Omaha daily bee., 1889-01-27
WILD HOGS LOST GREATNESS.
The Once Famous Cheyenne Chief
Revisits Fort Robinson.
ILLUMINATING ON HIS DOWN FALL.
Story of the Desperate Battle in
Which His Band of Warriors
Was Wiped Out OF Exist
ence by Troops.
ILLUMINATING ON HIS DOWN FALL.

FoRT ROBINSON, Neb., Jan. 2G.-lSpecial
TO THE BEE. Wild Hog was here the other
day and took a good look at the old post
guard house which once saved his life. Most
people think Wild Hog is dead, ana so did |
until he turned up here fat and sleek the
other day. He was once famous all over the
United States, and millions of people talked
about him daily and looked the first thing in
the morning at their paper to see where
Wild Hog, the Cheyenne chief, was, and
what he was doing.
The other day he sat, solitary and alone, on
the sidewalk in front of the officers quar-
tiers, gazing, sadly, at the old guard house,
his mind busy with past memories. His
thin overcoat, made out of an old army sheet,
and wrapped about his shoulders,
tapped sadly in the wind, and
he seemed forgotten by all the
world except a squaw who trotted
humble after him wherever he went and who
now stood reverently behind the great man
while he gazed at the old prison ana iuml-
mated upon an exciting night he once passed
there ten years ago next winter, when the
Calanus is root frozen up and the wild onion
remains stubbornly imbedded in the earth
waiting for the gentle spring to thaw it out.
1t was January, 1879, when Wild Hog and
his Cheyenne braves, their wives, bedding,
dogs and lice, removed to the Indian terri
tory. Growing unhappy and longing for the
pleasures OF the war path, he ''broke OUT
Taking his warriors and their wives he struck
northward through Kansas to southwestern
Nebraska. 1t was a lively trip. The United
States soldiers followed closely and kept
them moving on forever, but could not over
haul them.
Wild Hog had some fun on
the trip up, for he killed about
forty citizens, outraged ten women,
and burned and destroyed over $40, 900 worth
of property. He says the bad young men of
the band did IL. When he got to Fort Robin
son, where he had to surrender to keep from
being captured, he had 200 warriors, women
and children, 700 dogs and an unknown mum
Der of millions of lice with him. He and his
band were confined IN one of the soldiers
barracks next to the guard house, a long,
low, rambling log building. Efforts were
made to induce Wild Hog to return TO the
Indian territory and be a good boy. Candy,
sugar, coffee, nuts and many other good
things to eat were offered him as an induce
ment If he would go back, but he said he
would not do IL. When pressed upon the
subject he got mad, damned the United
States government, and said he would lick IL.
The government became alarmed and tried
to lock Wild Hog up, and then there was a
time. Some OF the guards We're killed, but
they at last got Wild Hog in irons, put him
in the guard-house, and the government
now appealed to to go back quietly to the In
dian nation and make no more trouble,
and they said they would not. They were
then barricaded in their quarters, deprived
of food and water, and the government, now
mad at last, swore it would starve them into
submission. The Indians were toughs. They
starved, froze and went without water, but
would not give in one inch.
At last, being rendered desperate by their
sufferings, they tore up the floors OF the build
imp. barricaded windows and doors, covering