I tried for quite a while to find that answer as well, but unfortunately there's nothing out there to validate the Chief Lame Bear story. In fact, the first reference I could ever find to Lame Bear by Savage was when the story first appeared in their 1996 catalog. Coincidentally, 1996 is also the year Ron Coburn over ownership at Savage Arms.
My personal belief is that Ron Coburn and the marketing dept. invented the Chief Lame Bear story to quell any potential PC push back on the Savage name and logo. The push to start renaming school mascots and teams and such started around the same time, so it somewhat made sense to do so should the PC morons come knocking on their door.
Also, if you look at the photo of the "supposed" Chief Lame Bear in the catalogs where the story is told, it's actually a photo of John Fire, aka Chief Lame Deer, great grandson of the Sioux Chief Lame Deer who led the last stand against General Miles before his people were led off to their reservation. It's also the same photo that's on the cover of the 1970 Savage Arms catalog.
As you pointed out, the Indian head logo was also in use long before the "supposed" deal was struck. In fact, Savage Arms had employed an Indian chief's depiction as their logo almost from the onset in one form or another. Native American's were often referred to as "savage's" well into the early 20th century, and even well up into the 1950's and 60's in movies and television. As such it doesn't take much imagination to see how and why Author Savage decided to use an Indian Chief as the logo for the brand prior to his departure in 1905.
The 1903 catalog depicts an Indian Chief mounted on a horse. The 1904 catalog is the first to depict just the screaming Chief's head with a Model 1899 in his hand.
Could there at one time have been such a deal made? Anything is possible, but without an actual original copy of that agreement it will forever be impossible to confirm and validate as fact.
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