ured them,
when they could, and, stripping off their clothes, whipped them till
they bled. The Indians retaliated horribly, delivering their white
captives to their squaws, who tortured them in every conceivable
fashion, driving slivers up under their nails, burning them alive, and
feeding them with flesh cut from their own bodies. Along the banks of
the Little Missouri there were no outrages, for the Indians had been
driven out of the country at the end of the seventies, and, save for
occasional raids in the early eighties, had made little trouble; but
at the edge of the Bad Lands there was a skirmish now and then, and in
the winter of 1884 Schuyler Lebo, son of that odd Ulysses who had
guided Roosevelt to the Big Horn Mountains, was shot in the leg by an
Indian while he was hunting on Bullion Butte.

Roosevelt had a little adventure of his own with Indians that summer.
He was traveling along the edge of the prairie on a solitary journey
to the unexplored country north and east of the range on which his
cattle grazed, and was crossing a narrow plateau when he suddenly saw
a group of four or five Indians come up over the edge directly in
front. As they saw him, they whipped their guns out of their slings,
started their horses into a run, and came toward him at full speed.

He reined up instantly and dismounted.

The Indians came on, whooping and brandishing their weapons.

Roosevelt laid his gun across the saddle and waited.

It was possible [Roosevelt wrote subsequently] that the
Indians were merely making a bluff and intended no mischief.
But I did not like their actions, and I thought it likely
that if I allowed them to get hold of me they would at least
take my horse and rifle, and possibly kill me. So I waited
until they were a hundred yards off and then drew a bead on
the first. Indians--and, for the matter of that, white
men--do not like to ride in on a man who is cool and means
shooting, and in a twinkling every man was lying over the
side of his horse, and all five had turned and were
galloping backwards, having altered their course as quickly
as so many teal ducks.

At some distance the Indians halted and gathered evidently for a
conference.

Thereupon one man came forward alone, making the peace sign first with
his blanket and then with his open hand. Roosevelt let him come to
within fifty yards. The Indian was waving a piece of soiled paper