Morris tribune., 1901-02-23

but Sibley, at my suggestion, ordered
no firing unless they charged up to us,
which is not the way an Indian fights.
1--WE got to the timber at 10 o'clock
In the morning. and we did not fire a
shot until 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
/ Every man had his tree, and he stuck
to it closer than brother. Early in
the day leather lunged Sioux yelled
at me that he knew Bat and myself
were there, and they were going to-
have great fun with particularly
| me. / knew what that meant without
map, so / told every soldier to save,
good cartridge for himself before
surrendering to the fiendish tortures,
for the Sioux have very original
methods of making man die by the.
most painful process possible.
"Along about the middle Of the after
noon my red friends who were wait
ing to entertain me began to get very
gay and were growing holder every
minute. They had killed all our horses
but five, and thought it was impossible.
for us to get away-in fact, I heard
them say so quite. frequently in the
gutteral language Of the Cheyennes.
White Antelope and band of Chey-
ennes had Joined the war party, and
this chief began riding closer and
closer to our trees Finally he and an
other chief, who was riding about five
yards behind him. came into fairly
good range. could see the color Of
his eyes as he came toward me- I
pulled the trigger of my rifle, and both,
Indians went down together as result
Of the single shot. 1t was the first
shot from our party, and the double
tragedy confused the Indians. Then
our whole outfit poured in a whitening
volley, and told Sibley it was our,
time to take advantage Of their confu-
sion and get through their line back to-
the gully. / waited until they were alb
fairly started back through the heavy
timber. then, taking tie 1ai-iia1tt from
timber. then. taking the lariat from the
saddle Of my dead horse, l followed.
cit was mile from where we made,
our stand to the main fork Of the
Tongue river, and the woods were full Of
terrible windfalls, and it was awfully
hard travelling. The first 200 yards the
men had to simply squirm their way
through the timber and keep very low.
The savages had comparatively thin
line at our rear. as they knew the char
acter Of the country and thought we
would be helpless without our horses
"When I rejoined the men, sent Bat
in the lead and covered the rear. The
soldiers took off their boots and stepped
from rock to rock in order to leave our
trail as blind as possible. About dark
a heavy rainstorm, with much wind.
came up and soon drowned out the fir
ing that our foes kept up on our camp
Our policy Of holding our fire so fooled
them that they did not rush our camps
until the following morning, a fact that
l learned later. The storm was wild
and terrible. We were drenched, and;
the timber began to fall all about u.s.
We kept in territory where horses
could not travel for reasons Of our own
and we hit an unblazed trail over the
for the following 45 hours
without mouthful to eat. Sometimes
the squirrel path was so steep that Bat
and 1 had to pull the soldiers up over
the rocks with our lassoes.
'9The following morning at 8 o'clock
we forded Goose creek, the cold water
coming up to our armpits, and at day
light fell in with scouting party of
the Second cavalry. Then we went
back over the trail and picked up two
of our exhausted soldiers that had Civ
en- up. We had been under hot fire
nearly ten hours, had Travelled so miles
over terribly rough mountain country
and during all that time had not en-
joyed the luxury of a ration, as We
were forced to abandon everything
when the Indians sighted US except our
hope and our ammunition. Yet we new
er lost a man.
"Poor Little Bat! He was in the lead
lust to think of it! Now he is snuffed
out as the result of cowardly misdeaE
n a miserable saloon fight"
The speaker cast aside the stump of
lis cigar and said. "Where do you think.
could find John Finerty anyway
Chicago Record.