Hunkpapa Dakota man, Rain-in-the-Face

"Maligned and often misunderstood, Rain-in-the-Face hated the whites for killing their game and cattle - the buffalo. True, he was a real savage on the warpath. It is a fact he killed Holzinger and Baliran on the Yellowstone, simply because they had no right on their Indian reservation. At a war dance at Standing Rock, Dakota, Rain-in-the-Face walked into the circle and related how he shot Holzinger and Baliran. Wheh he finished his story the Indians gave him great applause. Charley Reynolds, Custer's scout, was present unbeknown to Rain-in-the-Face, and reported to General Custer that he had listened to Rain-in-the Face tell of the shooting of these men. Later Captain Yates and Tom Custer with one hundred cavalrymen arrested the Chief at Standing Rock. He escaped from the guardhouse at Fort Lincoln, Dak. He next met the Custers on the Little Big Horn River, June 25, 1876, and no doubt he mutilated Capt. Tom Custer. In 1877, when on a buffalo hunt one of the Colt revolvers he got in the Custer fight went off accidentally, hitting him in the knee and making a cripple out of him. He surrendered to General Miles, and was one of the truest and most loyal Indians I ever knew. When moving from Dakota, Rain-in-the-Face came to my gallery, took off his moccasins, tied them together, handed them to me saying: "Keep them as long as you live, when you look at them think of Rain-in-the-Face. Now, I say good-bye to you, and my heart is on the ground," walking away bare footed. He died at Little Eagle on the Grand River, Sept.12, 1905." -- Notation on photograph in the Burdick Collection of Barry photographs. (February 1937.)