Chapter V: Part 5

Regarding his boyhood days he tells us: “Until I was fifteen years of age, together with my boy playmates, we trained with bows and arrows. We learned to shoot buffalo calves, and this practice gave us training for the warpath. It answered two purposes: protection and support. We were also taught the management of horses. We early learned how to ride well. When the camp moved we boys waited and walked to the new camp for exercise, or we hunted on the way. We felt brave enough to meet anything. Thus it was that we roamed over the hills, and climbed the rocks in search of game, but we were sure to arrive at the camp just in time for the meal which had been prepared by the squaws. If on our way to the camp we came across game, such as a rabbit, we shot it with our arrows, broiled it and ate it for fun. When we got to the new camp we would all praise one boy for some deed that he had performed on the way, and then we would sing and dance. That boy’s folks would give all us boys a dish of pemmican for the good deed he had performed. The little girls had small tepees. They practised cooking, learning from the older women. These girls would serve delicacies to us, and we would sing and dance around their tepee.”

“When we were quite small boys we would go out hunting horses, and bring back a dog and call it a horse. When we made a new camp we seldom stayed more than ten days. In that way our health was sustained by travel. While we were on the move from one camp to another, we had to cross wide streams. We boys would measure the width of the river, and compete with each other to see who could swim across without stopping. I am telling you now what I did to build myself up to be the man I am now. The boys who were the same age and size as myself would wrestle, and if a boy downed me three or four times, I kept up the practice of wrestling until I had more strength. Then I could throw this boy and I was satisfied. I selected a boy to run a race; if the boy passed me, then I made the distance longer, and if he passed me again, I made the distance still longer, for I knew that I was long-winded. Then I won the race.”

“Fifteen or twenty of us boys would go out to the river, and daub ourselves up with mud and so disguise ourselves that no one in the camp would know us. Then we would take jerked buffalo beef that the women had hung up around the camp to dry and go off out of sight and have a feast. None of us was caught at it, because they could not tell one boy from another. During this time I watched what old people did. When I came to grow up, I went forth equipped. I always had an amibition to do more than the best man in the camp could do. When I went on the chase, I made up my mind that I would bring home a buffalo or I would not go home. And my folks rejoiced, believing that they had a good boy to help support the family.”

“We were surrounded by many different tribes, Shoshones, Sioux, Piegans, and Gros Ventres. They were all our enemies. We often went on the warpath against these people, because they were always trying to take our horses and conquer our land. When we went on the warpath sometimes we would stop and kill a buffalo and have a feast. If we could, we crawled up on the enemy’s camp and stole his horses. If we met a foe we tried to kill him and bring his scalp home.”

“Our custom of painting was a sign. If in a dream we saw any one painted, that was our medicine. In our dreams we would see various kinds of paints and how to use them; we would see certain birds and feathers, and we adopted this as our style of paint. Others would try to buy from us our style of paint. The kind of paint and feathers we wore made us brave to do great deeds—to kill the enemy or take his horses. We did not buy horses, but stole them. We gave the horses to our relations. If I got one or more horses, it represented so much value to me, and brought honour to me. And, besides, the girls admired the man who could go out and get horses, and in this way we won a wife. After marriage I would sell a horse, buy elk teeth, beaded leggings, and put them on my wife as a wedding present. Elk teeth and horses were a sign of wealth. Then my wife would make a tepee, and put it up; then I would settle down and have a home.”

“In early days we had nothing for clothing except the skins of animals. We used the buffalo hide or the deer hide for a breechclout. For a bucket we used the tripe of the buffalo, after thoroughly cleaning it. We would hang it up on the branch of a tree, full of water, and drink out of it.”

“The white people came long before I was born, but when I first remember the white man I thought he was very funny. I never knew of any one person particularly, but I know there are good white people and bad white people, honest white people and dishonest white people, true white people and mean white people. We always take it for granted that what the white people say is true, but we have found out by experience that they have been dishonest with us and that they have mistreated us. Now when they say anything we think about it, and sometimes they are true. I am saying this about the white people in general.”

“Going back to the days when we had no horses, we would see the buffalo on the plains; we then surrounded them, driving them as we did so, near to the edge of some steep precipice. When we got the buffalo up near the edge of the precipice we would all wave our blankets and buffalo robes and frighten the buffalo and they would run off the steep place, falling into the valley below, one on top of another. Of course the undermost animals were killed. Then we would go down and get them and take away the meat.”

