IN COWBOY LAND. 



239 



the agency in half an hour." The chiefs ac- 

 quiesced, and withdrew. 



Immediately the Indians sent mounted 

 messengers at speed from camp to camp, sum- 

 moning 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 handsome 

 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 cavalry- 

 men, so that, simply in self-defence, the latter 

 had to fire a volley, which laid low the assail- 

 ant ; 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 Chey- 

 ennes on the hill-side had been steadily sing- 

 ing the death chant. When the young men 

 had both died, and had thus averted the fate 

 their misdeeds would else have brought 



