They had poise and dignity and a great deal of pride, and they seldom forgot either a friend or an enemy.
The greatest of all the Sioux in my time, or in any time for that matter, was that wonderful old fighting man, Sitting Bull, whose life will some day be written by a historian who can really give him his due.
Sitting Bull it was who stirred the Indians to the uprising whose climax was the massacre of the Little Big Horn and the destruction of Custer's command.
For months before this uprising he had been going to and fro among the Sioux and their allies urging a revolt against the encroaching white man.

It was easy at that time for the Indians to secure rifles.

The Canadian-French traders to the north were only too glad to trade them these weapons for the splendid supplies of furs which the Indians had gathered.

Many of these rifles were of excellent construction, and on a number of occasions we discovered to our cost that they outranged the army carbines with which we were equipped.
After the Custer massacre the frontier became decidedly unsafe for Sitting Bull and the chiefs who were associated with him, and he quietly withdrew to Canada, where he was for the time being safe from pursuit.
There he stayed till his followers began leaving him and returning to their reservations in the United States.

Soon he had only a remnant of his followers and his immediate family to keep him company.