Details of 3 Northern Arapaho boys emerge

diseases that they had no immunity against. Historians suspect the children died of such illnesses.

Little Plume died in the spring of 1882, and Horse died roughly two months later. Little Chief died the following winter, the same day some students at the school went on a sledding trip. After Little Chief died, a physician examined the other children who arrived at the school with him. Some reported bronchial troubles. At least one had malarial fever at one point, according to a letter from the time.

It’s unclear exactly how Little Chief, Little Plume and Horse died. Officials are expected to hold a news conference Monday morning that could provide more detail about the boys.

Last week, archaeologists sifted through the boys’ grave sites by hand.

Elizabeth DiGangi, an anthropologist who assisted with the efforts last week, said Monday that in order to determine whether the remains are consistent with the description of the boys, she planned to look at bone fusion and other characteristics that can be used to help determine age and sex.

Officials said late Friday that they found remains that were “biologically consistent” with those of Little Chief and Horse. At Little Plume's grave site, they found instead the remains of two people: a 16- to 19-yearold boy and another “adolescent or adult” whose sex could not be determined. Those remains will be reburiedat the cemetery.

Teams had some hints that the grave markers might not be accurate indications of who actually was buried at the plots. School officials buried students at one location. Their remains were transferred to their current site in the 1920s, after the school closed, and Army officials decided to relocate the cemetery.

An archival report written to help the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepare for the excavation said, “With the data at hand, it is impossible to definitively state whether the markers are correctly associated with the physical remains of the individuals' names on these respective markers without physical investigation.”

Members of the Northern Arapaho tribe were not immediately available for comment after the announcement that the remains at the grave site did not seem consistent with those of Little Plume.

Mr. White, one of the tribal elders, had said earlier in the week, “We have faith in what they have. We've been trying to work together. ... I think we're OK with that.”

He, like some others in the tribe, said he hoped that anything the teams unearthed this week might teach them more about their relatives and their history.

“We’re still asking around ...‘What really happened here?’ ” he said.

Any items buried with Little Chief and Horse also will be returned to the tribe. The Army will pay to send the boys’ remains back to Wyoming for burial on the Wind River Reservation, where many of their relatives are buried.

“That’s their homeland, and that’s their relatives,” Mr. White said. “So, we’re all looking forward to bringing them home.”