Courtesy of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institute.
RED CLOUD.
Mahapiya-luta had leaped from the turf, as the other was speaking, and in his eyes shone a fierce and sinister lustre.
"How many are there?" he asked.
The courier looked puzzled for an instant, and then held up both hands with a sweeping motion.
"There are as many as ponies in yonder herd," said he. "The palefaces are as thick as trees along the side of the mountain behind our camp. But we are greater by ten times. Yes, we can sweep them off the face of our land."
"And we will," shouted Mahapiya-luta, who was known to the whites as Red Cloud. "Did I not tell the Great White Eagle (General Carrington) so, in the council at the house, called Laramie by the palefaces? Did I not say that if he and his Long Swords stole the country of our fathers without asking my permission that we would take their scalps? Did I not tell him that the fireboat which walks on mountains (locomotive) could not come into our hunting grounds and scare off all the game? Show me the place where the palefaces have camped, O Soboya, and we will drive them from the soil."
"Come with me," answered Soboya, "and you can see for yourself that what I say to you is the truth."
On a plateau between two branches of the Piney Creek—a branch of the Powder River in Wyoming—a camp and stockade had been established, on the thirteenth of July, 1866. Four miles away was the magnificent Big Horn Range of Mountains, with a towering snow peak, called Cloud Peak, jutting nine thousand feet into the azure sky. It was a lonely place—the farthest post of United States regulars in the wilderness—but as General Carrington, its commander, looked about him upon the wide plateau decked with beautiful flowers, and green with waving grass, he smiled grimly at the scene of natural beauty. The mountains and hills were covered with pines of restful green, the waters of the creek and its tributary rivulets were as pure as crystal. Trout leaped in the tiny pools and cataracts. Antelope grazed upon the wide sweep of the plains, while deep-rutted trails showed where the bison had recently passed by. "It is a glorious situation," said Carrington to himself, "but the Indians will not let us enjoy it as we should. Well, they will find us ready and prepared. I, for one, am glad to be here."