The Story of Red Feather: A Tale of the American Frontier

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

The original band of marauders numbered over a score, and were under the joint leadership of Tall Bear and Red Feather, both of whom were eager to sweep along the thin line of settlements like a cyclone, scattering death and destruction in their path. It may strike you that so small a force was hardly equal to the task of such a raid; but I have only to remind you that the famous Geronimo and his Apaches, who made their home among the alkali deserts and mountain fastnesses of Arizona and New Mexico, numbered few warriors at times, and yet they baffled for years a regiment of United States cavalry. It was only when the chieftain chose to come in and surrender himself under the pledge of good treatment that hostilities ended.

The twenty-odd horsemen under the leadership of Red Feather and Tall Bear were fitting types of that savage horde which in the early summer of 1876 blotted out General Custer and his troops. It so happened, however, with the smaller party that they found no such favoring circumstances to help them. At the first settler's cabin assailed they discovered the inmates ready for them. In some way or other, several families had learned of their danger in time to prepare for their assailants.

It was clear to the Indians that the settlers in that section had taken the alarm, and Red Feather proposed they should abandon their first plan and push northward towards Barwell, attacking the isolated homes to the south of that settlement. Tall Bear opposed so warmly, and with such slurs on his rival, that a personal conflict was narrowly averted.

The end of the quarrel was that Red Feather, with five of his followers, drew off from the rest and rode northward. The result of this separation was unsatisfactory to both parties.

The friendly Indian who had hastened toward Barwell to warn the pioneers of their danger did his work so well that hardly one was neglected. The inmates of the first cabin attacked by Red Feather were awaiting him. Only a few shots were exchanged, when the wrathful chieftain withdrew, and, pushing to the northward, next swooped down on the dwelling of Archibald Clarendon.

No resistance was encountered there, for, as you know, the inmates had left some time before. For some reason never fully explained, Red Feather did not fire the buildings at once. Shortly after, Melville Clarendon and his sister appeared on the scene, and the incidents which followed have already been told.

Meanwhile, Tall Bear and his warriors met with no better success than the smaller party. The proof became so strong that the whole district was on the alert that he abruptly changed his mind and led his warriors at a sweeping gallop to the northward over the trail of Red Feather and his warriors.

When he arrived on the scene he heard the curious story the five warriors had to tell. A dwelling at last had been found in which the occupants were not fully prepared, or rather, were so insignificant in strength that no company of Sioux, however small, could consent to a repulse.

But there stood the cabin defying them. Red Feather had forced his way partly through the window and then was caught so fast that, but for the mercy of the sturdy youth within, he would have been killed without being able to use a finger to defend himself.

Among the whole party who heard the remarkable narrative, there was not one who would have thought of keeping a promise made under such circumstances as was that of the chief. No pledge could have been more solemn, and yet those are the very ones that are first repudiated by the red man.