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Two minutes more, what Indians were left alive were prisoners, and that costly experiment at an end. That evening, after the repulse of the grand attack of "ROMAN NOSE" and "STABBER'S" warriors, and, 'twas said, hundreds of "CRAZY HORSE'S" band, we buried poor "CHIPS," with our other dead, in a deep ravine. "WILD BILL," "CALIFORNIA JOE," "COSGROVE," and "TEXAS JACK" have long since gone to their last account, but, among those who knew the, no scout was more universally mourned than "BUFFALO BILL'S" devoted friend, Jim White. ________
AS "BUFFALO BILL" SEES IT--HE THINKS IT LOOKS LIKE PEACE IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY.
"Buffalo Bill" telegraphs to the "New York Heralk" from Pine Ridge Agency: "IN THE FIELD, Via Courier to Telegraph, PINE RIDGE AGENCY, DAKOTA.
"NEW YORK HARALD:
"Your request for my opinion of the Indian situation is, by reason of the complications and the changeable nature of th red man's mind and action, a puzzler. Every hour brings out a new opinion. Indian history furnishes no similar situation.
"You must imagine about 5,000 Indians, an unusual proportion warriors, better armed than ever known before, hemmed in a cordon about sixteen miles in diameter, composed of over 3,000 troops, acting like a slowly closing drag net. This mass of Indians is now influenced by a percentage as despairingly desperate and fanatical as the late Big Foot party, under Short Bull and Kicking Bear. It contains also restrained neutrals, frightened and disaffected Ogallallas, hampered by the powerful Brules, backed by renegades and desperadoes from all other agencies. There are about twenty-five hundred acting and believed to be friendly Indians in and around the Agency.
"Such is in the situation Gen. Miles and the military confront. Any one of this undisciplined mass is able to precipitate a terrible conflict from the most unexpected quarter. Each of the component quantities is to be watched, to be measured, to be just to. In fact, it is a war with a most wily and savage people, yet the whites are restrained by a humane and peaceful desire to prevent bloodshed, and save a people from themselves. It is like cooling and calming a volcano. Ordinary warface shows no parallel. Gen. Miles seems to hold a firm grip on the situation. The Indians know him, experss confidence in his honor, truth, and justice to them, and they fear his power and valor as well.
"As the matter now stands, he and they should be allowed, untrammeled even by a suggestion, to settle the affair, as no one not on the spot can appreciate the fearfully delicate position. The chaff must be sifted from the wheat, and in this instance the chaff must be threshed.
"At the moment, so far as words go, I would say it will be peace, but the smoldering spark is visible that may precipitate a terrible conflict any time in the next few days. However it ends, more and prompt attention should be paid in the future to the Sioux Indian; his rights, his complaints, and even his necessities. Respect and consideration should be shown for the gallant little army, for it is the Indian and soldier who pay the most costly price in the end. I think it looks like peace, and, if so, the greater the victory.
"W. F. CODY, 'BUFFALO BILL.'"
(Picture) "LITTLE EMMA." INDIAN GIRL. DAUGHTER OF THE OGALLALLA CHIEF, "LONE WOLF."
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THE SITUATION IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY A MARVEL OF MILITARY STRATEGY.
COL. W. F. CODY ("BUFFALO BILL"), who is at Pine Ridge, telegraphs the following for the "New York Sun," which expresses his views of the present critical situation:
"The situation to-day, so far as military strategy goes, is one of the best marked triumphs known in the history of Indian campaigns. It speaks for itself, for the usual incidents to an Indian warfare, such as raids on settlers and wide-spread devastation, have been wholly prevented. Only one white man has been killed outside the military circle. The presiding genius and his able aides have acted with all the cautious prowess of the hunter in surrounding and placing in a trap his dangerous game, at the same time recognizing the value of keeping the game imprisoned for future reasons, I speak, of course, of the campaign as originally intended to overawe and pacify the disaffected portion of the Ogallallas, Wassaohas, and Brules, the Big Foot affair at Wounded Knee Creek being an unlooked-for accident.
CREDITABLE TO GEN. MILES' REPUTATION.
