There was a boy in Creede’s party, Sit-ta-re-kit by name, a very intelligent Pawnee, eighteen years old, who had gone with the Lieutenant to Washington to see the President of the United States. There seemed to be no shadow of hope for the scouts; and this young man started to run. Inasmuch as he started in the direction of the camp, which was but a mile away, it is but fair to suggest that he may have taken this fatal step with the hope of notifying the Pawnees of the state of affairs. This was the opinion of Lieutenant Creede; while others thought he was driven wild by the desperate surroundings. He had gone less than a hundred yards when a Sioux rode up beside him and felled him to the ground with a war club. The young scout started to rise, was on his knees, when the Sioux, having dismounted, reached for the scout’s hair with his left hand. All this was seen by the boy’s companions.
“Oh, it was awful!” said Creede, relating this story to the writer. “We had been together so much. He was so brave, so honest and so good. Of course, he was only an Indian; but I had learned to love him, and when I saw the steel blade glistening in the setting sun—saw the savage at one swift stroke sever the scalp from that brave boy’s head, I was sick at heart.” After he had been scalped, the boy got up and walked on, right by the savage Sioux. He was safe enough now. Nothing on earth would tempt an Indian to touch a man who had been scalped, not even to kill him.
A Pawnee squaw was working in the field one day when a Sioux came down and scalped her. She knew if she returned to her people she would be killed. It was not fashionable to keep short-haired women about; and, in her desperate condition, she wandered back to the agency. The agent was sorry for her and he took her in and cured her head and sent her back to her people. But they killed her; she had been scalped.
But let us return to the little band in the basin surrounded by the Sioux. It is indeed a small band now. Four of them are dead, one scalped and gone; but as often as their Winchesters bark, a Sioux drops. There was nothing left for them now but to fight on to the end.
Death in this way was better than being burned alive. There was no hope—not a shadow; for, how were they to know that one of their companions had seen the Sioux surround them and that the whole force of Pawnee scouts were riding to the relief of this handful of men, who were amusing themselves at rifle practice while they waited for death.
With a wild yell, they dashed down upon the murderous Sioux, and, without firing a shot, they fled from the field, leaving thirteen unlucky Indians upon the battle ground.
The brave boy never returned. He took his own life, perhaps; for an Indian never cares to live after he has lost his scalp, knowing that his companions look upon him as they look upon the dead.
CHAPTER X.
LOYAL IN FRIENDSHIP, TRUE TO A TRUST—A CRUEL CAPTAIN.