“The Indians found some dogs on the prairie. After they got the dogs they would fasten a pole on either side of the dogs with a tanned hide fastened between the poles, and the Indians would put their trappings, their meat, and their pappooses on this hide stretched between the poles. In that way they moved from place to place, the dog carrying the utensils of the camp. We called it a travois. One day when we were moving, the dog who was carrying a baby in the travois saw a deer and ran after it. He went over a bank and carried the baby with him, and finally came back without the baby.”

“In counting the dead on the battlefield we placed sticks by the dead soldiers or Indians, then gathered the sticks up, took them to one place in a pile and there counted the sticks. We count by fixing events in our mind. We have a brain and a heart, and we commit to memory an event, and then we say Chief So-and-So died when we broke camp on the Big Horn, and So-and-So were married when we had the big buffalo hunt in the snow. Or we had a big fight with the Sioux when our tepees were placed in a ring in the bend of the Yellowstone River. We dated our time from these events.”

Folklore Tale—Crow

“When I was a little boy this is a story that was told around every campfire: It was called ‘Old Man Coyote!’ Before the white man came the coyote used to roam over all the land. The Old Man Coyote took the little coyotes he picked up on the prairies and called them his little brothers. The little coyote was such a sly animal that the old coyote always sent him on errands, because he knew he would always be up to something. The Old Man Coyote says: ‘We are alone: let us make man.’ He said: ‘Go and bring me some mud so that I can make a man, so that we can be together.’ The Old Man Coyote took the mud and put it together, and put hair on it, and set it up on the ground, and said: ‘There is a man!’ The little coyote said: ‘Make some more.’ And the Old Man Coyote made four—two were women and two were men. The Old Man sized them up and said they were good, and so he made a whole lot more. Old Man Coyote said: ‘It is good that we live together, and I want you to open each other’s eyelids.’ Old Man Coyote said to these people whom he had made: ‘Now, if you stay together and are good to each other, you will be happy, and you will increase in numbers.’ Old Man Coyote was our creator. Old Man Coyote said to these people whom he had made: ‘This is your land; live here, eat of the fruit of the trees, drink of the rivers, hunt the game, and have a good time.’ From that we believe that the white people had nothing to do with the land—it belonged to the Indian. This story, told to our people so many times, and told to me since I can remember, led me to believe when I came to know and understand that this land was wholly ours, and belonged entirely to the Indians. Old Man Coyote, after he had created man and woman, did not have anything to do, so he made a bow and arrow. He took the flint for the arrowhead, and with it he killed the buffalo. Then he gave the bow and arrow to the Indian and said to him: ‘This is your weapon.’ The people whom Old Man Coyote created had no knife, so he took the shoulder blade of the buffalo and sharpened it and made it into a knife. These people whom Old Man Coyote had created roamed round over the land and they found a mule. It was a great big mule with great big ears, and when they brought it home the people were all afraid of it. They all gathered around the mule, staring in amazement at him, and said: ‘What kind of an animal is this? It is a dangerous animal.’ Just then the mule stuck up his ears, and let out an awful cry, just such a cry as only the mule can make. Then the people all ran away as hard as they could go, scared almost to death, except one Indian, who fell flat on the earth—too scared to run. And finally the people called this man, ‘Not-Afraid-of-the-Mule.’ And in this way we learned how to name our Indians.”

[Hairy Moccasin—Custer Scout]

Hairy Moccasin—Custer Scout

Hairy Moccasin

Isapi-Wishish is the name the Indians called Hairy Moccasin, a scout under Gibbon, Miles, Howard, and Custer. His frame is small and wiry, and like his brother scout, Goes-Ahead, he too will soon be numbered with the great army of the dead. Silent, unobtrusive, carrying no mark of distinction, his moccasined feet move slowly along the path made by others. It must be noted that however unprepossessing his personality he wears an untarnished badge for bravery and faithful service as a scout. White-Man-Runs-Him said: “I cannot say anything better about Hairy Moccasin than to say that he executed faithfully the orders of General Custer.” He was the boyhood playmate of White-Man-Runs-Him. They were companions in all the sports and games and tricks of the camp. When the Custer scouts traversed the difficult and dangerous route from the Little Rosebud to the valley where they located the mighty camp of the Sioux, it was Hairy Moccasin who under the stars of that June night reached the apex of the hills at dawn. The other scouts lay down to rest. Hairy Moccasin, leaving the others asleep, went to the summit—which is called the Crow’s Nest—and as the gray streaks of the dawn began to silver the east, it was Moccasin’s eye which caught the vision of the myriads of white tents, of the brown hills in the distance covered with brown horses, the curling smoke from hundreds of wigwams. Word was sent back to Custer. In excited tones, he asked: “Have you seen the cut-throat Sioux?” From the vantage point of the hills where they had seen the camp Hairy Moccasin was sent still farther in advance to reconnoitre. He climbed a pine-clad hill, found the Sioux everywhere, and then he rode back and reported to General Custer the size and position of the camp. On hearing the report Custer hurried up his command. As the brave general moved out of the valley up the ridge it is the testimony of White-Man-Runs-Him that Hairy Moccasin rode immediately in advance of Custer, and when the Chey-ennes came up, “He fired at them, banged and banged at them, and the Cheyennes were afraid of Moccasin. They were afraid of all three of us. Custer would have been killed before the time he was shot if it had not been for Hairy Moccasin and myself, who were around him shooting at the Indians.” When the United States soldiers were fighting the Nez Perces Hairy Moccasin got a horse away from the enemy, and brought it into the camp of the soldiers. Hairy Moccasin was always on the warpath performing brave deeds. The name and fame of Custer will live in the archives of his country, and a fadeless lustre will forever crown the heroic deeds of this Indian Scout.

