[33] All the bucks were absent on a hunting
expedition, excepting Satank and a few superannuated warriors.
The troops were out from Fort Larned on a grand scout after marauding
savages, when they suddenly came across the village and completely
took the Kiowas by surprise. Seeing the soldiers almost upon them,
Satank and other warriors jumped on their ponies and made good their
escape. Had they remained, all of them would have been killed or
at least captured; consequently Satank, thinking discretion better
than valour at that particular juncture, incontinently fled.
His warriors in council, however, did not agree with him; they thought
that it was his duty to have remained at the village in defence of
the women and children, as he had been urged to refrain from going on
the hunt for that very purpose.
Some time before Satank lost his office of chief, there was living
on Cow Creek, in a rude adobe building, a man who was ostensibly
an Indian trader, but whose traffic, in reality, consisted in selling
whiskey to the Indians, and consequently the United States troops
were always after him. He was obliged to cache his liquor in every
conceivable manner so that the soldiers should not discover it, and,
of course, he dreaded the incursions of the troops much more than
he did raids of the Indian marauders that were constantly on the Trail.
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