Spotted Tail, who was at Fort D. A. Russell in 1868, just after the treaty, wore a coon-skin cap,—hence called Spotted Tail. Each chief gets his peculiar name from some event in his life, or some peculiarity of person, as for instance,—

Tah-shun-ka-co-qui-pah, Man-afraid-of-his-horses. His horse stampeded one day, when his tribe was fighting some other one, and ran into the ranks of the enemy. When his owner got back again, he left his horse behind and went in (as we say), on foot, to fight again. It is not a term of reproach, as he was not a coward, but did not want to lose his horse,—hence called "Man-afraid-of-his-horses."

(This was the first Indian I saw at North Platte, when we came there in 1867. Looking out of the car window, I called my wife's attention to a big Indian, and said, "Did you ever see such a big mouth before?" Sure enough, it was the chief, and he was killed in a drunken row in Dakota recently, having been shot by Spotted Tail.)