Part 11

The Cheyennes were in the lead. The Ogallalas came next. Following them were the Minneconjoux. The Uncpapas were last. The order of movement was the result of an agreed plan. The Cheyennes and the Uncpapas had the specially dangerful positions. I do not know on just what grounds this was the arrangement, but I know that this was the intention. The Cheyennes kept scouts out in front looking forward from high points. The Uncpapas had always some of their young men staying back to observe if any enemies were following. The Ogallalas and the Minneconjoux sent guardians off to the hill points at the sides.

Three sleeps, I believe, our four camp circles stood in this new location. The Cheyennes in advance had been allowed to choose first the spot for the encampment. The Ogallalas and the Minneconjoux then located themselves only a little distance from us and from each other. The Uncpapas placed their circle on whatever good ground was left and on ground most suitable for guarding that side of the combined body of Indians. In the camping as well as in the traveling, the Cheyennes and the Uncpapas occupied the specially exposed positions.

The scarcity of feed for our horses led the council into a decision to move on yet farther northward. As I remember it, we spent one sleep in temporary camp during this movement as well as in the first combined shift of base. Our horses were weak for lack of food, so we had to travel slowly. We stopped at the upper regions of the next creek tributary to Powder river. I believe we stayed there three sleeps.

The Arrows All Gone Sioux (the Sans Arcs) came to us at this camping place. Five camp circles now were in close communion. The number of people in this added band was about the same as in the Ogallala or the Minneconjoux organizations. In the case of each of the five tribes, only a part of their members were here. But in each case more were coming from time to time while few or none were going back to the reservations. I believe the number of Cheyenne lodges now must have been increased to fifty. The Ogallalas, Minneconjoux and Arrows All Gone each had more, perhaps sixty or seventy. The comparative size of the Uncpapa circle indicated they might have had as many as a hundred and fifty lodges.

After three or four sleeps the five camps moved again. This time we swerved to the northwestward. Our stopping place now was lower down on the next creek flowing into Powder river. New grass was beginning to peep up here. Our hungry horses searched greedily for it. The herder boys were kept busy at keeping them from rambling too far. The tribal herds were kept separate, boys or youths from each tribe guarding their own bands.

The Blackfeet Sioux joined us here, I believe. I am not sure of the exact place where they came, but I can not recollect any other point where they might have come. I recall clearly, though, that when we got to Powder river there were six camp circles, the Blackfeet Sioux making up the sixth one. Theirs was not a very large circle, but it was a separate one. They camped close to the Uncpapas.

Many extra horses were brought in by some of the newly arriving Indians. I think most of them were brought by the Blackfeet Sioux, or perhaps by the Arrows All Gone. But wherever they were needed by members of other tribes they were distributed out as gifts.

A few Waist and Skirt Indians[16] attached themselves to us. They were known also as No Clothing people, because their men had no clothing. They were extremely poor, having but little property and no horses. They had plenty of dogs--big dogs--to drag or to carry their tepees and other scant property. Their tribal name, as known to us, arose from their women having dresses made up in two parts. Other Indian women made up their dresses in one piece. I heard Cheyennes talk about Sitting Bull’s father being with these people. He may have been there, but I do not remember having seen him. These Indians had small tepees, and their lodge poles were placed with the butt ends up. They camped all the time in a little group beside the Uncpapa circle. Some Assiniboines also were mingled with the Uncpapas, and others of them were with the Blackfeet Sioux. A few Burned Thigh tepees were with the Ogallalas and the Blackfeet Sioux. Many of the incoming Indians talked of having been north of Elk river.[17] Some of the talk I had heard was that they had been searching there for us. As I remember it, the extra horse bands were brought from the north side of that stream.

Chief Lame White Man and a big band of other Cheyennes came to us at Powder river. They had made a long journey out from the White River agency. They had been looking for us all about the heads of the Powder, Tongue and Rosebud rivers. They doubled back and found our trail east of Powder river. They had not learned of the soldier attack upon our Cheyenne camp.

Lame White Man did not belong to the Northern Cheyenne tribe, but he had been much of the time with us. He was a big chief or an old man chief of the Southern Cheyennes. He was not a chief with us, but he was a wise and good man. For this reason he had much influence among us, even as an adviser to our chiefs. His wife and family were with him, and their lodge became a part of our growing camp circle.

From Powder river our course was directed westward. We went over the hill country. The grass was coming up everywhere, and our horses were growing stronger. I believe we camped in two or three places between there and the Tongue river, one sleep at each place. Individual hunters and small hunting parties were gathering meat for their families. Even when we stopped for but one sleep at any place, all of the camp circles were formed and all of the lodges set up. It was the taking down, moving and setting up again every day of a little city.

