To the Pawnees that day was like the day of Thermopylæ to the Greeks.
Crooked Hand, preëminent among the heroes of that fight, with his own hand killed six of the Sioux, and had three horses shot under him. His wounds were many, but he laughed at them. He was content; he had saved the village.
The same indomitable spirit here shown has characterized the Pawnees always. For generations they fought as their fathers had fought, in their own way, with their native enemies, but when they were enlisted in the Government service, and trained in the white man's ways of war, they adapted themselves readily to their new conditions.
A body of men braver than the Pawnee Scouts, under Major Frank North and his brother Luther, never rode on horses. They were far better than any white soldiers that ever fought on the plains; for, besides their natural courage, they had at their finger ends all the wonderful wisdom of the savage. They could tell, as it seemed by instinct, where a trail would lead, where the enemy that they were pursuing would camp, what were his plans. They had the endurance of their prototype, the wolf. No labor was too severe, no journey too long, if its end was a battle with their foes. Their courage, their discipline, their knowledge of the plains, their acquaintance with the habits of their enemies, their endurance, made them superb soldiers; but, perhaps, more than all this, and yet a part of all this, was the absorbing devotion and trust which they felt for _Pa´-ni Le-shar_, their white leader. Through all the years that they followed him, he never led them but to victory; through all these years he never lost a man in battle, and the belief of the Pawnees in his ability and his success was like the devotion felt by the _Grande Armée_ for Napoleon.
No account of the Pawnees' warfare would give any just impression of their prowess if it omitted to mention _Pa´-ni Le-shar_ and the forces which he commanded. The Pawnee Scouts, under the gallant and able leadership of Frank North, did splendid service against hostile Indians. They saved hundreds of lives and millions of dollars' worth of property, and in their campaigns wiped out in blood the memory of many an injury done to their race by the Sioux, the Cheyennes, the Arapahoes and the Kiowas.