AN INDIAN HERO

New Zealand Tablet, 13 September 1906, Page 37

AN INDIAN HERO

In- the days when the Omaha's ruled all Eastern Nebraska, and fought the Sioux, twelve months in ttieiyear; t-he gfreat chief, Big Elk, lay in his lodge on the banks of the Missouri sick unto death. For -many ' suns ' had the great man been troubled with a sickness which the Indians were" riot able to overcome. The medicine men of the tribe had used all their efforts ; had worked all their charms ; had called on ' Pe-a-zhe-Wakan,' the Bad Spirit, and upon 'Wakan ' the Great Mystery. The chief did not improve. " Even the chief's own private ' medicine,' or charm, was unavailing, and he grew worse. The- entire tribe was in" gloom. Then one day,- from the south, a' trapper came in his boat, and stopped to' exchange bright-colored calicoes, mirrors, guns, and beads with the Omahas for their skins of the otter, the beaver, and the buffalo. The Indians refused to trade. Their chief was-dy- ' ing— was on the jrerge of the '. Shadow L and '—and they could not trade. The white man asked to see Big Elk, and"he saw - that the" great red man was indeed dying... • Nothing could now be done for him. ' But/ said the white trapper, ' there is a white man down the Big Riyer, three sleeps distant. He has ' a white powder which would have cured Big Elk. But' it is too -late now. No horse could get -back puick enough. Big Elk must, die.' * ; Badger, -a young Indian, who was standing - near when the trapper told, of the white powder which would have saved Big Elk, beckoned the trapper to come outside the lodge, and asked him for the white, man's ' sign ' for the white powder. . The xiapper wrote the single word ' Quinine ' on a - paper and handed it to the young red man. Five minutes afterward Badger, armed with his precious piece of paper, fojir pairs of moccasins, a small quantity of dried buffalo meat, and five bright silver dollars— all the cash the tribe possessed— shot out -from the south end of the Indian village and headed toward the white settlement, one- hundred miles away, at Bellevue, Nebraska, several miles below where ?bmaha .now stands'. . _ , The sun was just setting "in a' red blaze on the western prairie when Badger started on the" run which made his name more famous, in his tribe than that of. any' warrior of his time. • - -. - Some time during the middle of v the next forenoon, probably, fifteen hours .after Badger- left Big. Elk's lodge old Peter Sarpy was standing in his "log trading post at Bellevue when a young Indian ran into, the room, handed nun a* paper on which 'Quinine- was scrawled, laid five* silver dollars down and in the Indian language aslced him to 'hurry.' — ' - "^ . . .. , . . . The medicine was quickly wrapped up, arid the Indian, m his -own tongue, which . Sarpy knew well asked, how it was^to betaken, and was told ~ to place it m warm water and make the sick man . drink it. ' - . . . ■ Badger, for _it" was the Omaha Indian -who. had ma-de^tne, one-hundred-mile trip on foot in fifteen - hours;, then sat' down, ate . a little' jerked buffalo ' meat, threw away his, old moccasins, which were entirely- worn out, put on a 1 new pair, rested' f or = a single hour and started on _the return to the Qmahas' village, carrying with him the white powder which was to save the life of Big Elk. .

It was nearly noon -when Badger left Bellevue. He was stifil >. and tired from his long-run of the night before. He wanted to stop and rest, but did not dare T do so, for fear of going to sleep. The sun was hot and there was .no path across the prairie. Last night he had travelled, by the stars; to-day 'he was 'guided by the sun.-- There were rivers "to swim and (quicksands to be. avoided. - Just. after the sun rose next morning Badger staggered up to Big Elk's lodge on the Missouri. He had _ made the return trip in about eighteen hours, and had travelled/ the entire two hundred miles in thirty-four ' hours, including the t/ime spent at Bellevue. - -v " - _ . ; . , - * But Big Elk died an hour before Badger brought the ' white medicine,"' That was more than fifty years ago, and to-day when the remnants of the, Omaha tribe are gathered around a -dance ' lodge,' and Indians tell of the great deeds of Big Elk, the greatest warrior the tribe ever knew, almosjb in the same breath another. '-Indian will rise and tell the. story of Badger- and the fast run he made in his effort to save the life oorf r his chief.