[Curly—Custer Scout]

Curly—Custer Scout

Curly

Curly, a Reno Crow, was born on the Little Rosebud, Montana, and is fifty-seven years of age. He has the bearing, grace and dignity of an orator. His name will also go down in history as one of the leading scouts who trailed for General Custer the Indian camp, and as the last of his scouts on the fated field where Custer and his command were slain. At times he is taciturn and solemn, and then bubbles over with mirthfulness. At the council held on the Crow Reservation, in October, 1907, with reference to the opening of unoccupied lands, Curly uttered this eloquent speech:

“I was a friend of General Custer. I was one of his scouts, and will say a few words. The Great Father in Washington sent you here about this land. The soil you see is not ordinary soil—it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and bones of our ancestors. We fought and bled and died to keep other Indians from taking it, and we fought and bled and died helping the whites. You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature’s earth, as the upper portion is Crow. The land, as it is, is my blood and my dead; it is consecrated, and I do not want to give up any portion of it.”

Accompanied by a group of Indians, Curly came to my tepee when we were camped on the Little Big Horn. The whole company were greatly agitated because an Indian possessed with the spirit of self-importance had gone to Washington to make war against other Indians in the tribe who were industrious and loyal home builders. They all made speeches around the campfire, asking my interposition at Washington. In his argument Curly said: “Which man would you believe, the man who is trying to raise wheat for the people to get flour and bread from, oats to feed his horses, who builds a house for the shelter and preservation of his family, builds a stable in which to shelter his horses, tills the soil to get the product, trying to raise vegetables so that his people may have something to eat in summer and winter, or the man who would come along and run over this man who was working and trying to do something for his family, and would not work himself, but just run around and make a renegade of himself, quarrelling with his mother and brothers—which man would you believe? A man who quarrels with his mother is not fit for any duty.” Gems like these would grace any brightest page of literature, but they are the everyday eloquence of the Indian.

Curly said regarding his early life: “When I was a boy I did not do much. I was not crazy, but I did not run into mischief. My father and mother always advised me not to get into mischief. My first remembrance of the white man was when I took the skins of buffalo calves into the trading stores and traded with the white man. I thought that was a great thing to do. I had been many times on the trail of the buffalo and had sought opportunity to go on the warpath. When I was about eighteen years old the Crow chiefs made the announcement that there were some United States officers in camp who wanted some Crow scouts. I quickly volunteered. My brother approached us after we started and took myself and Hairy Moccasin and White Swan and told us that we had a secret mission in another district. My brother was then on the warpath. We went as far with my brother as Tongue River and did not see what we were searching for and we came back home. Then the Crow scouts left the agency and camped at Clark’s Ford, and Bonnie Bravo and Little Face, Indian scouts and interpreters, met us there. These scouts took us over to General Terry’s camp again. The scouts who were with Terry had no horses, for the Sioux had captured them. We had with us eight horses. Then we marched down as far as the Little Rosebud. There one of Terry’s officers told us we were to go out and scout for the Sioux camp. We went as far as Tongue River, and Bonnie Bravo was the first one to discover the Sioux camp. Then we came back to the command and reported. General Terry moved his cavalry forward and attempted to ford the Yellowstone River. The water was so high that many of the men and horses were drowned, and the rest came back. Then Terry asked the scouts to go forward again, and see if the camp was still there. We found that the camp had moved from Tongue River up on the Little Rosebud. After that we reported, and General Terry did not say very much. General Terry then sent Bonnie Bravo and the two scouts back to the camp to procure horses. They sent two other scouts and the army wagons to Crow Agency for provisions. The soldiers did not leave the camp very far for fear of attack by the Sioux, for they kept close watch on them constantly, firing at any soldiers they saw. Then General Terry sent me toward Crow Agency to meet the wagons and the men who were with the horses. After we had met the wagons we stayed there all night and then went on to camp. General Terry then moved his camp, following the Yellowstone down. We were taken clear down to the mouth of the Powder River. White-Man-Runs-Him and another scout did not have any horses, so they got into the boat and went down the river, bringing a dispatch to Terry. The dispatch told us to go back and follow the Yellowstone up again. We went back and camped within ten or twelve miles of the mouth of the Big Horn, near where we had camped before. We stayed there three or four days, and then a steamboat arrived bringing Bouyer, the scout. He told us all to break camp. There were six of us who did the most of the scouting, and out of the six Terry told three of us to go and find the enemy’s camp. General Terry and the commander of the infantry were in the ambulance, and Bouyer was there talking with them. Terry sent for Yellow Shield, then Yellow Shield sent for me. Bouyer then asked me who among the Crow scouts did the most scouting. I said White Swan, Hairy Moccasin, and myself. These scouts then camp up and joined me. Yellow Shield then told us that he wanted six men in all. Then we had a conference. We thought of White-Man-Runs-Him, but he had no horse. Then Yellow Shield said he would call White-Man-Runs-Him and Goes-Ahead to join us. After they had called these men they put us on the steamboat and sent us down the river, sending the other Crows home. We were taken down to the mouth of the Little Rosebud by the Yellowstone. We were told after we had had our dinner that we must dress ourselves up and paint up and get ready to scout.”

