440 The Wilderness H^lnter. 



where the latter chose to appoint, and die fighting. To 

 this the commander responded : "All right ; let them come 

 into the agency in half an hour." The chiefs acquiesced, 

 and withdrew. 



Immediately the Indians sent mounted messengers at 

 speed from camp to camp, summoning all their people to 

 witness the act of fierce self-doom ; and soon the entire 

 tribe of Cheyennes, many of them having their faces 

 blackened in token of mourning, moved down and took up 

 a position on the hill-side close to the agency. At the 

 appointed hour both young men appeared in their hand- 

 some war dress, galloped to the top of the hill near the 

 encampment, and deliberately opened fire on the troops. 

 The latter merely fired a few shots to keep the young 

 desperadoes off, while Lieutenant Pitcher and a score of 

 cavalrymen left camp to make a circle and drive them in ; 

 they did not wish to hurt them, but to capture and give 

 them over to the Indians, so that the latter might be 

 forced themselves to inflict the punishment. However, 

 they were unable to accomplish their purpose ; one of the 

 young braves went straight at them, firing his rifle and 

 wounding the horse of one of the cavalrymen, so that, 

 simply in self-defence, the latter had to fire a volley, 

 which laid low the assailant ; the other, his horse having 

 been shot, was killed in the brush, fighting to the last. 

 All the while, from the moment the two doomed braves 

 appeared until they fell, the Cheyennes on the hill-side 

 had been steadily singing the death chant. When the 

 young men had both died, and had thus averted the fate 

 which their misdeeds would else have brought upon the 



