MOONEY] 



THE FEW-TAILS AFFAIR 889 



was not muraer in the legal sense of tue word. Lieutenant Casey had 

 been for a year in charge of the Cheyenne scouts and had taken great 

 interest in their welfare and proficiency, and his death wan greatly 

 deplored by the Indians as the insane act of a boy overcome, by the 

 excitement of the times. (War, 24; Gomr.,39; Colby, 10; G.D.,46.) 

 On January 11 an unprovoked murder was committed on a small 

 party of peaceable Indians on Belle Fourche, or North fork of Cheyenne 

 river, by which the Indians who had come in to surrender were once 

 more thrown into such alarm that for a time it seemed as if serious 

 trouble might result. A party of Ogalala from Pine Eidge, consisting 

 of Few Tails, a kindly, peaceable old man, with his wife, an old woman, 

 and One. Feather, with his wife and two children— one a girl about 13 

 years of age and the other au infant— had been hunting in the Black 

 Hills under a pass from the agency. They had had a successful hunt, and 

 were returning with their two wagons well loaded with meat, when they 

 camped for the night at the mouth of Alkali creek. During the even- 

 in;; they were visited by some soldiers stopping at a ranch a few miles 

 distant, who examined their pass and pronounced it all right. In the 

 morning, after breakfast, the Indians started on again toward the agency, 

 but had gone only a few hundred yards when they were fired upon by 

 a party of white men concealed near the road. The leaders of the 

 whites were three brothers named Culbertson, one of whom had but 

 recently returned from the penitentiary. One of the murderers had 

 visited the Indians in their camp the night before, and even that very 

 morning. At the first fire Few Tails was killed, together with both 

 ponies attached to the wagon. His wife jumped out and received two 

 bullets, which brought her to the ground. The murderers rode past her, 

 however, to get at the other Indian, who was coming up behind in the 

 other wagon with his wife and two children. As soon as he saw his 

 companion killed, One Feather turned his wagon in the other direction, 

 and, telling his wife, who had also been shot, to drive on as fast as she 

 could to save the children, he jumped upon one of the spare, ponies and 

 held off the murderers until his family had had time to make some dis- 

 tance. He then turned and joined his family and drove on for some 8 or 

 10 miles until the pursuers came up again, when he again turned and 

 fought them off, while his wife went ahead with the wagon and the 

 children. The wounded woman bravely drove on, while the two little 

 children lay down in the wagon with their heads covered up in the 

 blankets. As they drove they passed near a house, from which several 

 other shots were fired at the Hying mother, when her husband again 

 rode up and kept off the whole party until the wagon could get ahead. 

 Finally, as the ponies were tired out, this heroic man abandoned the 

 wagon and put the two children on one of the spare ponies and his 

 wounded wife and himself upon auother and continued to retreat until 

 the whites gave up the pursuit. He finally reached the agency with the 

 wife and children. 



