bread and meat and coffee.

When I brought Little Wolf I found he was partly drunk. He fumbled the food as he sat and ate. He ate freely, as though he were very hungry. He kept quiet and kept looking downward during all of the time. When he was done eating, I told him of my sympathy with him in his great trouble. He then told me all about the affair. “I loved the young man and all of his people,” he said. “I was crazy when I shot him.” At this time of conversation, Little Wolf was about seventy years old.

This man gave away all of his horses after he had been put out of his position as our greatest chief. After that, all of his traveling was done afoot. Sometimes he went alone, sometimes one or both of his wives accompanied him. They took along whatever packs they could carry, and they slept in temporary shelters or with no shelter. He went at times to visit the Crows. He visited also the Arapahoes, in Wyoming, walking two hundred miles or more and back again. He died in 1904, at the age of eighty-three years. His wives and close friends stood his dead body upright on a high hill overlooking the Rosebud valley, where many Cheyennes had their reservation homes. A great heap of stones was built up to enclose him thus standing upright. Twenty-four years later, his bones were brought to the agency cemetery and put into a grave there. Bird,[57] the old-time Indian story white man who lives in New York, had a stone put at the head of this agency grave.

Even the nearest relatives of Famished Elk never kept bad hearts against Little Wolf. At different times I have heard talk of him from Bald Eagle, a brother of the young man killed. Bald Eagle said:

“Little Wolf did not kill my brother. It was the white man whisky that did it.”

FOOTNOTES:

[55] Lieutenant Casey.

[56] Lieutenant McEniney.

[57] Dr. George Bird Grinnell, the author.

XV

_A Tamed Old Man._

Thirty years after the great battle against Custer, there was a gathering of Indians and white people at the Little Bighorn. Besides a few of our people, there were Crows, Sioux, Arapahoes, Shoshones, Nez Perces, Kiowas, Piegans, Gros Ventres and Paiutes, these last known to us as Fish-Eaters.

All Cheyennes who had fought in the battle were asked to come and join the other Indians and the white people in a peace feast. The place is only two short days of wagon traveling from our Lame Deer agency. But only a few Cheyennes would go there for the gathering. Among us there was much of such talk as: “Soldiers will be there. Seeing us might anger them so much as to make them want to kill us.”[58] Seven of us decided to go. These were the younger Chief Little Wolf, White Elk, Bobtail Horse, Two Moons, Buffalo Calf, myself Wooden Leg, and Brave Bear, a Southern Cheyenne. Four of the seven men took along their wives and their lodges.

In a big council lodge of the Crows a white man medicine doctor[59] asked different ones to tell something of the great battle. He said he had heard the white people say that Two Moons was a great warrior there, and he asked Two Moons to make a speech. This Cheyenne stood up and talked a long time. He said he had been the big chief of all the Cheyennes during the fight. He filled the ears of his hearers with lots of other lies, while the rest of us laughed among ourselves about what he was saying. Other Cheyennes and Sioux were asked to get up and talk, but none of them would do so.

The medicine doctor looked at my cousin, the younger Chief Little Wolf, and asked him:

“Were you at the Custer battle?”

“Yes.”

“Were you in the first fight above the camps?”

“No.”

“Who took the soldier horses?”

“The Sioux took most of them. The Cheyennes got a few. There were many Sioux and only a few Cheyennes in the fight.”

“Who took the soldier guns?”

“The same--the Sioux got many, the Cheyennes got a few.”

“Did you see Custer, either before or after he was killed?”

“I do not know. Nobody knew anything about Custer.”

“Our soldiers afterward could not find the bodies of all the white men killed. What became of them?”

“I do not know.”

“Were any of them taken away and hidden?”

“I think not, but I do not know.”

“Were any of them, either dead or alive, taken to the camps?”

“I think not. I never heard of any taken there.”

“Tell me all about what you saw and what you did at the battle.”

But Little Wolf would not tell. I said to him: “Go on, tell the truth, but do not talk like Two Moons did.” He was afraid, though. There were many white people and soldiers all around us, and he feared they might become angry.

White Elk, Bobtail Horse, Two Moons, Brave Bear, Buffalo Calf and the Sioux men all answered the same kind of questions in the same way. But none of them except Two Moons would say anything further about the fight. Bobtail Horse was either nervous or scared, so he got tangled a little. The doctor asked him the same kind of questions. Then he asked:

“How old are you?”

