n reservations, and another commission was sent
to negotiate their removal to Indian Territory, but met with an absolute
refusal. After much guerrilla warfare, an important military campaign
against the Sioux was set on foot in 1876, ending in Custer's signal
defeat upon the Little Big Horn.

In this notable battle, Red Cloud did not participate in person, nor in
the earlier one with Crook upon the Little Rosebud, but he had a son in
both fights. He was now a councilor rather than a warrior, but his young
men were constantly in the field, while Spotted Tail had definitely
surrendered and was in close touch with representatives of the
government.

But the inevitable end was near. One morning in the fall of 1876 Red
Cloud was surrounded by United States troops under the command of
Colonel McKenzie, who disarmed his people and brought them into Fort
Robinson, Nebraska. Thence they were removed to the Pine Ridge agency,
where he lived for more than thirty years as a "reservation Indian." In
order to humiliate him further, government authorities proclaimed the
more tractable Spotted Tail head chief of the Sioux. Of course, Red
Cloud's own people never recognized any other chief.

In 1880 he appealed to Professor Marsh, of Yale, head of a scientific
expedition to the Bad Lands, charging certain frauds at the agency
and apparently proving his case; at any rate the matter was considered
worthy of official investigation. In 1890-1891, during the "Ghost Dance
craze" and the difficulties that followed, he was suspected of collusion
with the hostiles, but he did not join them openly, and nothing could
be proved against him. He was already an old man, and became almost
entirely blind before his death in 1909 in his ninetieth year.

His private life was exemplary. He was faithful to one wife all his
days, and was a devoted father to his children. He was ambitious for his
only son, known as Jack Red Cloud, and much desired him to be a great
warrior. He started him on the warpath at the age of fifteen, not then
realizing that the days of Indian warfare were well-nigh at an end.

Among latter-day chiefs, Red Cloud was notable as a quiet man, simple
and direct in speech, courageous in action, an ardent lover of his
country, and possessed in a marked degree of the manly qualities
characteristic of the American Indian in his best days.

SPOTTED TAIL

Among the Sioux chiefs of the "transition period" only one was shrewd
enou