19

Herald. Apl 22

SLAYER OF TOM CUSTER.

RAIN-IN-THE-FACE COMES TO TOWN.

The Willy Sioux Who Displayed Reckless
Bravery in the Slaughter of the
Seventh at the Little Big Horn
Will See the Fair.

Leaning upon two crutches, with the
whirling snow pelting his long black hair
and the eagle feathers he had worn in the
scalp-lock ever since he left the Missouri,
was a sturdy old Sioux warrior in Buffalo
Bill's Indian village in Sixty-third street
yesterday afternoon. There was nothing
in the appearance of the crippled Indian
to indicate that he was more than
one of the commonest of coffee
coolers - a set of beggars always
to be found about the post traders' stores
on a western reservation. Within the
park a hundred Bruies, in paint and feathers,
were riding like demons and yelling
shrilly as the pace of their ponies grew
faster. But the old man on crutches, who
stood alone at the gate, gave no outward
sign that he was pleased or interested.
He clutched a blue blanket at his breast
and shook his massive head from time to
time as the snow settled too thickly about
his ears.

The cripple was Rain-in-the-Face, who
seventeen years ago was notorious for his
bloody work on the Little Big Horn, when
General Custer and his gallant troopers
of the Seventh fell and were scalped almost
to a man. Sitting Bull, whom General
Miles has called the "Red Napoleon,"
has been credited with having directed the
movements of the Sioux on that savage
day. This statement has been confirmed
and denied by writers and Indians, but
there has been any doubt that Sitting
Bull took an active part in the battle,
even if he did not assume absolute
command of the warriors. Nobody has
successfully disputed the melancholy
achievement of Rain-in-the-Face during
the last hours of Custer's command. The
savage was then a youngster, with all the
characteristic cruelty of his race. He
bore himself with reckless bravery during
the fighting, and when the troopers were
all but gone he burst upon them like a
demon and fired the shot that stretched
Captain Tom Custer at the feet of his
father.

Scout Curley Will Be Here.

Scout Curley, a hald-breed Crow, who
was the only man of Custer's comman to
escape with his life, and who is to come to
Chicago next wee, saw Rain-in-the-Face
in this last charge. There was but a handful
of the Seventh left when Captain Custer
fell, but that handful, standing close
to the intrepid general, came mighty
near squaring accounts before they,
too, tumbled dead or wounded among
the bodies of their comrades. A bullet
from a carbine struck Rain-in-the-Face in
the left knee, shattering the bone and
hurling him out of his saddle. He fell almost
squarely upon the body of Captain
Custer, but was quickly rescued by his
people and borne away. That is why Rain-in-the-Face
was walking on crutches yeserday.
He will never walk again without
them.

Whatever may be said about the spectacular
careers of the rest of the Sioux
since the wars of 1876 and of 1891, Rain-in-the-Face
cannot be charged with having
sought notoriety. Until the Wisconsin
Central train hauled him out of St. Paul
on Friday night he had never been east of
the Mississippi river. The biggest town
he had seen up to that day was Mandan, in
North Dakota; and Mandan, as many people
know, is not much larger than Freeze
Out or Red Top, in Montana.

When Sitting Bull hoisted the white
flag on the British line Rain-in-the-Face,
along with such brainy cheiftains as Gall
and Grass, accepted the inevitable with
commendable grace and has since lived in
a quiet way at the Standing Rock agency.