BATTLE WITH SAUK AND FOX 



299 



victory over auy tribes they should encounter. lu the vicinity of Smoky Hill they 

 came up with a party of Sacs and Foxes and a few Pottawatomies, the whole not 

 exceediugtwo hundred [sic] in number. The Comancbes, believing, to use the words 

 of one of their chiefs, that thej' could "cat up" so small a force in a few minutes, 

 made a general charge. The Sacs allowed them to approach until within a hundred 

 yards, when they opened upon them a well-directed fire from their rifles, which, 

 being unexpected, appalled, and for the moment checked, their assailants. Three 

 times these charges were repeated, and each time with a like fatal result. The 

 Comancbes at length retired, crestfallen and dispirited, having twenty-six killed 

 and over one hundred wounded. On their return to Fort Atkinson their appearance 

 and deportment were quite changed. They seemed humble and dejected, and cjuietly 

 and submissively received their annuities and retired. The loss 

 of the Sacs and Foxes is reported to be very inconsiderable 

 {Report, S3). 



The agent for the Sac and Fox tribes gives a seqnel 

 which illustrates Indian vengeance: 



On the second of August, by the request of the chiefs and bead 

 men of the Sac and Fox tribe of Indians, I reported to the honor- 

 able Commissioner of Indian Affairs, through your office, an 

 account of an attack made on the Sacs and Foxes by the Coman- 

 cbes, Arapaboes, and Osages, about the tenth of July, one hundred 

 miles west of Fort Riley. Some five or six day s ago a Sac Indian, 

 who had a brother killed in that battle, left here by himself, went 

 within four hundred yards of an Osage encampment, met two 

 Osage men. shot one down and went >ip and scalped him; could 

 have killed the other, but wished him to live to carry the news 

 of what he had done to the Osage camp; waited until he had 

 done so; heard the cries and lamentations of those in the camp 

 for their dead kinsman, mounted his horse and returned with his 

 scalp. The nation immediately upon his return moved to within 

 a mile of the agency, where they are now dancing with joy and 

 triumph over the trophy brought back in this warlike achieve- 

 ment to them (Report, S4). 



Flo. 116— Winter 

 1854-55— (I yal. 

 'koaofite killed. 



Whirlwind, the famous war chief of the southern 

 Cheyenne, who died in 1895, had every feather shot 

 away from his war honnet in this engagement, which he always 

 declared was the hardest fight he had ever been in. Notwithstanding 

 this, he was not wounded, owing to the protecting power of a medicine 

 hawk which he wore upon his war bonnet! He said: 



When all the feathers were shot away the hawk was not hit. Balls went to 

 the right and left, above and below me. I was mounted and the Sacs and Foxes 

 were on foot in a hollow like a buffalo wallow. It was the Great Spirit and the 

 hawk which protected me {Clarh; 15). 



WINTER 1854-55 



Gyaikoaoflte "Likes-enemies," is killed hy t\iQ A'lahn. He is iden- 

 tified in the picture by his shield, which is recognized as one made by 

 Set-pate, " He-bear," and by the collar of the Kilitseiiko, to which order 

 lie belonged. The zigzag stroke touching his breast is intended to show 

 that he was killed by a bullet. 



