a Sioux, of the Teton division--in which
Spotted Tail was leader of the Brules and Red Cloud of the Oglalas.

But Sitting Bull was no chief. By his own count he laid claim to being
a great warrior; by the Sioux count he had powerful medicine--he could
tell of events to come. And this was his strong hold upon the Sioux.
They feared him.

He had been born in 1834, in present South Dakota. The name given him
as a boy was Jumping Badger. His father's name was Four Horns, and
also Ta-tan-ka Yo-tan-ka or Sitting Buffalo-bull. When Jumping Badger
was only fourteen years old he went with his father on the war trail
against the Crows. A Crow was killed, and little Jumping Badger
touched the body first, and counted a coup, or stroke.

[Illustration: Sitting Bull. Courtesy of The American Bureau of
Ethnology.]

To be the first to count coup on a fallen enemy was high honor.
Frequently a wounded warrior only pretended to be dead, and when his
foe approached him close, he shot.

Upon their return home, old Sitting Bull gave a feast, and distributed
many horses, and transferred his own name to Jumping Badger.

After this, although young Sitting Bull counted many coups, he
practiced making medicine until he gained much reputation as a
future-teller. He openly hated the whites. His hate was as deep as
that of O-pe-chancan-ough, the Pamunkey.

He grew to be a burly, stout man, with light brown hair and complexion,
a grim heavy face pitted by small-pox, and two shrewd, blood-shot eyes.
He limped, from a wound.

His band was small; but his camp was the favorite gathering place for
the reservation Indians, on hunting trips. They took presents to him,
that he might bring the buffalo.

Thus matters went on, broken with complaints. It was hard to tell
which were reservation Indians and which were wild Indians. When the
Sitting Bull people and other bands came in to the reservation, and
drew rations of flour, they emptied the flour on the prairie and used
the sacks as clothing. This helped to make the reservation Indians ill
content. The wild Indians evidently were living very well indeed.

Along in 1871 the Northern Pacific Railroad wished to build westward.
The route would take them through the country given to the Sioux, and
the Sioux said no. Their treaty protected them against the white man's
roads. They attacked a surveying party escorted by soldiers, and
killed two. This was in 1872.

It was a brutal killi