Rain-in-the-Face had passed the test. No one thereafter questioned his courage. He was an approved warrior, indeed. It was while suspended thus that he boasted of the murder of Dr. Houzinger and Mr. Baliran, and was overheard by Charley Reynolds, the scout, who told Custer and the regiment. Rain-in-the-Face was arrested at Standing Rock Agency by a squad of soldiers under the command of Capt. Tom Custer, whom the Indians called Little Hair, to distinguish him from his brother, the general, whom they called Long Hair. He was put in the guard-house and condemned to execution, but, with the aid of white prisoners, made his escape. Before doing so, however, he told Tom Custer, in the event of his escape, he would cut his heart out and eat it.
From now on we will let the noted warrior tell his own story as found in Outdoor Life, of March, 1903:
"I rejoined Sitting Bull and Gall. They were afraid to come and get me there. I sent Little Hair a picture, on a piece of buffalo skin, of a bloody-heart. He knew I didn't forget my vow. The next time I saw Little Hair, ugh! I got his heart. I have said all."
And, Indian-like, he stopped. But we wanted to hear how he took Tom Custer's heart. McFadden, who is quite an artist as well as an actor of note, had made an imaginary sketch of "Custer's Last Charge." He got it and handed it to Rain, saying: "Does that look anything like the fight?" Rain studied it for a long time, and then burst out laughing.
"No," he said, "this picture is a lie. Those long swords, have swords—they never fought us with swords, but with guns and revolvers. These men are on ponies—they fought us on foot, and every fourth man held the others' horses. That's always their way of fighting. We tie ourselves onto our ponies and fight in a circle. These people are not dressed as we dress in a fight. They look like agency Indians—we strip naked and have ourselves and our ponies painted. This picture gives us bows and arrows. We were better armed than the long swords. Their guns wouldn't shoot but once—the thing would not throw out the empty cartridge shells. (In this he was historically correct, as dozens of guns were picked up on the battlefield by General Gibbon's command, two days after, with the shells still sticking in them, showing that the ejector wouldn't work.) When we found they could not shoot we saved our bullets by knocking the long swords over with our war-clubs—it was just like killing sheep. Some of them got on their knees and begged; we spared none—ugh! This picture is like all the white man's pictures of Indians, a lie. I will show you how it looked."
Then turning it over he pulled out a stump of a lead pencil from his pouch and drew a large shape of a letter S turned sidewise. "Here," said he, "is the Little Big Horn River; we had our-lodges along the banks in the shape of a bent bow."
"How many lodges did you have?" asked Harry.
"Oh, many, many times ten. We were like blades of grass." [It is estimated that there were between four and six thousand Indians, hence there must have been at least a thousand lodges.]
"Sitting Bull had made big medicine way off on a hill. He came in with it; he had it in a bag on a coup-stick. He made a big speech and said that Waukontonka (the Great Spirit) had come to him riding on an eagle. Waukontonka had told him that the long swords were coming, but the Indians would wipe them off the face of the earth. His speech made our hearts glad. Next day our runners came in and told us the long swords were coming. Sitting Bull had the squaws put up empty death lodges along the bend of the river to fool the Ree scouts when they came up and looked down over the bluffs. The brush and bend hid our lodges. Then Sitting Bull went away to make more medicine and didn't come back till the fight was over.