Meanwhile, after the cavalry had rescued the police, Red Tomahawk put the body of Sitting Bull into a wagon, and with two prisoners took his troop up to the Standing Rock agency, to report.
Little Eagle, Afraid-of-soldiers, John Armstrong and Hawk Man No. 2 were dead; Lieutenant Bull Head and First Sergeant Shave Head died in the hospital several days later. Bull Head had four wounds.
The four dead police were buried in the reservation cemetery on the second day, December 17. A company of the Twenty-second Infantry fired three volleys over their graves, and a great throng of the Sioux were present, to mourn. The police had been brave men.
The police troop and the majority of the other Sioux there, asked that Sitting Bull be not buried in this cemetery. His medicine had been bad. Therefore this same morning he was buried, wrapped in canvas in a neat coffin, in the military cemetery near by. His age was fifty-six.
The white head-board says simply:
SITTING BULL
Died
December 15, 1890
That was his end, on this earth; for, as far as known, he never came back from spirit land. The pretended Messiah's promises proved false. The white men remained stronger than the ghosts. The Indians seemed to have no "medicine" to equal the terrible shoot-with-out-loading guns of the blue-coat soldiers.
THE END