arrative is
extant--namely, Crow Butte, Nebraska, which is two hundred feet high and
vertical on all sides save one, but on that a horseman may ascend in
safety. A company of Crows, flying from the Sioux, gained this citadel
and defended the path so vigorously that their pursuers gave over all
attempts to follow them, but squatted calmly on the plain and proceeded
to starve them out. On a dark night the besieged killed some of their
ponies and made lariats of their hides, by which they reached the ground
on the unguarded side of the rock. They slid down, one at a time, and
made off all but one aged Indian, who stayed to keep the camp-fire
burning as a blind. He went down and surrendered on the next day, but the
Sioux, respecting his age and loyalty, gave him freedom.

A YELLOWSTONE TRAGEDY

Although the Indians feared the geyser basins of the upper Yellowstone
country, believing the hissing and thundering to be voices of evil
spirits, they regarded the mountains at the head of the river as the
crest of the world, and whoso gained their summits could see the happy
hunting-grounds below, brightened with the homes of the blessed. They
loved this land in which their fathers had hunted, and when they were
driven back from the settlements the Crows took refuge in what is now
Yellowstone Park. Even here the soldiers pursued them, intent on avenging
acts that the red men had committed while suffering under the sting of
tyranny and wrong. A mere remnant of the fugitive band gathered at the
head of that mighty rift in the earth known as the Grand Canon of the
Yellowstone--a remnant that had succeeded in escaping the bullets of the
soldiery,--and with Spartan courage they resolved to die rather than be
taken and carried away to pine in a distant prison. They built a raft and
placed it on the river at the foot of the upper fall, and for a few days
they enjoyed the plenty and peace that were their privilege in former
times. A short-lived peace, however, for one morning they are aroused by
the crack of rifles--the troops are upon them.

Boarding their raft they thrust it toward the middle of the stream,
perhaps with the idea of gaining the opposite shore, but, if such is
their intent, it is thwarted by the rapidity of the current. A few among
them have guns, that they discharge with slight effect at the troops, who
stand wondering on the shore. The soldiers forbear to fire, and watch,
with something like dread, the descent of