Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1883 — Buffalo Bill’s Duel with Yellow Hand. [ARTICLE]

Buffalo Bill’s Duel with Yellow Hand.

! One of Bill’s comrades told the story of the scalping: “It was just after tne massacre of Custer,” he said. “Bill was with Gen. Miles at the head of the scouts. They were trying to cut off Yellow Hand from Sitting Bull. Early in the morning Yellow Hand rode up at the head’of a war party and challenged Bill to an open combat. Gen. Miles ,and others tried to dissuade Bill from accepting the challenge. He replied that a refusal to accept it would ruin his prestige among the savages, and that was something he could not afford to lose. He told Yellow Hand that he would fight him. The two armies were ranged less than a mile apart. Six mounted scouts accompanied Bill and six mounted Brule Sioux rode forward with Yellow Hand. They were ijp open the fight on horseback with rifles. Their escorts drew aside, and the combatants dashed forward. Yellow Hand began to spin around Bill in a circle, and Bill began to circulate on a circle himself. Around and around they went like swallows in the air. Both*white men and savages were eager spectators. Each combatant had his leg over his horse’s fqre shoulder, and each was swinging head .downward, awaiting an opportunity for a fatal shot. They fired so close together that it sounded like the crack of one rifle. In a twinkling both horses were biting the dust. Bill was as spry as a cat. He was on his feet before his horse struck the ground. Yellow Hand was partly pinried to the earth by the of his pony. The two men were not over seventy feet apart. Before the chief could extricate himself Bill had shot him through the body. ■lt.was, however, a flesh wound. Yellow Hand gained his feet, drew his and went for Bill like a demon. The Indians were yelling like hyenas, and Miles* troopers were rendJing the air with their shouts. Yellow Hand’s knife went through Bill’s hunt-jing-shirt, barely scfaping the hide. (There was a quick struggle, some labored breathing and gritting of teeth, jand Bill’s knife slid between the chief’s 'ribs and pierced his heart. He fell lifeless on the plain.. In a second Bill his topknot and yanked the scalp from his head. With fiendish l screams the Indians poured down on him. But old Miles’ troopers were there on time, and there was as lively An Indian fight as was ever seen in the Big Horn country. Yellow Hand lost his scalp, as well as his life, and his soul never reached the happy huntingground.”—New York Sun.