Side Trip: Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming
August 31, 1877 - Tourist Richard Dietrich is killed
Several members of the Radersburg party and all members of the Helena party who escaped at Otter Creek found their way to Mammoth Hot Springs. The wounded man, Jack Stewart, was put in a wagon and left for Bozeman, Montana on the morning of August 30. Richard Dietrich, a music teacher from Helena, Montana, stayed behind. Dietrich had promised the mother of 18-year-old Joseph Roberts that he would be responsible for him and he didn’t want to leave until the boy was found. Later that day a Nez Perce scouting party came through on their way to Henderson’s ranch but those remaining at the springs managed to evade them.
When Lieutenant Doane arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs the next day he found the still-warm body of Richard Dietrich. Apparently Dietrich felt the danger of the previous day was past and had been standing in the doorway of the hotel when a group of Nez Perce warriors approached.
“It was coming towards sundown when we saw a white man standing in the doorway of a house. We stopped not far from him but did not dismount. We sat on our horses, six or seven of us, thinking. Chuslum Halap Kanoot (Naked-footed Bull) said to me, “My two young brothers and next younger brother were not warriors. They and a sister were killed at Big Hole. Just like this man did that killing of my brothers and sister. He is nothing but a killer to become a soldier sometime. We are going to kill him now. I am a man! I am going to shoot him! When I fire, you shoot after me.
Chuslum Hahlap Kanoot then fired and clipped his arm. As he made to run, another warrior, Yettahtapnat Alwum (Shooting Thunder) shot him through the belly.”
– Hímiin Maqsmáqs (Yellow Wolf)
