Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/460

 good; he has looked for death, and it has come.' The body was delivered to his friends the morning after his death. 'Crazy Horse' and his friends were assured that no harm was intended him, and the chiefs who were with him are satisfied that none was intended; his death resulted from his own violence. The leading men of his band, 'Big Road,' 'Jumping Shield,' and 'Little Big Man,' are satisfied that his death is the result of his own folly, and they are on friendly terms with us."

The chiefs spoken of in General Bradley's telegram an accompanying "Crazy Horse" were: "Touch the Clouds," "Swift Bear," and "High Bear." All accounts agree in stating that "Crazy Horse" suddenly drew two knives, and with one in each hand started to run amuck among the officers and soldiers. "Little Big Man," seeing what he had done, jumped upon "Crazy Horse's" back and seized his arms at the elbows, receiving two slight cuts in the wrists while holding his hands down. Here, there is a discrepancy: some say that the death wound of "Crazy Horse" was given by the sentinel at the door of the guard-house, who prodded him in the abdomen with his bayonet in return for the thrust with a knife made by "Crazy Horse"; others affirm that "Little Big Man," while holding down "Crazy Horse's" hands, deflected the latter's own poniard and inflicted the gash which resulted in death. Billy Hunter, whose statement was written out for me by Lieutenant George A. Dodd, Third Cavalry, is one of the strongest witnesses on the first side, but "Little Big Man" himself assured me at the Sun Dance in 1881 that he had unintentionally killed "Crazy Horse" with the latter's own weapon, which was shaped at the end like a bayonet (stiletto), and made the very same kind of a wound. He described how he jumped on "Crazy Horse's" back and seized his arms at the elbow, and showed how he himself had received two wounds in the left wrist; after that, in the struggle, the stiletto of the captive was inclined in such a manner that when he still struggled he cut himself in the abdomen instead of harming the one who held him in his grasp. "Little Big Man" further assured me that at first it was thought best to let the idea prevail that a soldier had done the killing, and thus reduce the probability of any one of the dead man's relatives revenging his taking off after the manner of the aborigines. The bayonet-thrust made by the soldier was received by the door of the guard-house, where