86 THE MINNESOTA SIOUX OUTBREAK. 



if all the Injuns this side o' Bitter Creek kin tell whar to 

 lay for me' and so the brave fellow would whip up his team, 

 and taking 'a shoot off the road,' would never return to 

 it until the faint tinge of light in the east announced that 

 dawn was at hand, and Tuscon in sight. " * 



The annals of the western frontier are replete with 

 incidents of this sort, and quite a library of interest- 

 ing books has been written, containing accounts of the 

 hairbreadth escapes and deeds of daring of a similar 

 kind, which were of such every-day occurrence as to 

 be looked upon almost as mere ordinary episodes of 

 daily life. And this may be said to be true, in turns, 

 of pretty well every part of the United States frontier 

 throughout the prairie regions. At one time it was 

 Texas, or Arizona in the South, that was the worst; 

 but the most recent and principal instances of great 

 "killings" have occurred in the north; as for instance 

 on the occasion of the Sioux outbreak and consequent 

 massacres in Minnesota, in August 1862, when about 

 five hundred persons of all ages and sexes were bar- 

 barously murdered. A good many of the Indians con- 

 cerned in these outrages were well known to the 

 author of these pages. Then again there was the still 

 more recent case of the attack upon General Custer, 

 and the massacre of himself and nearly his entire com- 

 mand, by some of the bands of the same nation, under 

 their celebrated War Chief "Sitting Bull," on June 

 25th, 1876 ; nearly three hundred United States officers 

 and soldiers are said to have fallen on that fatal day, 



Surrounded, as people on the frontier almost con- 



* On the Border with Crook, by John G. Bourke, Captain 3rd 

 Cavalry U.S.A., 1892, p. 93. 



