Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/428

 *er," "Yellow Owl," "Strong Bear," "Spotted Crow," "White Bear," "Old Man," "Painted Man," "Left Hand," "Long Hair," "Ground Bear," "Walking Water," "Young Chief," "Medicine Man," "Bull Robe," "Crying Dog," "Flat Foot," "Flint Breaker," "Singing Beaver," "Fat Belly," "Crazy," "Blind Man," "Foot," "Hungry Man," "Wrinkled Forehead," "Fast Wolf," "Big Man," "White Plume," "Coal," "Sleeping Bear," "Little Owl," "Butcher," "Broken Horn," "Bear's Backbone," "Head Warrior," "Big Ridge," "Black Man," "Strong Man," "Whole Robe," "Bear Wolf."

The above will surely show that we were excellently provided with material from the agencies, which was the main point to be considered. The Pawnees were led by "Li-here-is-oo-lishar" and "U-sanky-su-cola;" the Bannocks and Shoshones by "Tupsi-paw" and "O-ho-a-te." The chief "Washakie" was not with them this time; he sent word that he was suffering from rheumatism and did not like to run the risks of a winter campaign, but had sent his two sons and a nephew and would come in person later on if his services were needed. These guides captured a Cheyenne boy and brought him in a prisoner to Crook, who learned from him much as to the location of the hostile villages.

In the gray twilight of a cold November morning (the 25th), Mackenzie with the cavalry and Indian scouts burst like a tornado upon the unsuspecting village of the Cheyennes at the head of Willow Creek, a tributary of the Powder, and wiped it from the face of the earth. There were two hundred and five lodges, each of which was a magazine of supplies of all kinds—buffalo and pony meat, valuable robes, ammunition, saddles, and the comforts of civilization—in very appreciable quantities. The roar of the flames exasperated the fugitive Cheyennes to frenzy; they saw their homes disappearing in fire and smoke; they heard the dull thump, thump, of their own medicine drum, which had fallen into the hands of our Shoshones; and they listened to the plaintive drone of the sacred flageolets upon which the medicine men of the Pawnees were playing as they rode at the head of their people. Seven hundred and five ponies fell into our hands and were driven off the field; as many more were killed and wounded or slaughtered by the Cheyennes the night after the battle, partly for food and partly to let their half-naked old men