The Spartans of the West 15 



everything the Cheyennes have ever done to the race of the 

 assassins. (See ''Century of Dishonor," pp. 341-358.) 



Still worse was the Baker massacre of Blackfeet, on 

 January 23, 1870. 



A border ruffian, a white man named Clark, had assaulted 

 a young Indian, beating him severely, and the Indian, in 

 retaliation, had killed Clark and gone off into Canada. 

 Without troubling to find the guilty party, or even the band 

 he belonged to. Brevet Col. E. M. Baker, major Second 

 Cavalry, stationed at Fort Shaw, marched out, under 

 orders from Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, to the nearest Indian 

 village, on Marias River; as it happened, they were peace- 

 able, friendly Indians, under Bear's Head. Without 

 warning, the soldiers silently surrounded the sleeping 

 village. But the story is better told by Schultz, who 

 was on the spot later, and heard it all from those who 

 saw: 



"In a low tone Colonel Baker spoke a few words to his men, 

 telling them to keep cool, aim to kill, to spare none of the 

 enemy; and then he gave the command to fire. A terrible 

 scene ensued. On the day pre\dous, many of the men of the 

 camp had gone out toward the Sweetgrass Hills on a grand 

 buffalo hunt; so, save for Chief Bear's Head and a few old men, 

 none were there to return the soldiers' fire. Their first volley 

 was aimed low down into the lodges, and many of the sleeping 

 people were killed or wounded in their beds. The rest rushed 

 out, men, children, women, many of the latter with babes in 

 their arms, only to be shot down at the doorways of their lodges. 

 Bear's Head, frantically waving a paper which bore testimony 

 to his good character and friendliness to the white men, ran 

 toward the command on the bluff, shouting to them to cease 

 firing, entreating them to save the women and children; down 

 he also went with several bullet holes in his body. Of the more 

 than four hundred souls in camp at the time, very few escaped. 

 And when it was all over, when the last wounded woman and 

 child had been put out of misery, the soldiers piled the corpses 