"The situation to-day, with a desperate band corraled and the possibility of any individual fanatic running amuck, is most critical, but the wise measure of holding them in a military wall, allowing them time to quiet down and listen to the assurances of such men as Young Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses, Rocky Bear, No Neck, and other progressive Indians, relieves the situation, so that, unless some accident happens, the military end of the active warfare seems a complete, final, and brilliant success, as creditable to Gen. Miles' reputation as it is to the humane and just side of his character.
"Neither should praise be withheld from Gen. Brooke, Carr, Wheaton, Henry, Forsythe, and the other officers and men of the gallant little army, who stood much privation. In every instance when I have heard them speak they have experssed great sympathy for their unhappy foe, and regrets for his impoverished and desperate condition. They and the thoughtful people here are now thinking about the future. In fact, the Government and nation are confronted by a problem of great importance as regards remedying the existing evils.
"The larger portion of the Ogallalla Sioux have acted nobly in this affair, especially up to the time of the stampede. The Wassaohas and Brules have laid waste the reservation of the Ogallallas, killed their cattle, shot their horses, pillaged their houses, burned their ranches; in fact, poor as the Ogallallas were before, the Brules have left them nothing but the bare ground, a white sheet instead of a blanket, with winter at hand and the little accumulations of thirteen years swept away. This much, as well as race and tribal dissensions and personal enmity, have they incurred for standing by the Government. These people need as much sympathy and immediate assistance as any section of country when great calamities arouse the sympathy of the philanthropist and the Government. This is now the part of the situation that to me seems the most remarkable. Intelligent and quick legislation can now do more than the bullet--COL. W. F. CODY ('BUFFALO BILL')." ________
THE GREAT ARTIST, FRED. REMINGTON, WRITES FROM LONDON TO "HARPER'S WEEKLY."
The most noted depicter of Western scenes of the present day is without doubt the eminent artist, Mr. Frederic Remington. His study of the subject renders him a most competent judge. In returning from an expection in Russia, passing through London, he visited Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and it is with pride that the projectors point to his indorsement, standing side by side in artistic merit as he does with the grand artiste, Rosa Bonheur:
The Tower, the Parliament, and Westminster Abbey are older institutions in London than Buffalo Bill's show, but when the New Zealander sits on the London bridge and looks over his ancient manuscripts of Murray's Guide-Book, he is going to turn first to the Wild West. At present every one knows where it is, from the gentleman on Piccadilly to the dirtier coster in the remotest slum of Whitechapel. The cabman may have to scratch his head to recall places where the traveler desires to go, but when the "Wild West" is asked for he gathers his reins and uncoils his whip without ceremony. On should no longer ride the deserts of Texas or the rugged uplands of Wyoming to see the Indians and pioneers, but should go to London. It is also quite unnecessary to brave the fleas and the police of the Czar to see the Cossack, or to tempt the waves which roll between New York and the far off Argentine to study the "gauchos." It is all in London. The Cossacks and "gauchos" are the latest edition, and they nearly complete the array of wild riders. There you can sit on a bench and institute comparisons. The Cossacks will charge you with drawn sabres in a most genuine way, will hover over you like buzzards on a battlefield--they soar and whirl about in graceful surves, giving an uncanny impression, which has doubtless been felt by many a poor Russian soldier from the wheat fields of Central Europe as he lay with a bullet in him on some distant field. They march slowly around over imaginary steppes, singing in a most dolorous way--looking as they did in Joseph Brandt's paintings. They dance over swords in a light-footed and crazy way, and do feats on their running horses which bring the hand-clapping. They stand on their heads, vault on and off, chase each other in a game called "chasing the handkerchief," and they reach down at top speed and mark the ground with a stick. Their long coat-tails flap out behind like an animated rag bag, while their legs and arms are visible by turns. Their grip on the horse in maintained by a clever use of the stirrups, which are twisted and crossed at will. They are armed like "pincushions," and ride on a big leather bag, which makes their seat abnormally high.
The "gauchos" are dressed in a sort of Spanish custume, with tremendous pantaloons of cotton and boots made of colt's skin, which in their construction are very like Apache moccasins. They carry a knife at their back which would make a hole which a doctor couldn't sew up with less than five stiches, if, indeed, he was troubled at all. They ride a saddle which one of the American cowboys designated as a "---- ---- feather bed," and they talk Spanish which would floor a Castilian at once. They ride bucking horses by pairs, and amuse the audience by falling off at intervals.
