“Paper! Paper! Get your paper here!” a paperboy was yelling from the corner. “Extra, read all about it! Injun village wiped out!”
“Indian village?” Falcon asked. He shook his head. “Somehow I don’t think they are talking about the island fight.”
Ingraham dismounted, then went over to the paperboy and bought four papers, one for each of them.
EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA
MANY INDIANS KILLED
TO BUT THREE MILITIA MEN KILLED
Our own brave militia conducted a surprise raid against the Crow Village on the Meeteetsee River last night. The results of the attack were so successful that your humble publisher has seen fit to print this, an extra issue, in order to place all the glorious details of the battle before the eyes of the public.
The attack was carried out by the Wyoming Civilian Militia, organized just for this purpose. In a brilliantly conceived tactical operation, Colonel Pierre Bellefontaine led but twenty men in an attack against three hundred or more armed and wily heathens. Striking in the night, the Wyoming Civilian Militia brought terror into the hearts of the selfsame savages who had but so recently brought terror into the hearts of the hapless white people whom they have so cruelly ravaged in their numerous debaucheries against innocent farmers, ranchers, and homesteaders.
Unwilling to surrender, the savages put up a fierce fight. Bullets were whistling through the night air in their deadly transit as they sought their targets. For hours the battle raged, with the Indians’ terrible screams and war cries renting the air as if the howls came from all the banshees of hell. But through it all, our brave militia men stood their ground, often fighting hand to hand against numbers far superior to their own. Finally, as dawn broke, the village stood quiet and empty, its inhabitants having either fled or now lying dead on the ground.
Huzzahs for Colonel Bellefontaine and his brave militiamen, and plans are now underway to hold a town dance in their honor. All are invited where, we are told, souvenirs and booty taken from the village will be on display.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Falcon, Cody, and Ingraham picked their way through the bodies and residue of the Indian encampment. There were many more women and children than there were warriors. Like the warriors, the women and children had been scalped and mutilated. They found one pregnant woman with her stomach sliced open, with the dead baby half in and half out of her womb.
Cody had been a guest here in this very camp many times, so he knew several of the Indians and identified them for the others, at least those who had not been so badly mutilated that they could not be identified.
“That is Gray Antelope,” he said, pointing to a warrior. “And that is Howling Wolf.”
He saw a young woman with the top of her head gone. There were two children lying beside her, and the children had also been scalped. “That is White Deer and her children,” Cody said. Then, seeing one of the Indians wrapped in an American flag, he pointed.
“And that is High Hawk. Five years ago I introduced him to President Chester Arthur, who gave him that flag.”
“I can’t believe the people of DeMaris Springs actually regard this as a great victory,” Ingraham said. “Why, this was nothing more than a slaughter.”
“They know only what they read in the newspaper,” Cody said.
“Someone should tell the true story,” Ingraham said.
“Well, there is only one of us who is an experienced writer,” Falcon suggested.
“Yes, but after what the newspaper published in an extra declaring this to be a great victory, the editor may not be interested in publishing what I would write.”
“It depends upon what the owner of the newspaper tells him to publish,” Cody said.
“What are you saying? That the newspaper editor doesn’t own the paper?”
“He does in a way,” Cody said. “I loaned him the money to start the newspaper, with the idea that when my town is built, he would move the paper to Cody. He is one year in arrears in repayment of the loan. I believe that if I would mark the loan as paid in full, he would be most amenable to publishing the truth.”
EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA
NOW CONSIDERED A MASSACRE
Two years previous High Hawk, a sub chief of the Crow, was the guest of Buffalo Bill Cody in New York City. There, High Hawk met the cream of American society, winning many over by his friendly demeanor and native intelligence. He was also taken to Washington and presented to many high officials of our government, and he met President Chester Arthur. He so impressed Mr. Arthur that the President of the United States honored him with a flag that had flown over the White House itself.
The Crow nation, long friends and allies with white America, have fought many battles at the side of our soldiers, including that most devastating of battles, the one in which Custer and all his gallant men fell. The Crow were among those who fell on that fateful day, including Bloody Knife, High Hawk’s own brother.
But Buffalo Bill Cody, Falcon MacCallister, and Prentiss Ingraham, the writer of this article, have just returned from the Crow Village, where we discovered the truth of the so-called victory of the Wyoming Civilian Militia. While there, we saw High Hawk lying dead in the dirt, wrapped in the same flag given him by President Arthur. From a view of the site firsthand, the evidence is clear that it was not battle between equal belligerents meeting on a field of honor. Instead, it was a massacre of the peaceful Indians at the Crow Village. Since returning from those terrible scenes, Buffalo Bill, Falcon MacCallister, and your humble scribe were approached by a member of Bellefontaine’s Wyoming Civilian Militia who, sickened by what he witnessed, has willingly agreed to tell the truth.
Contrary to the report previously published in this newspaper, the recent event cannot be described as a victorious battle, or even as a battle. Our witness tells us that Bellefontaine approached the village in the middle of the night, thus ensuring that all the occupants would be asleep. Then, with no warning, and without offering the