Bobtail Horse sat there as though he did not understand what was being asked. Pretty soon he began to count on his fingers. He counted them over and over. Finally he said: “I do not know.” All of us knew exactly one another’s age, but none of us interfered to help him in answering the question. The doctor did not ask him any further questions.

In my turn at the talking I was asked the same kind of questions:

“Wooden Leg, were you in the Custer battle?”

“Yes, I was there.”

“Were you in the first fight up above the camps?”

“Yes.”

“Good. How old were you at that time?”

“Eighteen winters.”

“How old are you now?”

“Forty-eight.”

“Good. Tell me where you were during all of the time. Tell me what you saw and what you did.”

I told him. It happened I was the only Indian at this gathering who had been in the first fight with what the white people call the Reno soldiers. It began with my brother and I being awakened by the shooting and our running to get our horses. I followed my own doings up the valley and into the chase after the soldiers through the river and up the hill. I showed how I had taken a rifle from a soldier. I described the killing of the Corn Indian and my taking his gun. The doctor wrote on a piece of paper as I talked. My cousin Little Wolf interrupted me: “You tell too much. Stop talking.”

But I did not stop. It appeared none of the soldiers nor other white people listening to me were angry. This medicine doctor looked to me like a good man, one who understood that we had killed soldiers who had come to kill us. I described to him the way I had helped to kill the soldier getting water at the river. I told about the Indians surrounding the Custer soldiers on the long ridge and about many things that happened there. The doctor still was writing on the paper. He broke in with some questions and I answered each one as straight as I knew how to answer it. Little Wolf said to me: “Tell him Custer killed himself, and see if he becomes angry.” But I did not say anything about that. Other Indians, at other times, had tried to tell of the soldiers killing themselves, but the white people listening always became angry and said the Indians were liars, so I thought it best to keep quiet. Other questions came:

“Did you see Custer?”

“I suppose I did, but I do not know. I think that no Indians there knew anything about him being with the soldiers.”

“Did you see soldiers having special marks on the shoulders of their coats?”

“Yes, I noticed some of them.”

“Did you know they were chiefs among the soldiers?”

“I did not know then, but I know now.”

“How many soldiers did you see having the markings on the shoulders?”

“I do not know. When we were fighting them they all looked alike to us, the same as a herd of buffalo.”

“How many Indians were killed?”

I told him the number of dead Cheyennes, Uncpapas and others.

“Good,” he said, and he wrote the numbers on his paper.

The Cheyennes and some other Indians went with a few soldiers to Fort Custer, not far from the place where had been the great battle. The soldier officers at the fort shook hands with all of us. We gathered together, and some friendly speeches were made by officers and by Indians. All I said there was: “A long time ago we were enemies. Today we are friends.” The medicine doctor rode beside me as we were going to and from the fort. We made sign-talk together along the way. I showed him the only place where the Cheyenne tribe ever camped west of the Bighorn river. From the top of the Fort Custer hill we could see the place, just across from the mouth of the Little Bighorn.

Many pictures were made of Cheyennes, Sioux, Nez Perces and Crows. Some were made on the valley and by the river where had been the first fight, others were made on the battle ridge and at its northern side. Pictures were made at night when the Indians were dancing. The bright flashes scared some of the Indians, but soon it was learned what was being done.

Wagons came loaded with rations. We were given plenty of beef, bacon, bread, crackers, coffee, sugar, meat in cans, and other food. We were on the valley by the river, where had been the fight with the Reno soldiers. A soldier officer rode about, saying:

“All Indians who were in the Custer battle get rations. No others are to be given any food.”

But when the distribution began, lots of Crows came running. They crowded forward saying:

“Oh, meat! Give some to us.”

Their actions made me angry. I let loose my tongue:

“You--Crows--you are like children. All Crows are babies. You are not brave. You never helped us to fight against the white people. You helped them in fighting against us. You were afraid, so you joined yourselves to the soldiers. You are not Indians.”

Bobtail Horse said to me: “Ssh, keep your temper.” My cousin Little Wolf said: “You are doing right. Tell them what we think of them.” The Crows stopped asking for the rations. All of them went back and kept quiet.

