Frank Grouard Frank Grouard ( also known as Frank Gruard ) ( 20 September 1850 – 15 August 1905 ) was a Scout and interpreter for General George Crook during the American Indian War of 1876 . Early years . Grouard ' s origins are the center of much speculation and controversy . He is variously described as having been American Indian , half - Indian , French - Creole or half - Black , the son of the early Black American Fur Company mountain man , John Brazeau . Grouard himself , in his biography dictated to journalist Joseph DeBarthe in 1891 , claimed to have been born in the Society Islands in the south Pacific Ocean , the second of three sons born to Benjamin Franklin Grouard , an American Mormon missionary , and a Polynesia n woman . He moved to Utah with his parents and two brothers in 1852 , later moving to San Bernardino in California . After a year in California , Grouard ' s wife returned to the South Pacific with two of the children , leaving Benjamin with the middle son , Frank . In 1855 he was adopted into the family of Addison and Louisa Pratt , fellow Mormon missionaries of his father . Grouard moved with the Pratt family to Beaver , Utah , from where he ran away at age 15 , moving to Helena , Montana and becoming an express rider and stage driver . Indian Scout . In about 1869 , while working as a mail carrier , Grouard was captured near the mouth of the Milk River in Montana by Crow Indians who took all his possessions and abandoned him in a forest where he was found by Sioux Indians and later adopted as a brother by Chief Sitting Bull . He was probably accepted by them as an Indian because his Polynesia n features resembled those of the Sioux . Grouard married a Sioux woman and learned to speak the Sioux language fluently , taking the Indian names ' Sitting - with - Upraised - Hands ' and ' Standing Bear ' , ( Yugata ) , as he had been captured wearing a bearskin coat . For seven to eight years he lived in the camps of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse until he managed to escape , becoming an emissary of the Indian Peace Commission at Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska . In 1876 , Grouard became a Chief Indian Scout in the United States Army under General George Crook , fighting Sioux Indians . By February 1876 , many Indians were leaving the reservations in search of food , refusing to return when ordered to by the United States government . General Crook began his winter march from Fort Fetterman on March 1 , 1876 with many companies of troops and with Grouard as his Chief Indian scout and interpreter . Indian Wars . When Sitting Bull heard that Grouard was Crook ' s Chief Scout , he saw an opportunity to kill him in battle . By March 17 , 1876 , Grouard had located Crazy Horse ' s village on Powder River in Montana . He followed the trail left by two hostiles , who had been spotted the previous day , all through the night , even when their tracks were covered during a snowstorm . General Crook , in his May 1876 report wrote , " I would sooner lose a third of my command than Frank Grouard ! " Other scouts , jealous of Crook ' s preference for Grouard , tried to turn the General against him by claiming that Grouard had joined up as a scout in order to lead the Army into a carefully orchestrated trap , but Crook saw through all this . On occasions when scouting Grouard would dress as an Indian so that genuine Indians would take no notice of him . Thus , Grouard could pass as an American and an American Indian . He was a major participant in the Rosebud campaign , and saw action in the Battle of the Rosebud . General George Crook and his officers , having retreated from the Rosebud , were hunting in the foothills of the Bighorns when Grouard , known to the Brulé as ' One - Who - Catches ' and to the Hunkpapa as ' Standing Bear ' , was acting as guide . Between 9 and 10 in the morning of June 25 , 1876 Crook ' s forces were in Goose Creek Valley when Grouard saw the smoke from Indian signal fires in the distance , which indicated that George Armstrong Custer ' s command was engaged with the enemy , outnumbered , and being badly pressed . The officers present used their field glasses but could make no sense of the smoke signals and laughed at the idea that a half - Indian could have such knowledge of their meaning . To prove that he was right , at noon Grouard mounted his horse and rode towards the signals , reaching the Little Bighorn , a distance of some seventy miles , at 11 pm on June 25 . Here he discovered the bodies of the slain before being chased back to Goose Creek by hostiles , bringing the news of Custer ' s death to Crook . Crazy Horse . Grouard has been blamed by some as being instrumental in the subsequent death of Crazy Horse . In August 1877 , officers at Camp Robinson received word that the Nez Perce of Chief Joseph had broken out of their reservations in Idaho and were fleeing north through Montana toward Canada . When asked by Lieutenant Clark to join the Army against the Nez Perce , Crazy Horse and the Miniconjou leader Touch the Clouds objected , saying that they had promised to remain at peace when they surrendered . According to one version of events , Crazy Horse finally agreed , saying that he would fight " till all the Nez Perce were killed " . But his words were apparently misinterpreted , perhaps deliberately , by Grouard , who reported that Crazy Horse had said that he would " go north and fight until not a white man is left " . When he was challenged over his interpretation , Grouard left the council . Grouard claimed that he was present when Crazy Horse was killed . Grouard was also present at the Yellowstone Expeditions and the Battle of Slim Buttes . He was assigned to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation during the Ghost Dance Uprising and was present at the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 . Grouard later served as a U . S . Marshal in Fort McKinney , Buffalo , Wyoming and was involved in the Johnson County War of 1892 . Later years . By 1893 , Frank Grouard had become famous , and his father , Benjamin Franklin Grouard , who hadn ' t seen his son since 1855 , read of the publication of a biography of the scout . Benjamin Grouard then travelled to Sheridan , Wyoming , where he immediately recognized his son despite a forty - year separation . Frank Grouard died at St . Louis , Missouri in 1905 where he was eulogized as a " scout of national fame " . In fiction . Grouard appears in " Flashman and the Redskins " by George MacDonald Fraser as the illegitimate son of Flashman and Cleonie Grouard , Flashman ' s mistress and a slave and prostitute . Fraser has Grouard being brought up by Indians after Flashman sells his pregnant mother Cleonie to the Navajo . In the story , the Harvard - educated Grouard rescues Flashman during the Battle of the Little Bighorn while fighting against the American Army as a Sioux .