oluntarily--were delivered up to the
Chippewas. Identifying two of these as being among the murderers, they
requested permission to execute them immediately.

Upon the broad prairie the two prisoners were given their freedom. They
were told to run, and when a few paces away the Chippewa warriors fired,
and the Sioux fell dead. Then followed a hideous scene which a spectator
described many years later. "The bodies, all warm and limp, are dragged
to the brow of the hill. Men who at the sight of blood, become almost
fiends, tear off the reeking scalps and hand them to the chief, who
hangs them around his neck. Women and children with tomahawks and
knives cut deep gashes in the poor dead bodies, and scooping up the hot
blood with their hands, eagerly drink it; then, grown frantic, they
dance, and yell, and sing their horrid scalp songs, recounting deeds of
valor on the part of their brave men, and telling off the Sioux scalps,
taken in different battles, until tired and satiated at last with their
horrid feast, they leave the mutilated bodies--festering in the
sun."[326] At evening the bodies were thrown over the cliff into the
river below.

On the morning of the thirty-first the Sioux delivered up to the
Chippewas two others who, they claimed, had been the principal men in
the affair. If the Chippewas did not shoot them, they said, they would
do it themselves, as trouble had come to their nation on their account.
But the Chippewas were willing.

About this second execution there has grown up an interesting story. One
of the offenders, Toopunkah Zeze, was a favorite among the children of
the fort. Tall and handsome and athletic and brave, he was the ideal of
Indian manhood. The other, called the Split Upper Lip, was well known as
a thief, and was as much detested as his companion was respected. He
cried and begged for his life, saying that his gun had missed fire--he
had killed no one. The other calmly distributed his clothes among his
friends, upbraiding his companion for his cowardice. "You lie, dog.
Coward, old woman, you know that you lie. You know that you are as
guilty as I am. Hold your peace and die like a man--die like me."

The two were brought out upon the prairie. Again the thirty yards were
allowed; again the Chippewa guns were fired. For once it seemed that
this Indian punishment of "running the gantlet" would lose a victim. For
Toopunkah Zeze was still running. The bullet had cut the rope that bound
him