WHY SATANK KILLED PEACOCK 



treaty with Major Sedgwick for the winter, any- 

 way, so's him an' his band could come in for their 

 share of the presents. So he appHed to Peacock 

 for a letter of recommendation to Major Sedgwick, 

 thinkin' that a letter from such a prominent trader 

 would help him to make easy terms with Sedgwick. 

 '*Well, sir, right there's where Peacock made 

 the blunder of his life, an' it cost him his life, 

 too. Peacock was a pretty smart man an' was ac- 

 quainted with nearly every Kiowa in the tribe, an' 

 it's hard to understand how he could be so fool- 

 ish as to do the way he did. But Satank an' his 

 band had made him a heap o' trouble durin' this 

 last outbreak, an' now Peacock thought he saw a 

 chance to even up with his old enemy. So, instead 

 of writin' a letter to Sedgwick askin' mild treat- 

 ment an' makin' excuses for Satank an' his scalp- 

 ers, he wrote one reading something like this: 



Major Sedgwick, 



Commanding Kiowa Expedition : 

 The bearer of this is Satank, the leader of the hostile 

 Kiowas and the instigator of all, and the actual per- 

 petrator of many of the atrocious murders and outrages 

 that have been committed on innocent men, women, 

 and children on the plains during this last outbreak. 

 He is, by long odds, the worst Indian on the plains, and 

 you can't do the country a greater service than to kill 

 him on sight. 



(Signed) Peacock. 



"Here was the unaccountable part of Peacock's 

 folly. He certainly knew that that low-down rene- 



105 