A big band of additional Cheyennes came to us on Tongue river. They were led by Dirty Moccasins, an old man chief. They had crossed Powder river, journeyed over the divide west of it to Otter creek and followed this stream down to Tongue river. Our camp was thirty or forty miles down from where Otter creek flows into the river. Straggling lodges had been reaching us, but this was the largest annexation in any one group. Our Cheyenne circle now was double what it had been when we first joined the Uncpapas. The other circles likewise were growing in the same way. These Cheyennes brought extra ammunition, sugar, coffee and tobacco.

Going on west from Tongue river, we stopped several days, perhaps four or five sleeps, at the upper part of a stream we knew as Wood creek. It is the first creek of importance west of Tongue river and flowing, I believe, into Elk river. Our horses now were getting much grass. As the main part of the herds grazed, the men were hunting. Big parties of Indians killed lots of buffalo in this neighborhood. There were many thousands of these animals here. The Cheyennes made a special effort to get a plentiful supply of robes for making larger lodges. The smaller ones given to our people by the Uncpapas had been comfortable, but larger ones were more comfortable. We also got skins for robes. Men and women all were busy, the men at hunting and the women at tanning the skins.

Councils of the chiefs of the six tribes assembled together were held at each place of camping. They talked of whatever might be of general interest. Particularly, a council settled where we should go next, at each move. We had not set out to go into any special region. The moves depended upon reports of hunting parties or scouts. They learned and reported where was most of such game as we were seeking.

Many young men were anxious to go for fighting the soldiers. But the chiefs and old men all urged us to keep away from the white men. They said that fighting wasted energy that ought to be applied in looking only for food and clothing, trying only to feed and make comfortable ourselves and our families. Our combination of camps was simply for defense. We were within our treaty rights as hunters. We must keep ourselves so.

From Wood creek we went yet westward to the upper part of what we called Sioux creek. Here we stayed but one sleep and followed the same direction the next day. All of the people were on horses or on lodgepole travois dragged by horses. All of the personal or family belongings were in travois baskets or on the backs of special pack horses. We had not any wagons. Such vehicles could not have been used in most of the country that Indians inhabited then.

We arrived at the Rosebud river or large creek about the middle of May, I believe. I did not know then anything about a calendar, but judging from my recollection of the condition of the grass and the trees, about the weather and other natural conditions, that must have been about the time.[18] Many times during the later years of peace I have been up and down that valley, on my way to and fro between the reservation and the town of Forsythe, so I with other Cheyennes have kept exactly in mind all of the old camping places along this stream.

The first Rosebud camping place of the six great circles of Indians was about seven or eight miles up from Elk river. The Uncpapa circle at that time was partly on the land where now is a ranch house occupied by white people. The place now is known as the James Kennedy place, as a white man having that name lived there during many years. The Uncpapa circle extended from the present location of this house out across the present highway road and upon the bench eastward. The Cheyennes were camped about a mile and a half up the valley from Sitting Bull’s Uncpapas. Our location included a line of trees such as yet are there extending from the creek across the road east of it. An old white man named Eugene Noyes was living there a few years ago, in a house just off a short distance southwest from that old Cheyenne camp site. The other four circles were at four different places between the Uncpapas and the Cheyennes. All of them were on the east side of the creek.

Charcoal Bear, chief medicine man of the Northern Cheyennes, came to us at this first Rosebud camp. Lots of our people were with him. He brought the tribal medicine lodge and our sacred Buffalo Head and all other of our tribal medicine objects. The lodge was set up in the midst of our camp circle. It put good thoughts and good feeling into the hearts of all Cheyennes.

I have heard in later years that soldiers from north of Elk river came across and saw our camp here. But I never knew of any soldiers having been seen by any of the Indians in this region. We did lots of buffalo hunting all across from Tongue river and continued to kill many of them on the hills west of the Rosebud. I did not hear any talk of the buffalo or other game showing signs of having been alarmed by any other people. Six or seven sleeps, I believe, we stayed here. Then we moved up the valley about twelve miles.

At this second Rosebud camp the Uncpapa circle was on land just across the present highway road westward from and almost in front of a school house now standing east of the road. A mile and a half or more on up the valley was the Cheyenne circle. Between them, all on the east side of the creek, were the other four tribal circles. On this Cheyenne camping ground I had been in a camp of our people ten years before this, when I was a boy. Here Crazy Mule had made medicine and had done some wonderful acts. Here also at that past time a Cheyenne woman had gone out eastward up a wooded gulch and had hanged herself.