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The great interest which attaches to the whole show is that it enables the audience to take sides on the question of which people ride the best and have the best saddles. The whole thing is put in such tangible shape as to be a regular challenge to debate to lookers on. I, for one, formed my opinion, and have sacrificed two or three friends on the altar of my convictions. There is also a man in a pink coat who rides a hunting seat in competition with a yellow savage on a clear horse and if our Englishman is not wedded to his ideals, he must receive a very bad shock in beholding he is a cow-boy.
Next year the whole outfit is coming over to the World's Fair with the rest of Europe, and they are going to bring specimens of all the continental cavalry. The Sioux will talk German, the cow-boys already have an English accent, and the "gauchos" will be dressed in good English form.
The Wild West show is an evolution of a great idea. It is a great educator, and, with its aggregate of wonders from the out-of-the-way places, it will represent a poetical and harmless protest against the Derby hat and the starched linen--those horrible hadges of the slavery of our modern social system, when men are physical lay figures, and mental and moral cog-wheels and wastes of uniformity--where the great crime is to be individual, and the unpardonable sin is to be out of the fashion. FREDERIC REMINGTOS. ________
MILITARY REPRESENTATIVES.
The Messrs. Cody and Salsbury, in collecting various groups for their Congress of Rough Riders of the World, have arranged for recognized representative soldiers of the various nations of Europe, and to this end have to-day assembled in the arena a detachment of the Fifth Imperial Garde-Cuirassiers of His Majesty William II., German Emperor. Englang's army will be represented by a group of Fifth Lancers (Royal Irish), and France presents a detachmetn of the First Garde-Dragoons. They will present the various evolutions and exercises of their armies, and in due course will introduce on horseback tent-pegging, lemon-cutting, Turk's head and sabre and lance exercises.
The interest in this friendly meeting of representative cavalrymen will be added to by the presence of a detachment of our own National Soldiers (frmo the celebrated Seventh United States Cavalry, from Fort Riley, Custer's famous "Old Guard"), who will act in consonance with the Director's idea to present an amicable study of the various military schools. These veterans of the plains will enable our public to more fifly comprehend the training and ability of the little American Army--that is, the nucleus of the cohorts that would assemble in time of danger to the Republic--practically an army in which three-fourths of the privates would be able to do honor to shoulder-straps in an emergency. The Arabs are the genuine Bedouin Soldiers of the Desert, that song, story and history have for ages celebrated, and their skill the writer will leave to the judgment of the auditor, as space prevents justice to this feature of our exhibition.
(Picture) CAVALRY OF AL LNATIONS WITH "BUFFALO BILL" LEADING THEM.
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State of Nebraska
Executive Department
General W. F. Cody.
Lincoln January 6th 1891.
Rushville, Nebraska.
My Dear General,
As you are a member of my Staff, I have detailed you for special service; the particular nature of which, was made known during our conversation.
You will proceed to the scene of the Indian troubles, and communicate with General Miles.
You will in addition to the special service referred to, please visit the different towns, if time permit, along the line of the Elkhorn Rail-Road, and use you influence to quiet excitement and remove apprehensions upon the part of the people.
Please call upon General Colby, and give him your views as to the probability of the Indians breaking through the cordon of regular troops; your superior knowledge of Indian character and mode of warfare, may enable you to make suggestions of importance.
All Officers and members of the State Troops, and all others, will please extend to you every courtesy.
In testimony whereof.
(Signature)
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HEADQUARTERS DIVISION OF THE MISSOURI.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.
In the Field, Pine Ridge, S. D., January 11, 1891
Brig. General W. F. Cody,
Nebraska National Guard, Present.
Sir:
I am glad to inform you that the entire body of Indians are now camped near here (within a mile and a half). They show every disposition to comply with the orders of the authorities. Nothing but an accident can prevent peace being re-established, and it will be our ambition to make it of a permanent character. I feel that the State troops can now be withdrawn with safety, and desire through you to express to them my thanks for the confidence they have given your people in their isolated homes.
Like information has this day been given General Colby.
Very respectfully yours,
(Signature)
Major General Commanding