ng. Rain-in-the-face was arrested for this, on
the reservation; but he escaped and vowed vengeance. He went to
Sitting Bull, and was safe.

In 1874 the United States began to ask for the Pah-sap-pa, or Black
Hills, in South Dakota. To the Sioux and the Cheyennes, Pah-sap-pa was
medicine ground. Spirits dwelt there; it was the home of the Thunder
Bird and other magic creatures; it contained much game, and quantities
of tent poles, for lodges.

Spotted Tail of the Brules went in. He hung around the white men's
mining camps, and found out that the white men were crazy for the gold.

The United States had been accustomed to buying Indian land cheap, and
getting rich out of it. Now it offered to buy the Black Hills for six
millions of dollars, or to rent them for four hundred thousand dollars
a year.

Coached by Spotted Tail and by Red Cloud, the Sioux laughed, and asked
sixty millions of dollars. So the deal did not go through, this time.
However, the Sioux lost Pah-sap-pa, just the same.

The United States Government was unable to keep the gold-seekers out.
They dodged through the troops. There were fights with the Sioux, and
the Sioux became angered in earnest.

They saw their Black Hills invaded by a thousand white men. Other
white men, guarded by soldiers, were planning to run a railroad right
through the Powder River country. On the Great Sioux reservation
Spotted Tail and Red Cloud were the head chiefs; but out on the hunting
grounds the Sitting Bull people stayed and prepared to make war and
hold the Sioux lands.

The Sioux on the reservations began to leave, and join Sitting Bull.
They felt that Red Cloud's heart was with them. He had notified the
United States that it must keep the white men out of Sioux country.

The United States also was alarmed. The Sioux seemed to be using the
reservation as a sort of supply depot; they got provisions and clothing
there, and took them to the hunting grounds.

General Alfred H. Terry, who commanded the Military Department of
Dakota, sent scouts to inform Sitting Bull that unless he came in, with
all his people, out of the Big Horn Valley and the Powder River
country, before a certain time, troops would bring him out. There
would be war.

Sitting Bull answered:

"When you come for me you need bring no guides. You will easily find
me. I shall be right here. I shall not run away."

In February, this 1876, the United States started to go after him, bu