might by no means attempt to excuse or to defend him, but his
judges took all the known circumstances into consideration,
and if it appeared that he slew in self-defense, or that the
provocation was severe, he might be set free after a thirty days'
period of mourning in solitude. Otherwise the murdered man's next
of kin were authorized to take his life; and if they refrained from
doing so, as often happened, he remained an outcast from the clan.
A willful murder was a rare occurrence before the days of whiskey
and drunken rows, for we were not a violent or a quarrelsome
people.

It is well remembered that Crow Dog, who killed the Sioux
chief, Spotted Tail, in 1881, calmly surrendered himself and was
tried and convicted by the courts in South Dakota. After
his conviction, he was permitted remarkable liberty in prison, such
as perhaps no white man has ever enjoyed when under sentence of
death.

The cause of his act was a solemn commission received from his
people, nearly thirty years earlier, at the time that Spotted Tail
usurped the chieftainship by the aid of the military, whom he had
aided. Crow Dog was under a vow to slay the chief, in case he ever
betrayed or disgraced the name of the Brule Sioux. There is no
doubt that he had committed crimes both public and private, having
been guilty of misuse of office as well as of gross
offenses against morality; therefore his death was not a matter of
personal vengeance but of just retribution.

A few days before Crow Dog was to be executed, he asked
permission to visit his home and say farewell to his wife and twin