In Cowboy Land. 439 



The other incident, related by Lieutenant Pitcher, 

 took place in 1890, near Tongue River, in northern 

 Wyoming. The command with which he was serving 

 was camped near the Cheyenne Reservation. One day 

 two young Cheyenne bucks, met one of the government 

 herders, and promptly killed him — in a sudden fit, half of 

 ungovernable blood lust, half of mere ferocious light- 

 heartedness. They then dragged his body into the brush 

 and left it. The disappearance of the herder of course at- 

 tracted attention, and a search was organized by the cav- 

 alry. At first the Indians stoutly denied all knowledge of 

 the missing man ; but when it became evident that the 

 search party would shortly find him, two or three of the 

 chiefs joined them, and piloted them to where the body 

 lay ; and acknowledged that he had been murdered by 

 two of their band, though at first they refused to give 

 their names. The commander of the post demanded 

 that the murderers be given up. The chiefs said that 

 they were very sorry, that this could not be done, but 

 that they were willing to pay over any reasonable number 

 of ponies to make amends for the death. This offer was 

 of course promptly refused, and the commander notified 

 them that if they did not surrender the murderers by a 

 certain time he would hold the whole tribe responsible 

 and would promptly move out and attack them. Upon 

 this the chiefs, after holding full counsel with the tribe, told 

 the commander that they had no power to surrender the 

 murderers, but that the latter had said that sooner than 

 see their tribe involved in a hopeless struggle they would 

 of their own accord come in and meet the troops any- 