Besides the rations given to us every day, each of us was paid three dollars at the end of each day, for four days. When the gathering ended and we were getting ready to go back to our reservation, we were given plenty of extra food to eat along the way. Some of it was eaten by ourselves and our friends after we arrived home.

Another great gathering of whites and Indians assembled there fifty years after the battle. All of the Cheyennes, particularly the men who had been in the battle, were invited to go. Many lodges of our people traveled over the divide to that place and camped there, but I stayed at my home. Two times I was called to our Ashland district telephone for a talk from the agency. “We want you to go to the great peace celebration,” I was told. At each time of this talking I made reply: “I will think about it.” The more I thought about it, the more I felt like staying away. The battlefield is on the present Crow Indian reservation. I do not want to go upon their lands. I have made up my mind never again to go to any place where I might be called upon to shake hands with a Crow.

The younger Chief Little Wolf, my cousin, had the boyhood name Thorny Tree. His mother was a sister of my father and of the older Little Wolf’s first wife. The young nephew Thorny Tree showed special bravery at a battle with the Shoshones. The old chief was so pleased at this manly conduct of his wife’s relative that he told the young warrior:

“I give you my name. From this day on you shall be Little Wolf.”

This younger man stayed with the Cheyennes at the Pine Ridge reservation, after the peaceful times came. Among them he was made a tribal chief. When the band of them were moved to our Tongue River reservation he was made a chief of the entire tribe. A few years later he was accepted as the principal old man chief. He told me that during the years he was living at Pine Ridge he often was mistaken for the same Little Wolf who led the Cheyennes in their flight from the South. In fact, he was with that band of fleeing Cheyennes, but he joined that group of them who went to Pine Ridge. The older Little Wolf and his last followers came to Powder river and on to Fort Keogh. The old chief never was at Pine Ridge after that time.

My cousin told me that white people often embarrassed him also in supposing him to have been famed as Chief Little Wolf at the Custer battle. In this case, the older man was not in the fight, he and a small band of Cheyennes having followed on the trail of the soldiers and having arrived at the camps after the white men all had been killed. The younger Little Wolf was already there with the great tribal assemblage. The family lodge of his father, Big Left Hand, was near to my own father’s family lodge. This last Chief Little Wolf, my cousin, died in 1927, at the age of 76 years.

I visited the Arapahoes and the Shoshones, in Wyoming, several years ago. Eight Cheyenne men, some of us with our wives and our tepees went on this trip. I had a Custer gun, borrowed from a Cheyenne who kept it in hiding. We saw a big band of elk in a valley of the Bighorn mountains. I was chosen to lead the hunters in getting ourselves close to them. I said: “Yes, I will lead, but you others must stay back until I tell you it is time for all to show themselves and begin to shoot.” As we got well toward the elk band they suddenly ran away into a forest. I soon learned that one of our men had pushed on ahead and frightened them. “You are foolish,” was all I could say to him. We saw trails of other elk, plenty of them, but we did not see any others of the elk themselves.

High up on the top of a rocky bluff we saw a bighorn, what the white people call a mountain sheep. Different ones of us shot at it and missed it. Another man and I then shot, at the same moment. The animal tumbled down the mountain. When we got to it we found that both of our bullets had struck the front part of its body. We enjoyed that meat. It was the first bighorn meat I had eaten for several years.

Nine sleeps we made on our way to the reservation where we were going. We stopped with the Arapahoes, good friends of the Cheyennes all during the old times. There had been friendly intermarriages between our people and theirs. There was much of inquiring about Arapahoes living among us on our reservation. These people made gifts to us. They could not give much, because they were as poor as the Cheyennes.

We moved camp for a visit with the Shoshones. In the old times they and the Cheyennes were constantly on terms of enmity. But now they received us cordially. From all sides came, “How,” “How,” “How.” An old chief of theirs went riding among them and calling out: “Everybody come and shake hands with our guests, the Cheyennes. Let them know we are glad they came to visit us.”

Men, women, old people, boys, girls, all moved along past our group and greeted us with handshakes. They brought food. There were big piles of all kinds of things the Indians like to eat. After a while, they began to bring horses. One after another they kept giving these to us. Every Cheyenne among us had more horses than he could lead, when we parted from the Shoshones. I had nine of them presented to me. When we got back among our own people at home we were the richest Indians in our tribe. We had horses to give away to our friends. All of the Cheyennes agreed that the Shoshones have good hearts, that they are a good people.

