hunters in a
blinding blizzard. They were compelled to lie down side by side in the
snowdrifts, and it was a day and a night before they could get out. The
weather turned very cold, and when the men arose they were in danger of
freezing. Little Wolf pressed his fine buffalo robe upon an old man who
was shaking with a chill and himself took the other's thin blanket.

As a full-grown young man, he was attracted by a maiden of his tribe,
and according to the custom then in vogue the pair disappeared. When
they returned to the camp as man and wife, behold! there was great
excitement over the affair. It seemed that a certain chief had given
many presents and paid unmistakable court to the maid with the intention
of marrying her, and her parents had accepted the presents, which meant
consent so far as they were concerned. But the girl herself had not
given consent.

The resentment of the disappointed suitor was great. It was reported in
the village that he had openly declared that the young man who defied
and insulted him must expect to be punished. As soon as Little Wolf
heard of the threats, he told his father and friends that he had done
only what it is every man's privilege to do.

"Tell the chief," said he, "to come out with any weapon he pleases, and
I will meet him within the circle of lodges. He shall either do this
or eat his words. The woman is not his. Her people accepted his gifts
against her wishes. Her heart is mine."

The chief apologized, and thus avoided the inevitable duel, which would
have been a fight to the death.

The early life of Little Wolf offered many examples of the dashing
bravery characteristic of the Cheyennes, and inspired the younger men
to win laurels for themselves. He was still a young man, perhaps
thirty-five, when the most trying crisis in the history of his
people came upon them. As I know and as Doctor Grinnell's book amply
corroborates, he was the general who largely guided and defended them in
that tragic flight from the Indian Territory to their northern home. I
will not discuss the justice of their cause: I prefer to quote Doctor
Grinnell, lest it appear that I am in any way exaggerating the facts.

"They had come," he writes, "from the high, dry country of Montana and
North Dakota to the hot and humid Indian Territory. They had come from
a country where buffalo and other game were still plentiful to a land
where the game had been exterminated. Immediately on their arrival th