While we now were at this second Rosebud combined camp a report was brought in that Crows had been seen in our vicinity. A herald rode about our camp circle making the announcement. It was agreed our Crazy Dog warriors should go out to find them. The Crazy Dogs built a bonfire and had a preparatory dance. All of them stripped naked and painted their bodies. All of them danced barefooted. It was considered wonderful that they could do this without getting cactus thorns into their feet. As the dance was going on it began to become known that the report of Crows was a mistake, that nobody had seen them. The war dance was ended and the bonfire died down. It may have been that Crows actually had been seen, as I have learned in later times that some of them were scouting as helpers for soldiers north of Elk river.

After one sleep at the second Rosebud camp we traveled on up the valley another twelve or fifteen miles. This time the Uncpapas occupied land now on both sides of the highway road and to the west and south of a painted peak the white people now call Teat butte. The other camps were scattered irregularly on up the valley, all yet on the east side of the creek. It was about a mile and a half from the lower or last Uncpapa site to the upper or advanced Cheyenne site. Only one sleep here. The next forenoon the Cheyennes headed again a procession up the Rosebud valley.

The fourth Rosebud camp was at and above the place where now the main highway from Forsythe forks to go toward Lame Deer and toward Ashland. The lower or northern end of the group, the site of Sitting Bull’s people, was on the benchland by the present roadside east and northeast from the forks. Four camp circles were, as usual, somewhere between them and the Cheyennes in front and the Uncpapas at the rear. One of the Sioux camps was on the west side of the creek, the first time any of the circles had been set up on that side. The Cheyennes were about a mile east of where a roadside trading store in late years has been managed by a white man named Parkins. We were at the mouth of a stream flowing into the Rosebud and known now as Greenleaf creek. Our circle was only about a mile southward from the Uncpapas. The others were in an irregular curve between us. All of the Indians had been using the dirty yellow water of Rosebud creek, but now the Cheyennes had better water from Greenleaf creek. While we were here, some more Cheyennes arrived from the reservation. They told us:

“Lots of soldiers are being sent to fight the Indians.”

Three sleeps I remained with our people at this camp. Great bands of Sioux went buffalo hunting among the hills and small mountains west of the Rosebud. I went hunting also, but I did not go there. Eleven Cheyennes, including myself, got our pack horses and set out over the low pass to Tongue river. We were on the lookout for soldiers or signs of them, but we did not want to fight them. We had our war bags, of course, but Indians did not take pack horses when going out to fight.

Two or three days after we had left our people they moved on up the Rosebud. This time the camp circles extended from just above the present Toohey ranch to a point about a mile and a half up the valley from that place. As usual, the Uncpapas were at the last end while the Cheyennes were at the first or upper end. The Uncpapas were on the east side of the creek, just west of the present main highway. The Cheyennes at the upper end of the group were on the west side of the creek, on a bench, a mile or so across west from the road. I was not there at the time, but this place is only ten or twelve miles north of our present reservation, so I have learned all about it from other Cheyennes as we have traveled up and down the road now there.

At this camp the Uncpapas had a Great Medicine dance. No other Indians took part in it, but great throngs of people from the other camp circles assembled to look on. This Great Medicine dance, or sun dance, as the white people call it, was held about a quarter of a mile west of the present highway that extends along the valley. The medicine lodge was pitched just north from the Uncpapa camp circle. Its exact site was on a flat bottom by the creek about a quarter of a mile south by southwest from the present Toohey ranch house. By the present roadside, just below the Toohey ranch house, is a signboard that tells people, “Custer camped here June 23, 1876.” The place where Sitting Bull’s people had their Great Medicine dance is only half a mile southwest from this roadside signboard.

A few miles up the valley from this camp site are the deer medicine rocks. They are three or four miles below the present reservation northern gate. They may be seen about a mile west of the present road and off from the base of the hills. They are about half a mile or farther southwest from the big ranch house of a white man named Bailey. In the old times, both Cheyennes and Sioux had reverence for these separated cliff towers. As hunters were about to go for deer or antelope, they assembled on horseback and grouped around the deer medicine rocks. There they looked up to the tops and made prayers for success in the oncoming hunt. It is probable that the Indians at that camping time paid the usual respect to this old-time place of worship. But I do not know. I was not there. I then was traveling up the Tongue river valley, with ten other Cheyenne buffalo hunters.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Santee Sioux, Wahpeton group, refugees from Minnesota, dwelling in Canada.

[17] The universal Indian name for the Yellowstone river.

[18] Thomas H. Leforge and his Crow scouts learned that the hostile Indians arrived on the Rosebud about May 19th, 1876. They observed a great camp there on May 26th. A few days later this camp was gone. Lieutenant Bradley’s diary records these facts. Bradley, Leforge and the Crow scouts were of the Gibbon forces, located then on the north side of the Yellowstone river.--T. B. M.

