MooNEY] ACCOUNT OF SET-T'aINTE 209 



He is thus described by Keim in 1870 : 



For several years Satanta has filled the office of head chief. A peculiar dash of 

 mauuer; a grin equal to all ociasions; a remarkable shrewdness exhibited in man- 

 aging affairs between the different tribes with which his people come in contact, or 

 their intercourse with the national government, have won for him a prestige which 

 he has very well maintained. Satanta, when I first met him, was a man of about 

 fifty years of age. He rose first through prowess on the warpath, and afterward 

 through skill in council and diplomacy. He had an intelligent face, and was l.irge 

 in frame and of muscular development, exhibiting also a tendency to obesity. 

 Lately Satanta has found a threatening ri%'al in Lone-wolf, the war chief of the 

 tribe (Keim, 3). 



Three years later we get the following notice from one who saw him 

 with Big tree, in 1873, while serving his first incarceration in the Texas 

 penitentiary: 



In the corridor of the penitentiarj' I saw a tall, finely-formed mau, with bronzed 

 complexion, and long, flowing, brown hair, a man princely in carriage, on whom even 

 the prison garb seemed elegant, and was told that it was Satanta, the chief of the 

 Kiowas, who with his brother chief. Big-tree, is held to account for murder. I was 

 presently introduced to a venerable bigamist who was Satanta's chosen boon com- 

 panion, on account of his smattering of Spanish, and through this anxious prisoner 

 was presented at court. Satanta had come into the workroom, where he was popu- 

 larly supposed to labor, but where he never performed a stroke of work, and had 

 seated himself on a pile of oakum, with his hands folded across his massive chest 

 [figure 150]. His fellow prisoner explained to Satanta, in .Spanish, that we desired 

 to converse with him, whereupon he rose and suddenly stretching out his hand 

 gave mine a ponderous grasp, saying : " How I" He then responded, always through 

 the aged wife-deceiver, to the few trivial (jnestions I asked, and sat down, motioning 

 to me to be seated with as much dignity and grace as though he were a monarch 

 receiving a foreign ambassador. His face was good; there was a delicate curve of 

 pain at the lips, which contrasted oddly with the strong Indian cast of his other 

 features. Although he is much more than 60 years old, he hardly seemed 40, so 

 erect, elastic, vigorous was he. When asked if he ever expected liberation, and 

 what he Avould do if it should come, he responded, " Quien sabe?'' with the most 

 stoical indifference. Big-tree was briskly at work plaiting a chair seat in another 

 apartment and chewing tobacco vigorously. His face was clear <ut and handsome, 

 his coal black hair swept his shoulders, and he only paused to brush it back and 

 give us a swift glance as we entered, then briskly plaited as before (Scrihner, 1). 



The particular offense for which Set-fainte was flr.st arrested was a 

 raid upon some teamsters on Salt creek, Jack county, Texas. In 

 re.spon.'se to a letter of inquiry, the following concise statement in regard 

 to his prison life and tragic death was obtained from Mr L. A. What- 

 ley, superintendent of Texas penitentiaries, writing from Huntsville, 

 under date of March 3, 1896 : 



At the Jnly term of the district court of Jack county, in the year 1871, Satanta 

 was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Texas state pen- 

 itentiary. He was received at the Huntsville prison on the 2d of November, 1871. 

 Upon the recommendation of President U. S. Grant, Governor E. J. Davis, on August 

 19, 1873, set Satanta at liberty upon parole, i. e., conditioned upon his good behavior. 

 It seems, however, that he violated his parole, for he was arrested and recommitted 

 to the prison at Huntsville by Lieutenant General Sheridan on the 8th of November, 

 1874. (In October 11, 1878, Satanta committed suicide by throwing himself from the 