An Arickaree Indian visited me at my place on Tongue river a few years ago. We talked of the Custer battle. He told me one of their chiefs had been killed there. He described him. The special features of his war clothing were a fine buckskin shirt and a necklace made of bear claws. I described to him the Arickaree I had helped to kill. This one had on a buckskin shirt. An eagle feather stood up from his back hair. A red string tied his hair together behind. If he had a bear-claw necklace I did not see it. I did not see this kind of necklace on any of the three Arickarees I saw dead. It may be one of the other two had one and it had been taken from him before I saw the dead body.

I went to Washington when I was fifty-five years old. Little Wolf, Two Moons and Black Wolf were old men with me as delegates to speak for our tribe. Three younger men who could talk the white man language went with us. They were Willis Rowland, Ben Shoulderblade and Milton Little White Man. At a meeting with white men, there were some speeches made. Two Moons did most of the talking for us. The rest of us did not care to make any long talks. Two Moons told these people he was a big chief leading all of the Cheyennes at the Custer battle. None of us said anything in dispute of him at the meeting, but when we got away to ourselves Black Wolf said to him: “You are the biggest liar in the whole Cheyenne tribe.” Two Moons laughed and replied: “I think it is not wrong to tell lies to white people.”

The same white man medicine doctor who had been at the gathering by the Little Bighorn was in Washington. He was good to us, helping us to see the strange sights in the big city. He could make good signs, so he and I talked much together. We went up to the top of a very tall stone he said was Washington’s monument. We rode up to the top and walked a long and winding stairway to the bottom.

WOODEN LEG, HIS WIFE AND THEIR DAUGHTER, IN 1914]

A big ship took us Cheyennes out upon the great water. All of us became sick and vomited. “It is the same as whisky,” we said to each other. The ship took us to New York. There we visited our friend Bird, the old-time Indian story white man. The white man medicine doctor was traveling with us. He went with us on to Philadelphia, where we visited the biggest trader store I ever saw. In a theater in this city we sat upon a platform before a great crowd of white people. I was asked to make a speech. I talked, but only for a short time. One of our interpreters repeated to them what I said. This visit to the great cities was at some time during the spring (1913), in March or April, I believe.

I lied to one man in New York. He asked me many questions. For a while I answered them as best I could. But it began to appear he was trying to show the old-time Indians as being low and mean people. I had told him a great deal about the fighting, about the taking of horses and saddles and guns, about other matters of this kind. I found I did not like him, so I decided to end our talk.

“What time of day was it when all of the Custer soldiers had been killed?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I answered him.

“Did the Indians keep the money they took from the soldiers?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you get any of it?”

“I don’t know.”

After these answers he quit talking to me and went away.

The medicine doctor friend came several years afterward from Washington to our Lame Deer agency. I saw and talked with him here. I still keep a big flag he gave to me. I liked him. He was a good man, one having a heart good toward Indians.

The guns taken by Cheyennes from the Custer soldiers were given up or had been thrown away by those of our people who surrendered at the White River agency. I think that all of the Sioux also had to give their guns of all kinds to the soldiers chiefs at their reservations. But at Fort Keogh General Miles was good to the Cheyennes. He allowed them to keep their guns. I suppose that many Indians threw away their Custer guns, for fear of being found out and punished for having killed those soldiers. But the Fort Keogh Cheyennes kept theirs hidden. A few of these have been buried with the owners who died. But even to this day, I know of several of the Custer rifle guns hidden among the people on our reservation. White Elk and Spotted Wolf used to have Custer soldier six-shooters. These two men are dead. I do not know what became of their six-shooters. The Cheyennes also have yet some of the Custer soldier ammunition belts and saddle-bags. They do not like to tell of having these captured war things, because there are some white people who become angry when they talk of the old times of warfare between the whites and the Indians.[60]

I have yet four of the ten arrows I made from the cattle neckyoke picked up at the town when we were on our way to the South. For keeping my comb and paints I have a flat pouch made from a bootleg. The boots I got at the White River agency the next day after my hunting party went there to surrender. Another young man and I were walking in the neighborhood of the soldier tents there. I found a pair of soldier boots among some other articles also cast aside by the white men. The soles were worn, but the tops were good. I knew how to make use of them. I cut off the worn bottom parts and kept the tops. My mother sewed one of them into the pouch. I know of some Cheyennes who still have such carriers made from bootlegs of Custer soldiers.

