Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/452

 tragedy, it was natural that we should seek to learn all we could to throw light upon that sombre page in our military annals. I cannot say that much information was gained not already known to the public. The Indians appeared to believe that from the moment that Custer divided his forces in presence of such overwhelming odds, the destruction of the whole or the greater part was a foregone conclusion. A picture of the battle-field was drawn by one of the Indians present in hostility, and marked by myself under his direction. In some of the villages indicated there were portions of several bands.

This is the exact language of "Horny Horse": "Some lodges came out from Standing Rock Agency and told us the troops were coming. The troops charged on the camp before we knew they were there. The lodges were strung out about as far as from here to the Red Cloud Agency slaughter-house (about two and a half miles). I was in the council-house with a lot of the old men, when we heard shots fired from up the river. The troops first charged from up the river. We came out of the council-house and ran to our lodges.

"All the young bucks got on their horses and charged the troops. All the old bucks and squaws ran the other way. We ran the troops back. Then there was another party of troops on the other side of the river. One half of the Indians pursued the first body of troops (i. e., Reno's); the other half went after the other body (i. e., Custer's). I didn't see exactly all the fight, but by noon, all of one party (i. e., Custer's) were killed, and the others driven back into a bad place. We took no prisoners. I did not go out to see the bodies, because there were two young bucks of my band killed in the fight and we had to look after them.

"We made the other party of soldiers (i. e., Reno's) cross the creek and run back to where they had their pack-train. The reason we didn't kill all this (Reno's) party was because while we were fighting his party, we heard that more soldiers were coming up the river, so we had to pack up and leave. We left some good young men killed in that fight. We had a great many killed in the fight, and some others died of their wounds. I know that there were between fifty and sixty Indians killed in the fight. After the fight we went to Wolf Mountain, near the head of Goose Creek. Then we followed