890 THE GHOST-DANCE RELIGION [eth.ann.14 



The wife of Few Tails, after falling wounded by two bullets beside the 

 wagon in which was her dead husband, lay helpless and probably uncon- 

 scious upon the ground through all the long winter night until morning, 

 when she revived, and finding one of the horses still alive, mounted it 

 and managed by night to reach a settler's house about 15 miles away. 

 Instead of meeting help and sympathy, however, she was driven off by 

 the two men then' with loaded rifles, and leaving her horse in her fright, 

 she hurried away as well as she could with a bullet in her leg and 

 another iu her breast, passing by the trail of One Feather's wagon with 

 the tracks of his pursuers fresh behind it, until she came near a trader's 

 store about 20 miles farther south. Afraid to go near it on account of 

 her last experience, the poor woman circled around it, and continued, 

 wounded, cold, and starving as she was, to travel by night and hide 

 by day until she reached the Bad Lands. The rest may be told in her 

 own words: 



After that I traveled every night, resting daytime, until I got here at tbe beef cor- 

 ral. Then I was very tired, and was near the military camp, and early in the morn- 

 ing a soldier came out and he shouted something back, and iu a few minutes fifty 

 men were there, and they got a blanket and took me to a tent. I had no blanket 

 and in v feet were swelled, and I was about readv to die. After I got to the tent a 

 doctor came in — a soldier doetor, because be had straps on his shoulders — and 

 washed me and treated me well. 



A few of the soldiers camped near the scene of the attack had joined 

 in the pursuit at the beginning, on the representations of some of the 

 murderers, but abandoned it as soon as they found their mistake. 

 According to all the testimony, the killing was a wanton, unprovoked, 

 and deliberate murder, yet the criminals were acquitted in the local 

 courts. The apathy displayed by the authorities of Meade county, 

 South Dakota, in which the murder was committed, called forth some 

 vigorous protests. Colonel Shafter, in his statement of the case, con- 

 cludes, referring to the recent killing of Lieutenant Casey : " So long as 

 Indians are being arrested and held for killing armed men under condi- 

 tions of war, it seems to me that the white murderers of a part of a 

 band of peaceful Indians should not be permitted to escape punish- 

 ment." The Indians took the same view of the case, and when General 

 Miles demanded of Young-man-afraid-of-his-horses the surrender of 

 the slayers of Casey and the herder Miller, the old chief indignantly 

 replied: "No: I will not surrender them, but if you will bring the white 

 men who killed Few Tails, I will bring the Indians who killed the white 

 soldier and the herder; and right out here in front of your tipi I will 

 have my young men shoot the Indians and you have your soldiers shoot 

 the white men, and then we will be done with the whole business." 



In regard to the heroic conduct of One Feather, the officer then in 

 charge of the agency says: " The determination and genuine courage, 

 as well as the generalship he manifested in keeping at a distance the 

 six men who were pursuing him, and t he devotion lie showed toward 

 his family, risking his life against great odds, designate him as entitled 

 to a place on the list of heroes. - ' ( War, 25; Comr., 10; a. /'.. 17.) 