Curly at this point reaches the camp of General Custer, and the remainder of the fascinating story of this warrior, orator, and scout, who followed with unfailing fidelity the fortunes of the United States soldiers, will be told in the chapter on “The Indians’ Story of the Custer Fight.”

[Goes Ahead—Custer Scout]

Goes Ahead—Custer Scout

Goes-Ahead-Basuk-Ore

Goes-Ahead carries about a tall, attenuated, and weakened frame. He is standing on the verge of yonder land. He is stricken with a fatal disease. In manner he is as quiet and unobtrusive as a brooding bird. When reminiscent his wonted smile disappears, his eye lights up with a strange mysterious fire. He talks straight on like a man who has something to tell and is eager to tell it. We may gain better glimpses of his life if we let him tell his own tale:

“When I was quite a lad I went to war. I was the first in the battle and the others all said: ‘There he goes ahead of us.’ I have been first in battle ever since and thus I got my name, Goes-Ahead. The greatest pleasure I had when I was a boy, I remember, was in killing wolves. After we had shot the wolf we would run up and put our coup stick on him and play that he was our enemy. Another sport we had was playing buffalo. We divided up and part of the boys would be buffalo and part would be hunters. The boys who were playing buffalo would paw up the dust and we would run after them and shoot arrows at them, and then the buffalo bull would chase us back until he caught one of the boys, then we went on until we conquered the buffalo. When I was a young man we had buffalo skulls with the meat and skin all taken off and we would tie ropes to them and put them on the ice. The girls would sit on the buffalo head and we would draw them along the ice. That was one of our greatest pleasures. I was about fifteen years old when I first went on the war trail. It was in the winter time and I was on foot. I used a bow and arrows and my arrows were not very good. The young fellows who went with me had old Springfields, using powder and bullets. We used to make a shack by the edge of the woods, the others would kill the buffalo and then we would roast the meat by the fire. I used to cut the buffalo meat in strips, and dried it, and then put it in sacks and carried it along for the war party. When we made a little log shelter at night they made me stay by the door where it was cold and I had to do all the cooking for the party. We had no bucket with which to carry water, so when we killed a buffalo we took the tripe and used that for a pail in which to carry water. The scouts of the war party of course were away ahead of us and when we made our shack in the woods they would return at night. If they returned singing we knew that they had buffalo and we would run to get their packs. These scouts got up before daybreak and left the camp on another scouting expedition—they were looking for the enemy to see which way they were moving or what they had been killing. We found the trail by the marks of their old camps. The scouts trailed the enemy until they found the camp, then they returned howling like a wolf as they came near us, and then we knew they had found the enemy. When they approached the camp we made piles of different material and then they shook their guns at the piles and we knew that they were telling the truth, that they had seen the enemy. Then they run over the piles. Then we got ready for the night and stretched our ropes; we took our medicine and tied it on our heads. Then we all stood up in a row and they selected the bravest to take the lead to the camp of the enemy. Then these braves started on a run, first on a dog trot and then faster and faster until they got their speed, and then we endeavoured to keep up until we reached the enemy’s camp. When we got within sight of the camp we would all sit in a row and take off our moccasins and put on new ones. Then we selected two men to go around to the camp and get all the horses they could capture and bring them back to our party. When these horses were caught and brought back to us we roped and mounted them bareback and rode away as fast as we could, driving the remainder of the horses they had captured. We kept on for days and nights without anything to eat or any rest. After we had reached our camp and had spent the night we painted ourselves and the best horses, mounted them, and started shooting guns in the air; then everybody knew that the war party was back. We rode through the camp on our horses. We did not expect the enemy to pursue us, because we had gone so far and so long that we knew we were out of their reach.”

