The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1921-11-25
. I ),

company New York; is chapter In which Rain
in the Face tells how he ran 800 miles on snow
shoes in a blizzard In three days-by far the most
remarkable in all history.
: Ugh what a discussion that chapter has raised
all over the West For the West will never get
through talking about Custer and the battle OF
Little Big Horn River. June 20, 1876
Now of course, anyone who has ever travelled
Oh snowshoes and has been In South Dakota
blizzard has positive opinion as to the truth OF
the Indians story. Incidentally the worlds record
for a hundred mile run is 13 :26 80. However tne
story Of inthe-Face serves a double purpose:
1t makes interesting reading and it has brought
out some reliable facts concerning the legend that
the Sioux chief boosted that he would kill Custer
and eat his heart-and actually did carry out his
boast.
= According to the story told to Colonel Shields
by the Sioux In December. 1873 or 1874, while
ouartered with portion Of his tribe at the Sand
ing Rock agency, about rs miles south Of Bis
marck, Rain-in-the-Face got into an alteration
with four white men and killed two OF them IN
self-defense as he claimed. He was captured, tax
en- to the agency and thrown into jail, "a tenn
porary unfinished log structure without floor
There were six or eight inches of the
ground that had blown In through the openings IN
the walls and the prisoners "only means of keep
ing from freezing was to keep walking constantly
about the room" This cruelty to Indians was prac-
ticed on the orders Of General Custer then In COM
mand at Fort Lincoln, near Bismarck. General
Custer ordered that III alive, Rainin-the-Face
should be thrown into jail and punished as severe
ly as possible. pending the time when the court
martial could be convened and the culpr1t dis
posed of in legal way. And this meant, OF course,
that he would be hung shot," When this order
was read to the prisoner "Rain-in-the-Face swore
vengeance on General Custer as the author Of his
gufrerings He swore that II he ever got out he
would ldll Custer in handtohand fight, If pos
sible and If not, then at longer range that he
would cut his heart out and carry 1t away as
trophy"
Some time before the Custer massacre, Rain
in-the-Face escaped from his prison with the as
sfstance Of two friends who "handed him pair
Of snow shoes and a blanket in which piece of
dried buffalo meat rolled" The buffalo meat
fell out as he adjusted the blanket, and he
started out into the desert. In the midst of
bowling blizzard at nightfall, with only one
blanket without mouthful of food, without a
weapon Of any kind, when the temperature
probably forty degrees below zero and the wind
was blowing thirty miles hour" He told me
the story of his great run and will tell 1t to
you in his own words as nearly as can recall
them" reports Colonel Shields
II asked him, through interpreter. Where
did you 90 when you escaped from the jail at
Standing Rock? He said
4 went to the camp of my friends at the base
Of Woody mountain, in Canada
How far is that? asked.
"~rhree hundred miles as the fes'
"'How long did it take you to make the runf
Three days and nights.
'Do you mean to tell me that man run
hundred miles in twenty-four hours, snow
Shoes and another hundred In the next twenty
four, and another hundred in the next?
He said, Il did it.
".How often did you sleep the way?
..T didn't sleep at all. knew dared not Sleep
/ dared not even sit down rest for If / had
under the terrible fatigue and hunger and strain
from which suffered would have lost conscious
ness a stupor would have overtaken me, and l
would have frozen solid In half an hour. was
fleeing from the persecution the wrongs, the out
RACES inflicted on me and my people by the white
men. I was going to my friends and had deter