mi,; INDIAN STORY OF WOUNDED KNEE 885 



out of the depths of the Bad Lands and were heing brought toward the agency. 

 When we were about a day's journey from our agency we heard that a certain party 

 of Indians I Big Foot's band) from the Cheyenne River agency was coming toward 

 Pine Ridge in flight. 



CAPTAIN Sword. Those who actually went off of the Cheyenne River agency 

 probably number 30o, and there were a few from the Standing Rock reserve with 

 them, but as to their number I do not know. There were a number of Ogalallas, 

 old men and several school boys, coming back with that very same party, and one of 

 the very seriously wounded boys was :i member of the. Ogalalla boarding school at 

 Pine Ridge agency. He was not on the warpath, but was simply returning home to 

 his agency and to his school after a summer visit to relatives on the Cheyenne river. 



TCRNIXC; Hawk. When we heard that these people were coming toward our 

 agency we also heard this. These people were coming toward Pine Ridge agency, 

 and when they were almost on the agency they were met by the soldiers and sur- 

 rounded and finally taken to the Wounded Knee creek, and there at a given time 

 their guns were demanded. When they had delivered them up. the men were sepa- 

 rated from their families, from their tipis, and taken to a certain spot. When the 

 guns were thus taken and the men thus separated, there was a crazy man, a young 

 man of very bad influence and in fact a nobody, among that bunch of Indians fired 

 his gun, and of course the firing of a gun must have been the breaking of a military 

 rule of some sort, because immediately the soldiers returned fire and indiscriminate 

 killing followed. 



SPOTTED Horse. This man shot an officer in tin' army: the first shot killed this 

 officer. I was a voluntary scout at that encounter and I saw exactly what was done, 

 and that was what I noticed; that the first shot killed an officer. As soon as this 

 shot was fired the Indians immediately began drawing their knives, and they were 

 exhorted from all sides to desist, but this was not obeyed. Consequently the firing 

 began immediately on the part of the soldiers. 



TURNING Hawk. All the men who were in a bunch were killed right tin-re, and 

 those who escaped that first fire got into the ravine, and as they went along up the 

 ravine for a long distance they were pursued on both sides by the soldiers and shot 

 down, as the dead bodies showed afterwards. The women were standing oft' at a 

 different place from where the men were stationed, and when the firing began, those 

 of the men who escaped the first onslaught went in one direction up the ravine, and 

 then the women, who were bunched together at another place, went entirely in a 

 different direction through an open field, and the women fared the same fate as the 

 men who went up the deep ravine. 



American Horse. The men were separated, as has already been said, from the 

 women, and they were surrounded by the soldiers. Then came next the village of 

 the Indians and that was entirely Burrounded by the soldiers also. When the firing 

 began, of course the people who were standing immediately around the young man 

 who fired the first shot were killed right together, and then they turned their guns, 

 Hotchkiss guns, etc., upon the women who were in the lodges standing there under 

 a flag of truce, and of course as soon as they were fired upon they fled, the men flee- 

 ing in one direction and the women running in two different directions. So that 

 there were three general directions in which they took flight. 



There was a women wtth an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost 

 touched the flag of truce, and the women and children of course were strewn all 

 along the circular village until they were dispatched. Right near the Hag of truce 

 a mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother 

 was dead was still nursing, and that especially was a very sad sight. The women 

 as they were fleeing with their babes were killed together, shot right through, and 

 the women who were very heavy with child were also killed. All the Indians fled 

 in these three directions, and after most all of them had been killed a cry was made 

 that all those who were not killed or wounded should come forth and they would 

 be safe. Little bovs who were not wounded came out of their places of refuge, and 