I lost the medicine pipe given to me by the Ogallala Sioux man at the White River agency. That was my second medicine pipe. The third one came to me when I was somewhere past forty years old. An Uncpapa Sioux visiting me at my place gave it to me. I still have it. It is made of the red stone found in their part of the country. After he had given to me this pipe I went on a journey into the Bighorn mountains. There I got some blue stone of the kind used for making Indian pipes. I made two of them. I now have three pipes, one red one and two blue ones. I have kept all three of them for several years, and I do not expect to sell any of them.

I was baptized by the priest at the Tongue river mission when I was almost fifty years old. My wife and our two daughters were baptized too. I think the white people pray to the same Great Medicine we do in our old Cheyenne way. I do not go often to the church, but I go sometimes. I think the white church people are good, but I do not believe all of the stories they tell about what happened a long time ago. The way they tell us, all of the good people in the old times were white people. I am glad to have the white man churches among us, but I feel more satisfied when I make my prayers in the way I was taught to make them. My heart is much more contented when I sit alone with my medicine pipe and talk with the Great Medicine about whatever may be troubling me.

Our old ways of worship were kept up through several years after we came to this reservation. Our Great Medicine dances and other old ceremonies were carried out as we had them in the days when we traveled over the whole hunting region. Then the government compelled us to quit them. I think this was not right. Lately, though, the conditions have changed. We were allowed to have our Great Medicine dance in 1927, again in 1928 and in 1929.

We had good medicine men in the old times. It may be they did not know as much about sickness as the white men doctors know, but our doctors knew more about Indians and how to talk to them. Our people then did not die young so much as they do now. In present times our Indian doctors are put into jail if they make medicine for our sick people. Whoever of us may become sick or injured must have the agency white man doctor or none at all. But he can not always come, and there are some who do not like him. I think it is best and right if each sick one be allowed to choose which doctor he wants. When Eddy was agent he let us keep our own old ways in all these matters. Our people liked him the best of all the agents we have had.

A policeman came to my place, one time, and told me that Eddy wanted to see me at the agency office. He did not say what was wanted. I thought: “What have I done?” I went right away. I never had been much about the agency, and I did not know Eddy very well. But the people all the time were saying he was a good man, so I was not afraid. When I got there, a strange white man was at the office. The interpreter told me this man was from Washington. Eddy and the other man talked to me a little while, about nothing of importance. Then Eddy said:

“We want you to be judge.”

The Indian court was held at the agency. My home place was where it now is, over a divide from the agency and on the Tongue river side of the reservation. I accepted the appointment. I was paid ten dollars each month for going to the agency and attending to the court business one or two times each month. Not long after I had been serving as judge, Eddy called me into his office. He said:

“A letter from Washington tells me that Indians having two or more wives must send away all but one. You, as judge, must do your part toward seeing that the Cheyennes do this.”

My heart jumped around in my breast when he told me this. He went on talking further about the matter, but I could not pay close attention to him. My thoughts were racing and whirling. When I could get them steady enough for speech, I said to him:

“I have two wives. You must get some other man to serve as judge.”

He sat there and looked straight at me, saying nothing for a little while. Then he began talking again:

“Somebody else as judge would make you send away one of your wives. It would be better if you yourself managed it. All of the Indians in the United States are going to be compelled to put aside their extra wives. Washington has sent the order.”

I decided to keep the office of judge. It appeared there was no getting around the order, so I made up my mind to be the first one to send away my extra wife, then I should talk to the other Cheyennes about the matter. I took plenty of time to think about how I should let my wives know about what was coming. Then I allowed the released one some further time to make arrangements as to where she should go. The first wife, the older one, had two daughters. The younger wife had no children. It seemed this younger one ought to leave me. I was in very low spirits. When a wagon came to get her and her personal packs I went out and sat on a knoll about a hundred yards away. I could not speak to her. It seemed I could not move. All I could do was just sit there and look down at the ground. She went back to her own people, on another reservation. A few years later I heard that she was married to a good husband. Oh, how glad it made my heart to hear that!

I sent a policeman to tell all Cheyennes having more than one wife to come and see me. One of them came that same afternoon. After we had smoked together, I said:

“The agent tells me that I as the judge must order all Cheyennes to have only one wife. You must send away one of yours.”

