No one seemed to know how he died, while the man who killed him -- William Gentles, of the Fourteenth United States infantry -- died with the secret locked in his bosom. There were only two witnesses to the act, and only one of them is now living. His name is Sergeant William F. Kelly, formerly of the Fourteenth infantry, in recent years a resident of E street, in Washington. The story that he told to a Washington Post reporter of the killing of Crazy Horse had never before been published until Sergeant Kelly had kept the matter a secret for twenty-seven years.

At the conclusion of the Custer massacre, on June 25, 1876, said Sergeant Kelly, the Sioux, pursuant to a custom followed by all plains Indians in their wars with the whites, split up into numerous small bands which departed in every direction, in order to bewilder the troops, which they knew would be sure to follow. Most of these bands came in at the approach of winter and surrendered, and a large body of them were captured in Montana by General Miles, but the band under Crazy Horse, which took refuge in the Powder river country, remained out until late in February of 1877.

It was during the latter part of this month, however, that Crazy Horse and his band, half starved and nearly frozen, arrived at Red Cloud agency, Nebraska, in the teeth of a cutting blizzard, and offered to surrender. The agent, whom the Indians thoroughly despised for very good reasons, had deserted at the outbreak of the Sioux war, and at the time I speak of the agency was being conducted by Lieutenant Johnson, of the Fourteenth infantry, which regiment, together with several others, was stationed at Fort Robinson under General McKenzie. The fort lay a short distance from the agency, and as soon as the fact became known, General McKenzie went over and held a pow-wow with the Indians, at which terms of capitulation were arranged.