Kicking Bear proved to be a nuisance. The Sioux feared him. It was said that in the dark there was a halo around his head, and a star over him; that he had the power to strike unbelievers dead, with a look, or change them into dogs.
Agent McLaughlin sent thirteen police under Sergeant Crazy Walking, to arrest Kicking Bear and put him off the reservation.
Crazy Walking went, and found Kicking Bear and Sitting Bull in the midst of a Ghost Dancer meeting. He listened to the stories, and was afraid of the medicine. He returned to the agency, and said that Sitting Bull had promised that Kicking Bear should leave, the next day.
Agent McLaughlin called Second Lieutenant Chatka. Lieutenant Chatka had good sense. He was a soldier and did not put much faith in such "medicine." He asked for only two men, and rode straight to Sitting Bull's camp, on the Grand River, forty miles south of the Agency quarters.
The Sioux there were dancing—which made no difference to Lieutenant Chatka, although some of them were his relatives. He broke through the circle, told Kicking Bear and his Cheyenne River reservation squad that they must get out; and escorted them twenty-five miles south, to the line between the two reservations.
Thus Lieutenant Chatka proved himself to be a faithful officer.
This night Sitting Bull snapped his peace pipe in two, before his Ghost Dancers. His heart had swelled within him.
"Why did you break your pipe, Sitting Bull?"
He replied hotly:
"Because I want to fight, and I want to die, if need be, for this new religion."