[On the War Trail]

On the War Trail

“My first battle was on the Yellowstone River. I rode a roan horse. I was scouting under General Miles. We found the trail of the Nez Perce Indians. We fought a battle twenty miles north of where Billings is now located. The Nez Perce chased the scouts back. Just at this time our interpreter, Bethune, had quit riding, for his horse had played out and he went on foot. Then many of the Nez Perce dismounted and began to surround Bethune and open fire on him. I thought then his life would be lost and I rode back as fast as I could ride into the midst of the fire, pulled him on the back of my horse and rode away, saving his life.”

In his own words Goes-Ahead tells us how he became a scout in the United States Army: “I was a single man and I loved to go on the warpath. The chiefs announced to all the camp asking young men to go to the army officers and enlist as scouts. As I wanted to scout I obeyed the command of my chiefs. The army officers took the names of these young men. The young men whose names were not taken were turned back, but they always took my name, and that is how I came to be a scout.” Goes-Ahead tells for us a most graphic story of his share in the Custer fight and his impressions of General Custer in the chapter on “The Indians’ Story of the Custer Fight.”

[In Battle Line]

In Battle Line

THE INDIANS’ STORY OF THE CUSTER FIGHT

We are thinking now of the reddest chapter in the Indian wars of the Western plains. Out amid the dirge of landscape, framed within the valley of the Little Big Horn, where that historic river winds its tortuous way through the sagebrush and cactus of Montana, a weather-beaten cross stands on a lonely hillside, surrounded by a cluster of white marble slabs, and all marking the final resting-place of the heroes of the Seventh United States Cavalry, who perished to a man, “in battle formation,” with their intrepid leader, Gen. George A. Custer. “Custer’s Last Battle,” as chroniclers of Indian wars have designated that grim tragedy, has been written about, speculated upon, and discussed more than any other single engagement between white troops and Indians. Volumes have already been written and spoken on all sides—the controversy still goes on. The brave dead sleep on; they are bivouacked on Fame’s eternal camping ground. Civilization has irrigated the valley and swept on to Western frontiers, but as though to forever write laurels for the brow of Custer—called the Murat of the American army—the white stones and the decaying crucifix of wood are surrounded by barren bluffs and a landscape so forbidding that it is a midnight of desolation. It seems to be preserved by the God of Battles as an inditement on the landscape never to be erased by any human court—lonely, solemn, desolate, bereaved of any summer flower, written all over with the purple shadows of an endless Miserere. Thirty-six years have run through the hourglass since these dreary hills and the flowing river listened to the furious speech of rifles and the warwhoop of desperate redmen. The snows have piled high the parchment of winter—a shroud for the deathless dead—whiter than the white slabs. Summer has succeeded summer, and all the June days since that day of terrific annihilation have poured their white suns upon these white milestones of the nation’s destiny—the only requiem, the winds of winter, and in summer the liquid notes of the meadow lark. In all the argument and controversy that has shifted the various factors of the fight over the checkerboard of contention, the voice of the Indian has hitherto been hopelessly silent. It is historically significant, therefore, that the Indian now speaks, and the story of Custer’s Last Battle, now told for the first time by all four of his scouts, and leaders of the Sioux and Cheyennes, should mark an epoch in the history of this grim battle. The Indians who tell this story were all of them members of the last Great Indian Council, and they visited the Custer Field a little over two miles from the camp of the chiefs, traversed every step of the ensanguined ground and verified their positions, recalling the tragic scenes of June 26, 1876. It matters much in reading their story to remember that all of Ouster’s command were killed—every lip was sealed in death and the silence is forever unbroken. The Indian survivors are all old men: Goes-Ahead and Hairy Moccasin are each on the verge of the grave, fatally stricken by disease; Chief Two Moons, leader of the hostile Cheyennes, is a blind old man; Runs-the-Enemy, a Sioux chief, totters with age. In a near tomorrow they too will sink into silence.

