Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1880-07-14
A FATAL STAMPEDE.
Thirty Indians Drowned In an Effort to
Capture Buffalo Meat.
49,. ,,.l

Thirty Indians Drowned In an Effort to
Capture Buffalo Meat.
Chicago Times. 10th.
An officer of the regular army, who
left Fort Keogh, Montana, ten DAYS ago,
arrived in the city on Thursday evening,
and is a guest of friends living ON Prairie
avenue. The officer travelled by "buck-
board" from the Yellowstone river to the
end OF the Northern Pacific railroad, near
the Little Missouri, and thence eastward
by rail.
Couriers had arrived at the post before
his departure, bringing the latest intelli-
gence from the Grow Indians, who were
then absent from the camp, or agency,
upon a grand buffalo hunt. The news
brought in by couriers was very exciting.
They related that after riding over noun
tains for two days the Crows came upon
a fine herd of butf'aloes in narrow val
ley near by the Yellowstone. There
were four hundred Indians and four
thousand butfaloes. The Crows had been
forced by fear of starvation to take to the
chase, and the keen hunger they were
suffering only sharpened their eagerness
for tilt with their old fellow-nomads,
the noble bison. The game stampeded
down the valley i'll the direction of the
Yellowstone. The chase was hotly fol-
lowed, half Il hundred buffaloes biting
the dust before the river was reached.
One OF the most vehement of the pursu-
ers, who had distinguished himself for
bravery in two or three fights with the
Sioux, fell from his pony in the midst of
the flying herd, and was tramplel to
death by the frantic beasts.
The Yellowstone, a roaring, rushing
river even at the lowest tide, was BOOM
ing with regular summer freshet, tile
outpour Of the melting SHOWS in the high
mountains. When the river was reached
the game made a bold stand, and tor a
time it seemed doubtful which held the
mastery; but the incessant fusillade
from four hundred rifles, together with
the desperate proximity of the formida-
BILE battalion, drove the herd in dismay
into the roaring torrent. Beside them
selves with the excitement of the mo-
ment, the Indians urged their ponies into
the stream, unwilling that even flood
should spoil their frenzied sport or cut
them off from their game. The terrific
current, made tumultuous from the huge
piles of rock here and there in the cham
mel, whirled butfaloes, ponies, and In
dians along at u bewildering velocity
until the thousands of beasts were roll
ing and writhing in inextricable confu-
sion. In the dizzy evolutions of horses
and riders the latter were left to struggle
for themselves in the water, and to be
jammed to death between the surging
masses Of drowning beasts. Some. who
foresaw the danger in time, and turned
shoreward, found safety on terra tirma,
but those who ventured far enough to be
embraced by the sweeping, resistless tide.
and to become involved in the tangle
of struggling animals were all
drowned. The story brought
to the post was that thirty In
dians and fifty ponies were drowned, be-
sides FIVE hundred or q thousand butfa-
lOes.
Inquiry at military headquarters in
this city elected from Col. Sheridan the
information, corroborative in part Of the
foregoing narrative, that the Grow Iudi-
ans had eaten up all their food and had
gone out after game. The dispatch
conveying this intelligence to military
headquarters gave no particulars, but
intimated that the Indians were desper.
ately hungry.