“I shall not obey that order,” he answered me.

“Yes, it will have to be that way,” I insisted.

“But who will be the father to the children?” he asked.

“I do not know, but I suppose that will be arranged.”

“Wooden Leg, you are crazy. Eddy is crazy.”

“No. If anybody is crazy, it is somebody in Washington. All of the Indians in the United States have this order. If we resist it, our policemen will put us into jail. If much trouble is made about it, soldiers may come to fight us. Whatever man does not put aside his extra wife may be the cause of the whole tribe being killed.”

Many of our men were angered by the order. My heart sympathized with them, so I never became offended at the strong words they sometimes used. Finally, though, all of them sent away their extra wives. Afterward, from time to time, somebody would tell me about some man living a part of the time at one place with one wife and a part of the time at another place with another wife. I just listened, said nothing, and did nothing. These were old men, and I considered it enough of change for them that they be prevented from having two wives at the same place. At this present time I know of only one old Cheyenne man who has two wives. They are extremely old, are sisters, and they have been his two wives for sixty or more years. He stays a part of the time with one of them and a part of the time with the other. The sister-wives visit each other, but they have different homes, several miles apart.

Throughout ten years I kept the position of judge. I rode my horse or went in my wagon to the agency once or twice each month. It became tiresome to me. Eddy went away, and we had another agent. I decided to resign, and I did so. After I had been out of the office a few years there was another change in agents. The man we now have, the one we have named Sioux Agent, was put in charge of our reservation. One day, Sioux Agent sent a message calling me to his office.

“I want you to be judge again,” he said. “You will be paid twenty-five dollars each month.”

That was better than the ten dollars each month I had been paid during the ten years of my first service. I took his offer. So now, in my old age, I am helping my people to learn the ways of the white man government. For the old people, it is a great change, so I try to apply my thoughts at teaching the young Cheyennes whatever I am expected to teach.

I was chosen two times as a little chief of the Elk warriors, in the old times. But in each instance I got somebody else to take my place. Also, at two different times of election of tribal chiefs, since we have been on the reservation, a band of warriors came to me and said: “We want you to be a big chief of the tribe.” But I did not want to have that position, so in each instance I told my friends to choose some other man, some one who would like to have it. Some white people, at different times, have called me, “Chief Wooden Leg.” But I never was a chief, neither of my warrior society nor of the tribe.

My younger brother’s name was Twin. When he grew up to manhood he went from here to the Minneconjoux Sioux. There he was appointed a policeman. He continued in that duty until his death, a few years ago. My mother died here at my home, on the Tongue river reservation. My younger sister and myself are the only members of my father’s family yet living. This sister is the wife of Little Eagle. Their farm place is only a few miles down the valley from mine.

Both of my daughters went to school at the Tongue river mission. They lived there during the school months. Each Sunday we were allowed to take them to our home. At other times we might go to the mission and see them for a few minutes. Later, I built a house only a quarter of a mile from the Mission, and on a sloping hillside above it. We could look from our front door and see the children at any time when they might be outside of the school buildings. My wife and I were pleased at their situation in life. “They will have more of comfort and happiness than we have had,” we said to each other.

But the younger daughter fell into an illness when she was about fourteen years old. We expected she soon would be herself again, but she grew worse instead of better. She became so weak she could not stay any longer at the school. She continued to go on downward after we brought her to our home. Finally, her spirit went back to the Great Medicine.

All of our love now was fixed upon the other daughter. She advanced to full young womanhood. She could read the white man books, and she could write letters to our friends far away. But she too became ill, the same as her younger sister. During all of one winter she gradually wasted away. Every afternoon her body burned with fever. Every night her bed was soaked with the sweating. Every morning she coughed almost to strangling. Neither the medicines of the agency physician nor the prayers of our own medicine men could help her. Just when the spring grass was coming up, she was buried in our mission cemetery.

My heart fell down to the ground. I decided then that the white man school is not good for Indian children. I think they do not get enough of meat at the boarding schools. I think too that they are kept in school too much during each year. They ought to be out and free to go as they please during all of the good weather of the autumn and the spring. It may be that white children can stand it to be in school most of the year. I do not believe, though, that Indian children can stand it. It is not good sense to have the whites and the Indians living by the same rules.