[The Custer Battlefield]

The Custer Battlefield

These four scouts, faithful to the memory of Custer, together with the Sioux and Cheyenne chiefs, trudged with the writer to stand on the spot where Custer fell, and with bowed heads pay their silent tribute to the dead. The camera has recorded the scene, a last vision of the red man standing above the grave of his conquerors, a pathetic page in the last chapter of Indian warfare.

[Scouts on the March]

Scouts on the March

THE STORY OF WHITE-MAN-RUNS-HIM—CUSTER SCOUT

The Great Father at Washington sent representatives out to our country. The Indians met them and held a council. The Sioux were the hereditary enemies of the Crows. The head man sent by the Great Father said to the Crows: “We must get together and fight, and get this land from the Sioux. We must win it by conquest.” We called the officer, who was lame, No-Hip-Bone—the officer was General Terry. We loved our land so we consented to go in with the soldiers and put these other tribes off the land. No-Hip-Bone took me in the winter time, and I went with him wherever he wanted me to go until the next summer. During this journey I had a good horse. The Sioux took it away from me, and I was left to go on foot, so I put my gun on my shoulder and marched with the soldiers. I thought that I was a man, and had confidence in myself that I was right. And so I kept up with the soldiers. I endured all the hardships the soldiers endured in order to hold my land. We had hardships climbing mountains, fording rivers, frost and cold of winter, the burning heat of summer—my bones ache to-day from the exposure, but it was all for love of my home. I stood faithfully by the soldiers. They did not know the country. I did. They wanted me for their eye, they could not see. The soldiers were the same as though they were blind, and I used both of my own eyes for them. The soldiers and I were fighting in friendship, what they said, I did; what I said, they did. So I helped my tribe. Land is a very valuable thing, and especially our land. I knew the Cheyennes and Sioux wanted to take it by conquest, so I stayed with the soldiers to help hold it. No-Hip-Bone moved to Tongue River at the time the leaves were getting full. We heard that General Custer was coming and I and thirty soldiers went down the river in boats. Two scouts, Elk and Two-Whistles, were with me. At the junction of the Yellowstone with the Missouri River we met Custer. I was the first one of the Crows to shake hands with General Custer. He gripped me by the hand tight and said: “You are the one I want to see, and I am glad that you are first.” We went into the steamboat with General Custer, and he pointed out different places to me as objects of interest. I directed Custer up to No-Hip-Bone, who had moved to the mouth of the Little Rosebud. They had a council, Bonnie Bravo was their interpreter. General Custer said to the interpreter, pointing to me: “This is the kind of man we want for this campaign, and I want some others also.” Goes-Ahead, Hairy Moccasin, White Swan, Paints-His-Face-Yellow, and Curly were chosen. There were six of us altogether. The others were sent back. We always moved ahead of Custer—we were his pilots. We always travelled at night, climbing the mountains and wading the rivers. During the day we made a concealed camp. We travelled in this way several days before we reached the Sioux camp. When we reached the top of the Wolf Mountains we saw the enemy’s camp near where the Custer Field is at the present time. Hairy Moccasin, Goes-Ahead, Curly, and myself saw the camp. Custer had halted at the foot of a mountain, and we all went back and told Custer that we had seen a big camp, and it was close. Custer was rejoiced and anxious to go ahead and make the battle. The sun was just peeping when we saw the camp. It was eight or nine o’clock when we scouts all went ahead again. We got close to the place of the enemy’s camp, and Custer divided the scouts, sent some across the river, and the others remained on the hill. In the meantime Custer had divided his command. Yellow Face and White Swan went with Reno across the river; Goes-Ahead, Hairy Moccasin, Curly, and myself remained with Custer. Custer sent me to a high knoll. He said: “Go and look for me and see where I can make a success.” He left it to me. When I was up there I looked around and the troops were very close upon me, and I motioned to them to come on, and we passed up on to the ridge. The Indian scouts stood in front of Custer and led his men. We went down to the Little Horn until we came to a little coulee, and were moving towards the enemy’s camp. We wanted to cross the river at that place. The Sioux fired at us. We then went up the hill to the ridge. I was all along the ridge where the fight was raging. We looked over the river, and saw Reno in his engagement with the Sioux. Finally they wiped out Reno, and he retreated to the hills. Custer and all of us got off our horses here. At that time the enemy was surrounding us. They were banging away at us. We had a heavy skirmish. Custer then came up and said: “You have done your duty. You have led me to the enemy’s camp. And now the thing for you to do is to obey my orders and get away.” Farther on up the river was a packtrain, escorted by three hundred soldiers, and I made my way to the pack-train, and I found the Indians there fighting. Custer when he told me to go said: “You go; I am now going with my boys.” Had Custer not ordered me to go, the people who visit the Custer Field to-day would see my name on the monument. When I got back to the packtrain, I directed them back to where the old trenches are to-day, and where you may still see a pile of bones. The Indians had killed all the mules when I got there. The fight lasted through the whole of a long, hot summer day. My friends, the soldiers who were with Custer, were all wiped out. When the sun went down I was about exhausted and I had no clothes on save a breechclout. All the scouts were dressed like myself. When night came on, exhausted as we were, we scouts went down the river to meet No-Hip-Bone. We reached him early the next morning. There was a terrific rainstorm all night long. I had no clothes on and I stuck to my wet horse. My horse was so exhausted that he stumbled on through the night, and to-day I feel the effects of it. It was my nature to endure; from a boy I had been trained to endure, but as strong as I was it wounded me for life. We met No-Hip-Bone and told him that up the river yesterday, when the sun was midway between morning and noon, until the sun was midway between noon and night, the Indians had killed Custer and all of his command. And he was mad. We told him that our horses’ hoofs were worn out and asked permission to go back home and get fresh horses. He said: “Yes, you can go, but come back. Meanwhile I will travel up the river and see the dead soldiers.” I went to Pryor, our Crow camp.

