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182 of Sitting Bull's followers gathered about the house, entirely surrounding the police and crowding them up against the wall. When the police brought Sitting Bull out of the house, where he could see the friends that had rallied to his assistance, he became greatly excited and refused to go on, and called on his friends to rescue him. Lieutenant Bull Head and Lieutenant Shave Head were standing on either side of him, with Sergeant Red Tomahawk guarding behind, while the rest of the police were trying to clear the way in front.

Catch the Bear, a friend of Sitting Bull's, fired and shot Bull Head in the side. Bull Head at once turned and sent a bullet into the body of Sitting Bull, who was also shot through the head at the same moment by Red Tomahawk. Shave Head was shot by another of the crowd and Catch the Bear was killed by A Lone Man, one of the police. Instantly there was a desperate hand-to-hand fight of less than forty-three men against more than a hundred.

The fight lasted only a few minutes. Six policemen were killed, including the officers Bull Head and Shave Head. The hostiles lost eight killed, including Sitting Bull and his son Crow Foot, seventeen years of age. The trained police soon drove their assailants into the timber near by, and then returned and carried their dead and wounded into the house, which they held for more than two hours, until the arrival of Captain Fetchet, with his troops, at seven o'clock. On the approach of the soldiers, Sitting Bull's warriors fled up Grand River a short distance, and then turned south across the prairie