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Show 126 OOM~BBIONEROF INDIAN AWAIBE. however, was fruitless and the Indians without further parley con-tinuedon their way to the agency, while the sheriff and his party took the road to Newcastle. The Indians traveled some 25 miles that night and went into camp. The next day, October 31, they traveled until noon, and after stop-ping for dinner again took the road home, and at 4 o'clock p. m., while they were traveling along Lightning Creek, in Converse County, about 25 or 30 miles north and east of Lusk, Wyo., they came to a fence huilt across the road. There were about 15 wagons in the train, which were strung along a distance of nearly a mile, and a boy about 11 years of age was driving the extra ponies a short distance in advance of the wagons. As they approached the fence an Indian girl ran forward and opened the gate to let the train through. The boy and ponies with two or three wagons had passed through when the Indians discovered ahead of them Sheriff Miller with a posse of 13 men, all heavily armed. The story of just what happened at this time, and how the fight started and who fired the first shot, as told by the sheriffs party on the one hand and by the Indians on the other, is altogether different. The former state that they were stationed juat outside of the fence and that as soon as the Indians saw them they began to get out of their wagons and prepare to fight, whereupon the sheriff's party moved . . back about 50 yards and took a position in the dry bed of the creek, where they were sheltered by a bank about 5 or 6 feet high. As the Indians came on they were called on to halt and surrender, whereupon the Indians began firing from the back part of the train, and then the fight became general. The firing lasted from three to five minutes, at the end of which time the Indians had all disappeared and most of the wagons and their other effects were scattered along the road. The sheriff was found to be mortally wounded and one of his deputies had been killed; four of the Indians were killed and two were wounded. The Indians' story--and all of them practically give the same version of the affair-is that they were traveling along the road down Light-ning Creek, most of them in their wagons, with their few guna put away under bedding and tents, and not anticipating any trouble what-ever. When they came to the gate in the wire fence the girl in the . lead opened it and two or three wagons had passed through, when the boy who was driving some of the ponies at the head discovered the armed party and immediately turned his ponies around and shouted as he ran back to the wagons, "Look out! white men with guns going to shoot." About that time they were iired upon by the whites, the boy and pony being killed at the first volley. There could not possibly have been more than two or three of the Indians who returned the fire of the whites, probably Black Kettle and Smith, who were in the front |