370 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 5. 1910- 
the scalps tied on small poles, and with War 
Eagle riding behind Brave Wolf on the same 
horse. As Brave Wolf rode along he kept cry¬ 
ing out that he had a Ute prisoner with him. 
At this time the Cheyennes were not camped in 
a circle, as it was winter and they were camped 
among the trees. In these two villages they had 
big scalp dances for a month. At night they 
used to make big fires of logs and tree bark 
and dance all the night. 
In these dances both men and women took 
part, but only those men who had been with the 
war party. All the women danced. Often very 
old men and old women used to get together 
and go to the lodge of some man who had 
counted coup or done some brave thing and 
dance in front of this lodge. The relations of 
such a man would give presents to these old 
people; sometimes ponies, or anything that they 
might feel like giving When such presents 
were received the old men and old women sang 
a particular song of thanks for the gift and 
called out the name of the man that had counted 
the coup. If horses were given them they used 
to say in their song, “Now I am glad and happy, 
for I have something to ride on.” These old 
people had their faces painted black. It was the 
custom in old times that only members of war 
parties coming in bringing scalps could paint 
women’s faces with this black paint. 
Bloody Knife, the Ree. 
Between i860 and 1870 there lived at Old Fort 
Berthold, on the Missouri River, an Arikara 
chief, known as Bloody Knife. 
Bloody Knife’s father was a Hunkpapa 
Sioux, and his mother a Ree woman. He 
had been born and reared in the Hunkpapa 
camp, but as he grew toward manhood his 
mother desired to visit her own people, and dur¬ 
ing one of the occasional intervals of peace be¬ 
tween the Sioux and the Rees, she returned to 
her village and thereafter resided there. In the 
Hunkpapa camp Bloody Knife’s position had 
not been a pleasant one. The other boys taunted 
him with being a Ree, and seemed to like to tell 
in his hearing stories of the old wars, when the 
Sioux, greatly outnumbering the Rees, constantly 
attacked them, and in the course of time, by 
much pestering, forced them to move off further 
to the north, and to join the Mandans and 
Minnitaries, who lived above them on the river. 
They used to point out to him the Standing 
Rock, that strong medicine among the Sioux, 
and to repeat over and over again in his pres¬ 
ence the tale of the Ree woman who, while her 
tribe was retreating from the Sioux, lingered 
behind and, with her child and dog, was turned 
to stone and then captured by the Sioux. It is 
not surprising then that when his mother re¬ 
turned to her tribe Bloody Knife accompanied 
her, and always thereafter remained with her 
people. Nor is it strange that, when the white 
men came into the country, and Fort Abraham 
Lincoln was established, and wars began between 
the whites and the Sioux, and scouts who knew 
the country and the ways of the Indians, were 
needed, Bloody Knife should readily have ac¬ 
cepted the invitation to scout for the Govern¬ 
ment, and should have' done good service in the 
fighting which continued over many years. 
In -the early days, between i860 and 1870, the 
mails from the east were carried to Fort Steven¬ 
son, and certain other up-river posts, across the 
country from Fort Totten to the Missouri River. 
After the Minnesota outbreak of 1862 a ride 
such as this was very dangerous. The high 
prairie land east of the Missouri River was then 
the hunting ground of the Sioux that had been 
pushed back from Minnesota after the outbreak, 
and in that country no white man was safe. 
Mail carriers between Fort Totten and Fort 
Stevenson were frequently killed, and the route 
was so dangerous that at length it became im¬ 
possible to find any one who would make the 
ride. In the early 6o’s, however, Bloody Knife 
heard of this difficulty, and for a long time after 
this he carried the mails. He crossed this dan¬ 
gerous ground with an Indian’s cunning and 
rarely, except when made drunk at either end, 
failed to bring in his mail on time. 
In the year 1868, Yellowstone Kelly, when 
traveling between Fort Stevenson and Buford, 
carrying the mail, was attacked by two Sioux 
near the mouth of Little Knife River. He has 
told the story himself in Forest and Stream. 
Kelly was wounded by an arrow, but succeeded 
in killing both his enemies, but not knowing 
whether there might not be other Sioux in the 
neighborhood, he went back a few miles on the 
road to a ranch and stopped there for the night. 
