River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1909-05-13

fights in which, on the Indian side, we
feathers, blankets, moccasins and leggin
to be in the summer time, wearing no
paint.
Many Of the old picturesque chieft
happy hunting ground. Among them "
member the day when the rifle was u
weapon in the hands of the adver-
sary.
Old Rain-in-the-Face died not long
ago and his epitaph is found in the
fippant paragraph that the Sioux
warrior and chieftain is at last good
Indian
Every redskin who ever raised his
hand against a white man is dubbed
a bad Indian Rain-in-the-Face living
was of service to the world. He add
ed picturesqueness and spirit OF
savagery to the dull canvas Of civil
LIKED life. Something is lost every
time that one Of the old-time warriors
of the plain goes to tie land where
the buffalo grass is always green and
where the herds await the Indian
hunter
In the deaths of most of the great
Indian chiefs Of old there was always
some tragic note. Most of them met
violent deaths. Perhaps Geronimo,
who passed away at Fort Sill, Okla,
some months ago, was the only one OF
many aged chieftains to die natural
death. The Indians picture of the
happy hunting ground is said by stu
dents to have made violent death the
safest mode of entrance to the portals
of the redskin heaven in the Indian
mind. The quality of bravery dis
played, the Indians also believed in
the old days, had much to do with
their happiness after death, and as a
consequence to die fighting for their
tribe was the aim of most of the old
school of warriors.
Rain-in-the-Face followed Little
Wound; Little Wound followed
American Horse; American Horse fol-
lowed Young Man Afraid and Red
Cloud is close upon their trail. Sioux
chiefs and warriors all! Shall no
voice lament their passing?
Most of these chiefs were Chris
tians-in way. The water of bap-
tism sprinkled but it never washed
the war paint from their heather
hearts. The only good thing the
white men ever offered them was his
religion, but they suspected it as they
succumbed to it's outward forms. 1t
takes more than prayer or two and
more than a little water from a font
to remove from the administering
clergyman the suspicion which the
red man attached to all of the white
race as the result of "a century of
dishonor"
Out at Pine Ridge Is years ago the
little Episcopal mission church was
turned into hospital for the care of
the wounded survivors of the band of
Big Foot, the Sioux chief. The pews
and the altar had been removed and
straw had been strewn on the floor
and there lay the stricken women and
children-all the men of the band had
met death-every one sore wounded
by the bullets of the soldiers.
Where the altar had been lay the
wife of a chief and her four little
children, bearing the pain of their
wounds with what we are pleased to
call a savage stoicism. The sun came
up over the pine-topped ridges and
sent its light through the stained-glass
window over and above the place of
the altar.
The red and the yellow and the
blue fell upon the family group, and
on the blankets covering the wounded
children one read, transmitted by the
sun and the glass, the words: GLORY
to God in the Highest" Yet the wond
ism still lays hold on the heart of the
The tragedy of the fight at Wounde,