he post
demanded that the murderers be given up. The chiefs said that they were
very sorry, that this could not be done, but that they were willing to
pay over any reasonable number of ponies to make amends for the death.
This offer was of course promptly refused, and the commander notified
them that if they did not surrender the murderers by a certain time he
would hold the whole tribe responsible and would promptly move out and
attack them. Upon this the chiefs, after holding full counsel with
the tribe, told the commander that they had no power to surrender the
murderers, but that the latter had said that sooner than see their tribe
involved in a hopeless struggle they would of their own accord come
in and meet the troops anywhere the latter chose to appoint, and die
fighting. To this the commander responded: "All right; let them come
into the agency in half an hour." The chiefs acquiesced, and withdrew.

Immediately the Indians sent mounted messengers at speed from camp to
camp, summoning all their people to witness the act of fierce self-doom;
and soon the entire tribe of Cheyennes, many of them having their faces
blackened in token of mourning, moved down and took up a position on
the hill-side close to the agency. At the appointed hour both young men
appeared in their handsome war dress, galloped to the top of the hill
near the encampment, and deliberately opened fire on the troops. The
latter merely fired a few shots to keep the young desperadoes off, while
Lieutenant Pitcher and a score of cavalrymen left camp to make a circle
and drive them in; they did not wish to hurt them, but to capture
and give them over to the Indians, so that the latter might be forced
themselves to inflict the punishment. However, they were unable to
accomplish their purpose; one of the young braves went straight at them,
firing his rifle and wounding the horse of one of the cavalrymen, so
that, simply in self-defence, the latter had to fire a volley, which
laid low the assailant; the other, his horse having been shot, was
killed in the brush, fighting to the last. All the while, from the
moment the two doomed braves appeared until they fell, the Cheyennes on
the hill-side had been steadily singing the death chant. When the young
men had both died, and had thus averted the fate which their misdeeds
would else have brought upon the tribe, the warriors took their bodies
and bore them away for burial honors, the soldiers looking on in
sil