Three Comanche, two men and a woman, were camped alone one night in a tipi on the Clear fork of the Brazos (_Ä´sese P'a_, "Wooden-arrowpoint river"), in Texas, when one of them noticed somebody raise the door-flap and then quickly drop it again; he told the others, and as silently and swiftly as possible they ran out, and jumping over a steep bank of the creek hid themselves just a moment before their enemies returned and fired into the vacated tipi. The Comanche returned the fire from their hiding place and then made their escape to a Kiowa camp near by. In the morning the Kiowa returned to the spot, together with the Comanche, and found a dead Arapaho lying where he had been shot; they scalped and beheaded him, and brought the head into camp dragging at the end of a reata. The old German captive, Bóiñ-edal, then a little boy and who had been with the Indians about two years, witnessed this barbarous spectacle and still remembers the thrill of horror which it sent through him.
[Illustration: FIG. 76--Winter 1837-38--Head dragged.]
_Gúi-p'ágya Sä´k`ota Imdóhä´pa-de Pai_, "Summer that the Cheyenne attacked the camp on "Wolf river." The combined warriors of the Cheyenne and Arapaho organized a great war party against the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, to revenge the defeats of the previous two years. They attacked the camps of the three confederated tribes on Wolf creek (_Gui P'a_), a short distance above where that stream joins Beaver creek and forms the North Canadian, in Oklahoma. They killed several women who were out digging roots and some men whom they found out on the prairie after buffalo, but were unable to take the camp, as the Kiowa and their allies sheltered themselves in holes dug in the ground so as to form a circular breastwork. Among others the Kiowa lost Gui-k`ate and several other distinguished men.
[Illustration: FIG. 77--Summer 1838--Attacked by Cheyenne.]
The figure shows the warriors of the three confederate tribes, indicated by the three tipis, within the breastwork, with the bullets and arrows flying toward them, the bullets (from which it is evident that the Cheyenne had some guns) being represented by black dots with wavy lines streaming behind to indicate the motion.
