"At that time I must have been about twenty-three years old. We moved down to the Little Rosebud. I was the first of the scouts to discover the Sioux who were approaching us. After I reported, I mounted my horse and in company with two other scouts went over to locate the Sioux. We found ten Sioux and began to fight. My companions with both of their horses were killed. Then the battle of the Little Rosebud began. The Sioux and Cheyennes were all circling about us. General Crook sent for me. The entire command was surrounded. I thought it was my last day. I asked to be allowed to make a dash for a weak point in the line, his soldiers to follow. I did this and we broke through. Crook right flanked the enemy and won the day. In the counter attack two other Crows were on the ridge with me fighting. I raised my coup stick to strike a Sioux and he shot me, hitting my horse and we fell together. I found that I was badly wounded and could not stand up. I raised up as far as I could and fired three shots at the Sioux. There the battle ended."
War worn, halting on one foot, this savior of Crook's entire command presents a pitiful remnant of Indian valour. Speech more pathetic never came from the lips of any man: "The greatest thing to me is the education of my children. Since I was wounded, about thirty-six years ago, I have been thinking over my life. My leg has been weak and my heart has been sorry. I feel that I have suffered because I have followed my Great Father's order. I am glad I fought for the soldiers, for I think it was the right thing to do. Because of my wounded leg I am not able to work; sometimes I nearly starve, and yet I feel that I did the right thing. Will you be kind enough to see that I get my pension? I need it!" Be kind enough? Let the Government make answer in gratitude to the sagacious bravery of a red man bearing through life his daily burden of pain and the greater suffering of an unrequited heart who gloriously met the test of sacrifice.
Omaq-kat-tsa, carrying with it the meaning of Big Brave, is a name eminently fitting to Mountain Chief. The nobility of his presence, the Roman cast of his face, the keen penetration of his eye, the breadth of his shoulders, the dignity with which he wears the sixty-seven years of his life, all conspire to make this hereditary chief of the Fast Buffalo Horse band of the Blackfeet preeminent among the Indians and eminent among any class of men. He wears his hair on the left side in two braids; on the right side he wears one braid, and where the other braid should be, the hair hangs in long, loose black folds. He is very demonstrative. He acts out in pantomime all that he says. He carries a tin whistle pendent to his necklace. First he is whistling, again he is singing, then he is on his hands and knees on the ground pawing up the dust like a buffalo when he is angry. His gestures are violent and his speech is guttural, like the sputtering of water from an exhaust. He sings a war song of his own composition and you can hear him for a mile. When asked to tell a story of his boyhood days he said that rather than tell such a story he would prefer to describe the management of the camp under the two great chiefs; his father, Mountain Chief, and Chief Lame Bull. These two men signed the treaty between the United States and the Blackfoot tribe, together with other tribes, in 1855, when Franklin Pierce was President. The historic information vouchsafed by Mountain Chief regarding the conduct of an Indian camp, their manner and method of hunting buffalo, and the purposes to which they put the buffalo, has never before been put in type:
