Miss Morgan and Mrs. White. They were
finally rescued from the savages by General Custer, under the following
circumstances: Custer, who was advancing with his column of invincible
cavalrymen--the famous Seventh United States--in search of the two
unfortunate women, had arrived near the head waters of one of the
tributaries of the Washita, and, with only his guide and interpreter,
was far in advance of the column, when, on reaching the summit of an
isolated bluff, they suddenly saw a village of the Kiowas, which
turned out to be that of Kicking Bird, whose handsome lodge was easily
distinguishable from the rest. Without waiting for his command, the
general and his guide rode boldly to the lodge of the great chief,
and both dismounted, holding cocked revolvers in their hands; Custer
presented his at Kicking Bird's head. In the meantime, Custer's column
of troopers, whom the Kiowas had good reason to remember for their
bravery in many a hard-fought battle, came in full view of the
astonished village. This threw the startled savages into the utmost
consternation, but the warriors were held in check by signs from Kicking
Bird. As the cavalry drew nearer, General Custer demanded the immediate
release of the white women. Their presence in the village was at first
denied by the lying chief, and not until he had been led to the limb of
a huge cottonwood tree near the lodge, with a rope around his neck, did
he acknowledge that he held the women and consent to give them up.

This well-known warrior, with a foreknowledge not usually found in the
savage mind, seeing the beginning of the end of Indian sovereignty
on the plains, voluntarily came in and surrendered himself to the
authorities, and stayed on the reservation near Fort Sill.

In June, 1867, a year before the breaking out of the great Indian war on
the central plains, the whole tribe of Kiowas, led by him, assembled at
Fort Larned. He was the cynosure of all eyes, as he was without question
one of the noblest-looking savages ever seen on the plains. On that
occasion he wore the full uniform of a major-general of the United
States army. He was as correctly moulded as a statue when on horseback,
and when mounted on his magnificent charger the morning he rode out with
General Hancock to visit the immense Indian camp a few miles above
the fort on Pawnee Fork, it would have been a difficult task to have
determined which was the finer-looking man.

After Kicking Bird had aban