Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1875 — A Romance of the Forest—Shotted Tail and His Daughter. [ARTICLE]

A Romance of the Forest—Shotted Tail and His Daughter.

The following account of the celebrated Sioux chief Spotted Tail is from advance sheets of Gen. Brisbin’s book: During the latter years of the war part of Spotted Tap’s family remained for a time at Fort Laramie, and with them was his favorite daughter, a young girl just budding into womanhood. The fort wa then garrisoned by companies of an Ohio regipient of volunteer cavalry'. Among the officers ot this regiment w’as a young man of good appearance and pleasant manners, and with whom the chiefs daughter fell in love. Her passion does not seem to have been reciprocated by the young soldier, and he did all in his power to convince her he could not marry her, and, therefore, it would be wrong in him to pay his addresses to her. But the infatuated .girl would not be convinced, and could not understand why she, a princess and the daughter of the most powerful chief on the plains, was not a suitable wife for the voting soldier. Day after day she would dress "herself with scrupulous care and come to the fort’to see her beloved. It was p’itiable to observe her, as hour after hour she would sit on the doorstep of the young officer’s quarters waiting for him to . come out. At other times shew'ould follow him about the parade ground like a dog, seeming perfectly happy if she could only be near him and enjoy the poor privilege of looking at him. Spotted Tail, hearing of the strange conduct of his daughter and deeply mortified at her want of self-respect, hastened to the fort, and putting her in charge of some kind friends hade them carry her off into the Rocky -Mountains where a portion of his tribe dwelt, and endeavored in every way to make her forget her unfortunate love. She went away meekly enough, but fell into a deep melancholy, from which no effort of friends could arouse her. Presently she refused to take any food and pined away to a mere skeleton. One day a courier, whose horse was white with’ oam, sought: he great chief and told him that his daughter was dying of a broken heart and wishedt o see him once more before she passed to the happy spirit land. Away over mountain and stream hurried the chief, and paused not for food or rest until he had reached the bedside of his beloved child. He found her still alive but fast sinking, and she bade him sit close beside her and hold her fleshless hands in his xthile she told him all her simple story of love and suffering and a broken heart." She said: “I shall soon be at rest, my father, and with those of our kindred who have gone before. In that beautiful land I will wait for you and you will soon come to join me, dear father, for your locks are whitened with years of care, you are fast growing old and tired. You are a great chief and have yes many warriors, but the pale faces are more numerous than the leaves of the forest, and I pray you to cease from warring with them. Spare your people, my chief-rest yet a little while in peace, and you will have reached the end of your journey of life and come to join me in "the happy home to which I am now going. The pale faces are His people, and between you and them I hope war will never come again. And, Omy father and my chief, when I am dead take my poor, wasted body and lay it on the hill beside the fort where I learned to love so well.” The pulseless hand grew cold as the great chief promised his child all she. asked of. him, then the lustrous eyes glazed over, the thin lips ceased to move, the smile fled from the w asted face, and the Indian girl was dead. The heart-broken chief bade the attendants dress the body of the princess for burial, and on the shoulders of stout warriors it w r as carried to Laramie and laid to rest among the pale faces, one of w’hose race she had so fatally loved. Her grave is still pointed out to the traveler, and there it will long remain a monument of the saddest story of the plains. Spotted Tail often speaks of his dead daughter with affectionate remembrance, and once in a great council held with the whites at Laramie he said: u Were not the hopelessness of resistance and the dictates of policy sufficient to restrain me from acts of war, the pledge I made to my dead child in her dying hour would cause me to keep at peace with your people.”