[Sunset on the Custer Field]

Sunset on the Custer Field

Custer and the soldiers were my friends and companions, and I cried all night long as I rode through the rain to tell No-Hip-Bone the news.

When we were at the Rosebud, General Custer and his staff held a council as to what we should do when we found the enemy’s camp, as to whether we should attack by day or night. I said we had better fight by night. Paints-His-Face-Yellow said: “Let us attack by day, so that we can see what we are doing.” I thought I was laying a good plan for them but they listened to Yellow-Face. General Custer was a brave and good man, a straightforward and honest man. When General Custer took me by the hand, patted me on the shoulder, and I looked him in the face, I said: “There is a good general.” If General Custer was living to-day, I would get better treatment than I now receive. General Custer said: “Where does your tribe stay?” and I told him in the valley through which Pryor Creek runs, along the Big Horn River at Lodge Grass, and in the valley of the Little Horn—there is my home. Custer said: “If I die, you will get this land back and stay there, happy and contented, and if you die, you will be buried on your own land.”

When I joined General Custer, I had full confidence in myself and my ability to help him, and for this reason I joined Custer so that I might help hold my land against our enemies, the Sioux and the Cheyennes. After the Custer battle, when we had obtained fresh horses, I took the other scouts with me, and we went over the field and looked at the remains of the dead soldiers who were my friends and companions. Knowing the country I always directed General Custer to the best places to ford the river, and the easiest way to climb the hills, that he might reach the path of success. After the loss of my horse, I traveled on foot with the soldiers, and was willing even to go down to death with Custer in order that I might help him.