While he was waiting there, Bloody Knife and 
several other Rees came to the place, and when 
they heard what had happened they set out at 
once, went to the spot where the fight had taken 
place, found the two dead Sioux, scalped them, 
and gathering up such arms as they had, brought 
them back to Fort Berthold, where the tribes, 
then bitterly hostile to the Sioux, rejoiced over 
the victory for many days. In 1873 Bloody 
Knife accompanied General Stanley, as one of 
his scouts, to the Yellowstone River and took 
part in the fighting that was had there. He was 
a brave man and did well. In 1874 he was one 
of the Ree scouts who went to the Black Hills 
with General Custer. Among the events of the 
trip was the capture of a small camp of the 
Sioux, but only one Sioux was taken, an elderly 
man, known as the Stabber. Bloody Knife, soon 
after the capture, sought out General Custer, 
and explaining to him that the Sioux were the 
enemies of his tribe, asked permission of the 
commanding officer to kill this man. Of course 
the permission was refused. In his book, 
“Kaleidoscopic Lives,” J. H. Taylor gives the 
following account of an earlier incident in 
Bloody Knife’s life: He says: 
“An anecdote which antedates the Black Hills 
incident many years reveals Bloody Knife with 
his passions uncontrolled and at full play. This 
was Aug. 10, 1869, near Fort Buford, after the 
killing of four men on their way to the hay- 
field by a mixed band of hostiles, but principally 
Hunkpapa Sioux. In this unequal combat to 
the death a venturesome Sioux boy was shot in 
the thigh, but for some reason had been left 
on the north bank of the Missouri by his com¬ 
rades, as they retired across the old buffalo ford 
nearly opposite the place of encounter. The 
nearness of the fort and fear of pursuit had 
made their retirement a hurried one, and the 
boy was left behind to shift for himself. While 
watching his comrades pass over and away from 
the opposite side, he turned in dismay only to 
be confronted with sudden fear. The willows 
parted—vengeance seeking Bloody Knife was 
upon him—his right hand firmly gripping the 
deadly scalping knife. The boy seemed to have 
known him, and as the knife blade went circling 
around his scalp lock he said despairingly, as 
interpreted from his native Sioux: 
“‘Bloody Knife have pity. I am only a boy 
as you may see, and this was my first trip to 
war.’ 
“ ‘Bloody Knife will take care that you will 
not make a mistake again,” replied the merci¬ 
less scout, as he tore off the scalp and reached 
down and clasped the boy’s hand, and with his 
keen knife blade circled the victim’s wrist, at 
the same time breaking down the bone joints. 
“ ‘You will kill me, Bloody Knife,’ again 
pleaded the boy. 
“ ‘Bloody Knife prepares his enemy for the 
happy hunting ground before starting him on 
his long journey,’ said the scout with unfeeling 
sarcasm as he reached for the boy’s other hand 
and treated it in the same manner. By this 
time, from pain and loss of blood, the Sioux 
boy was indifferent to further mutilation.” 
In 1874 the Indian scouts of General Custer’s 
expedition were commanded by Lieutenant Wal¬ 
lace, of the Seventh Cavalry, then fresh from 
West Point. Wallace knew little about Indians 
and did not have very good control over the 
scouts. Moreover, his task was made more diffi¬ 
cult by the fact that, in some way or other, the 
Indians occasionally secured liquor, and when 
drunk they were of course quite beyond con¬ 
trol. I remember one night being present when 
Wallace was trying to persuade Bloody Knife, 
who was drunk, to go to his camp and go to 
bed. The Indian was as good natured as could 
be and very amusing, but he paid not the slight¬ 
est attention to the orders or persuasions of his 
commanding officer. Somewhere he had found 
a glow worm and he could not be gotten away 
from this. He pretended that it was a spark 
of fire, and touching it from time to time would 
go through all the motions of having burned his 
fingers and of suffering desperately, but no word 
that Wallace could say would move him. 
It was rather melancholy to see so good a man 
overcome by drink, especially when we remem¬ 
ber that seventy years before, Lewis and Clarke 
wrote of these Indians: “On our side we were 
equally gratified at the discovery that those 
Rikaras made use of no spirituous liquors of 
any kind; the example of the traders who bring 
it to them, so far from tempting, having in fact 
disgusted them. Supposing that it was as agree¬ 
able to them as to other Indians we had at first 
offered them whiskey, but they refused it with 
this sensible remark, that they were surprised 
that their father should present to them a liquor 
which would make them fools. On another 
occasion they observed to Mr. Chaboneau that 
no man could be a friend who tried to lead them 
into such follies.” 
In the year 1875 Bloody Knife was most of 
the time at the Ree village at Fort Berthold, but 
in 1876 he went with the Ree scouts, who accom¬ 
panied General Custer on General Terry’s ex¬ 
pedition, up the Yellowstone and was present, 
under Reno’s command, with the other scouts 
on the 25th of June, 1876. 
For a year or two before that he had known 
that his lungs were affected and felt that he had 
not long to live, and when the charge was made 
by the Sioux and Cheyennes against Reno’s 
command. Bloody Knife shook hands with those 
of the scouts standing nearest to him, and de¬ 
claring that this was his last day on earth, that 