VII

_Soldiers from the Southward._

Our party of eleven buffalo hunters went over the same low pass that is traversed by the road now going from the Rosebud to Tongue river and Ashland. We did not find any big herd of buffalo. We had killed only four by the time we arrived at Hanging Woman creek. We decided then to go on over to Powder river. We followed Powder river almost up to the mouth of Lodgepole creek. On the way we came across a dead Indian on a burial scaffold. The body had been stripped of all wrappings and of clothing. We wondered if this had been a Sioux, a Crow or a Shoshone. We wondered also who had robbed the body.

One of our men named Lame Sioux went out to a hill for a look over the country. Pretty soon he began to signal. He had seen a camp of soldiers. All of us got out to look. Yes, this was a soldier camp. We dropped back into hiding. Ourselves and our horses all were put into concealment until darkness came. Then we dressed ourselves, painted ourselves and went on a night scout for a closer view. We saw the camp fires burning. We worked our way carefully toward them. It was after the middle of the night when we arrived at a point where we could see well the entire scene. But all of the soldiers then were gone.

We slept then until morning came. When we went to the abandoned camp site the first thing to arouse our special interest was a beef carcass having yet on the bones many fragments of meat. The next interesting object was a box of hard crackers. It had been raining, and they were wet, but this made them all the better. We ate what we wanted of them. We cooked pieces of the beef on the fire coals. We enjoyed a fine breakfast. Then we set out on the trail of the soldiers.

The trail led us northwestward over the divide and down Crow creek. Near where Crow creek empties into Tongue river we saw the soldier camp.[19] The time was late in the afternoon. We retreated and skirted around up the river. At dusk we crossed it to the west side. The water was running high. We stripped and tied our clothing in bundles about our necks. We sat upon our riding horses and led our pack horses as they swam through the lively current. We hid ourselves among the trees on that side of the valley and slept until morning.

From a cliff the next morning we saw first a band of about twenty Indians riding away from the soldier camp. Were they Crows? Were they Shoshones? We exchanged guesses, but we did not know. We talked among ourselves about making an attack upon them. There was some talk of trying to steal soldier horses. We were anxious to do something warlike, to get horses or to count coups. But the general agreement was that it was too risky. We considered it most important that we return and notify our people on the Rosebud. We did not want to tire out our horses in an effort to get others or to get fighting honors. But we lingered to do some more looking. We saw soldiers walking about their camp. It had been flooded by the high waters. They were splashing about here and there and appeared to be getting ready to travel. We decided it was time for us also to travel.

Six of us, including myself, started out toward the hills between us and the uppermost Rosebud. The five other Cheyennes remained behind to see where the soldiers might go. During the day two of these came on and joined us. Before night the final three were with us. “They are coming in this direction,” the three reported. We then were on the upper small branches of Rosebud creek.

We killed a buffalo there. We hurried in cutting from it some of the choice pieces. We quickly divided up the liver and ate the raw segments. Over a hastily built fire we scantily toasted little chunks of buffalo meat. As we devoured them we spoke but few words. Whatever speech was uttered was in jerky sputterings. Everybody was excited. Every minute or two somebody was jumping up to go somewhere and look for pursuing soldiers. After the food had been bolted we hastened to move on. When darkness had well advanced we stopped for the night. Our horses needed rest and food. We picketed them. We felt safe during the night, so we slept soundly.

Before the sun was up we were several miles on down the Rosebud valley. We did not know just where our people were, but we knew they were somewhere on this stream. We found them strung along from the location of our present Indian dance hall there up almost to the present home of Porcupine. We wolf-howled and aroused the people. Cheyennes flocked to learn why we had given the alarm. We went on into camp and reported to an old man. Some Sioux were there, and they carried the news to their people. Soon all of the camp circles were in a fever of excitement. Heralds in all of them were riding about and shouting:

“Soldiers have been seen. They are coming in this direction. Indians are with them.”

Councils were called. Lots of young men wanted to go out and fight the soldiers, but the chiefs would not allow this. Our chiefs appointed Little Hawk, Crooked Nose and two or three others to go scouting and find out about the further movements of the white men. Maybe some Sioux scouts also were sent out. I do not know, but I think they depended upon the Cheyennes to do the work.

The Indians all moved camp, going on up the valley about ten miles. Here the Cheyennes chose for their location a spot on the east side of the Rosebud, just across from the present Davis creek and on the land now occupied by Rising Sun. The Sioux following them set their circles on down the creek, the Uncpapas being below the present Busby school. My recollection is we stayed here more than one sleep, but I am not sure. When we left this place we went westward up Davis creek and across the hills beside it, going toward the dividing hills separating us from the Little Bighorn river. It was understood we were on our way to that valley.