THE STORY OF CURLY—CUSTER SCOUT

We had been brought to the Little Rosebud down the Yellowstone by steamer. After we had landed we were told to get dinner, dress ourselves, paint up, and get ready to scout. Then we heard that General Custer wanted to use us. We mounted and rode over to General Custer’s camp. He had a big tent. We got off at the door. I was the first to shake his hand. I had a dollar in my hand, and I pressed that into his hand. Each scout shook hands with him. When I saw Custer sitting there, tall and slim, with broad shoulders and kind eyes, I said to myself: “There is a kind, brave, and thinking man.” The first words that Custer uttered were: “I have seen all the tribes but the Crows, and now I see them for the first time, and I think they are good and brave scouts. I have some scouts here, but they are worthless. I have heard that the Crows are good scouts, and I have sent for you to come to my command. I have given General Terry six hundred dollars for the use of you Crow Indians as scouts. I have called you Indians here not to fight but to trace the enemy and tell me where they are; I do not want you to fight. You find the Indians and I will do the fighting. With all these dollars I have given you I want you to go into the steamboat and buy some shirts and paint. We will leave here in two days. We will follow the Little Rosebud up.” That evening the Mandans danced with us, and they gave us some money. Then Custer said: “I think you are good Indians. I will have the cook prepare our dinner, and you can eat alongside of me. I will have a tent put up here and you can camp near me.” Within two days we started on our journey. We got on our horses and started with Custer up the Little Rosebud. The whole command were with us. He asked us where we saw the last Sioux camp while we were scouting for Terry. We told him we would not be near there until to-morrow. The next morning we were at the place where we saw the last camp of the Sioux. Then we followed the Sioux trail. We found the trail, and saw that it forked on the Little Rosebud River. Custer gave orders for Goes-Ahead to follow one trail, and for me to follow the other to see which was the largest camp. We found that the trails came together after a while and that the Sioux were all in one camp. When we got to the camp, we saw that a battle had been fought, for we found the scalps and the beards of white men. We went back that night and reported to Custer. It was pretty late, but Custer’s cook was up and had a light in his tent. Then Custer told the cook to give the boys their meal. After we got through our supper we went to his tent as Custer wanted to see us. We took with us some of the scalps and white men’s beards, and showed them to Custer. Then Custer asked us if the camp separated or came together, and we told him it came together. Then Custer said: “This is the main point—these Sioux have been killing white people, and I have been sent here by the Great Father to conquer them and bring them back to their reservation. I am a great chief, but I do not know whether I will get through this summer alive or dead. There will be nothing more good for the Sioux—if they massacre me, they will still suffer, and if they do not kill me, they will still suffer for they have disobeyed orders. I do not know whether I will pass through this battle or not, but if I live, I will recommend you boys and you will be leaders of the Crows. Tomorrow I want five of my Crow boys to go on the trail.” We started just before daybreak. When we started we saw some of the Mandans running round on the top of the hill, and Goes-Ahead told me to go back and tell the command that they must not have these Mandans running round over the hills, but to keep them down in the valley, as we might be near the Sioux camp and would be discovered before we knew it. Then they ordered these Mandans to come down from the hills and stay down. When I started back I heard a howl like a coyote. White Swan, Hairy Moccasin, Goes-Ahead, and White-Man-Runs-Him were coming in to report. The Sioux had broken camp the day before and had camped above where their old camp was on the Little Rosebud. Custer told us to go on ahead and see which way they went, and we came to where they had broken camp. We followed the trail until we saw that they had camped on the Little Horn, and then we noticed that the Sioux had gone toward the Little Horn and we waited at the head of Tallec Creek for the command to come up. The command did not come up, for they had camped on the Little Rosebud; and we went back to the camp. Then the scouts had an argument, and I went by myself and asked Custer what we should do. Custer asked me what I came back for. I told him that the trail of the Sioux had gone to the west, toward the Little Horn, and that I had come back for further orders. Then Custer told me to get my supper, and take a lunch for the other scouts, and take with me two soldiers and go on and camp on the hill in sight of the enemy. I was lying down at daybreak, half asleep—the boys said they saw the camp where the Sioux were located. I got up and saw them through the smoke. The command came halfway toward us and then stopped and this officer who was with us wrote a message for General Custer, and sent a Mandan scout back with it. Custer did not wait. As soon as he got the message his men moved on rapidly toward the Custer Field. Then Custer said: “We will charge upon them now—that settles their journey.” Custer then gave the order to inspect their guns. Soon they started on down the ridge. Custer told us to go on ahead. We followed the creek all the way down. There was half a battalion behind us. We found a tepee like the one in which we are now sitting, as we went along, and found two dead Sioux inside. Then the main command came up to us. We all stopped at the fork of the Little Reno Creek. Custer split up his command at this point, and told Reno to follow the creek down, which is now called Reno Creek. Then we crossed over the ridge. I came down with Custer as far as the creek; then he gave me a message to take to Reno. I did not know the import of the messsage. I brought the answer back from Reno to Custer. While I was delivering the last message, Reno was fighting his battle, but it was not very fierce, and when I got to Custer with the message he was fighting at the mouth of the creek. Then Custer told me to go and save my life. I made a circle around, and I found that my ammunition was getting low. I found a dead Sioux. I took his ammunition and gun and horse, and got out. I stayed near where the dead Sioux was until the fight was pretty fierce. I went up on a high butte to the east of the battlefield where I could see the fight. When I got on the high hill I looked back, and saw that Custer was the last man to stand. After that I rushed over the hill and hid in the brush. The next morning about five or six o’clock I was at General Terry’s camp and reported. General Terry called his officers about him. I could not speak English and there were no interpreters there, so I took the grass and piled it all up in a heap, then I took my fingers and scattered it wide apart, and attempted in this way to show General Terry that the soldiers were all killed. Then General Terry gave me a dispatch. I was very tired and did not want to go, but I had to take this dispatch from General Terry, to Reno at the packtrain. Reno gave me a dispatch to take back to Terry, while they were burying the dead soldiers. Then another dispatch was given me to take to the head command at the steamboat. I felt sorry and depressed that I should never again see Custer.

[The Reno Battlefield]

The Reno Battlefield

THE STORY OF GOES-AHEAD—CUSTER SCOUT