The book of the American Indian

By Hamlin Garland

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Title: The book of the American Indian

Author: Hamlin Garland

Illustrator: Frederic Remington

Release date: January 20, 2025 [eBook #75161]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923

Credits: Aaron Adrignola, Tim Lindell, John Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN ***

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have
been placed at the end of the book.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

THE BOOK OF THE
AMERICAN INDIAN

[Illustration: (icon)]

[Illustration: An Indian Scout

_Illustration from_
A BUNCH OF BUCKSKINS
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published by_
R. H. RUSSELL, _1901_]

THE BOOK OF THE
AMERICAN INDIAN

Written by
HAMLIN GARLAND
_Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters_

Pictured by
FREDERIC REMINGTON

[Illustration: (Indian on a horse)]

Harper & Brothers _Publishers_
New York and London

THE BOOK OF THE
AMERICAN INDIAN

CONTENTS

PAGE
WAHIAH—A SPARTAN MOTHER 1

NISTINA 15

THE IRON KHIVA 25

THE NEW MEDICINE HOUSE 39

RISING WOLF—GHOST DANCER 51

THE RIVER’S WARNING 67

LONE WOLF’S OLD GUARD 77

BIG MOGGASEN 87

THE STORM-CHILD 95

THE BLOOD LUST 105

THE REMORSE OF WAUMDISAPA 113

A DECREE OF COUNCIL 121

DRIFTING CRANE 127

THE STORY OF HOWLING WOLF 135

THE SILENT EATERS 159

I. THE BEGINNINGS OF POWER 159

II. POLICY AND COUNCIL 168

III. THE BATTLE OF THE BIG HORN 173

IV. DARK DAYS OF WINTER 189

V. THE CHIEF SURRENDERS HIMSELF 195

VI. IN CAPTIVITY 204

VII. HE OPPOSED ALL TREATIES 215

VIII. THE RETURN OF THE SPIRITS 219

IX. THE MESSAGE OF KICKING BEAR 226

X. THE DANCE BEGINS 232

XI. THE BREAKING OF THE PEACE PIPE 239

XII. THE CHIEF PROPOSES A TEST 252

XIII. THE CHIEF PLANS A JOURNEY 264

XIV. THE DEATH OF THE CHIEF 270

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

AN INDIAN SCOUT _Frontis._

A KIOWA MAIDEN _Facing p._ 8

THE RED MAN’S PARCEL POST ” 9

A COW-PUNCHER VISITING AN INDIAN VILLAGE ” 30

AN APACHE INDIAN ” 31

AT AN APACHE INDIAN AGENCY ” 42

THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURE OF OLD SUN’S WIFE ” 43

THE MEDICINE MAN’S SIGNAL ” 54

THE GHOST DANCE ” 55

ON AN INDIAN RESERVATION ” 72

IN A STIFF CURRENT ” 73

A MODERN COMANCHE INDIAN ” 80

A BAND OF PIEGAN INDIANS IN THE MOUNTAINS ” 81

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW ” 98

GERONIMO AND HIS BAND RETURNING FROM A RAID IN
MEXICO ” 99

AN INDIAN BRAVE ” 116

IN AN INDIAN CAMP ” 122

CROW INDIANS FIRING INTO THE AGENCY ” 123

AN INDIAN TRAPPER ” 138

A QUESTIONABLE COMPANIONSHIP ” 139

THE ARREST OF THE SCOUT ” 152

AN INDIAN DUEL ” 153

CHEYENNE SCOUTS PATROLLING THE BIG TIMBER OF THE
NORTH CANADIAN, OKLAHOMA ” 174

INDIANS RECONNOITERING FROM A MOUNTAIN-TOP ” 175

THE BRAVE CHEYENNES WERE RUNNING THROUGH THE
FROSTED HILLS ” 186

CAMPAIGNING IN WINTER ” 187

INDIANS AS SOLDIERS ” 200

AN INDIAN DREAM ” 201

BURNING THE RANGE ” 212

AN OLD-TIME NORTHERN PLAINS INDIAN ” 213

AN INDIAN CHIEF ” 226

A FANTASY FROM THE PONY WAR DANCE ” 236

CHIS-CHIS-CHASH SCOUT ON THE FLANKS ” 237

SCOUTS ” 260

ON THE LITTLE BIG HORN ” 261

WAHIAH—A SPARTAN MOTHER

THE BOOK OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

WAHIAH—A SPARTAN MOTHER

From a casual point of view the Indian Agency at Darlington was dull
and commonplace if not actually dispiriting. The sun blazed hot in
the roadway which ran between the licensed shops, the office and the
issue house. Lean dogs were slinking about. A few bedraggled red
women with shawls over their heads stood talking softly together
on the trader’s porch. A group of warriors in the shade of the
blacksmith shop were discussing some ancient campaign, while now and
then a clerk in shirt sleeves, his hands full of papers, moved across
the plaza, his step quickened by the sting of the sun.

A little back from the street the school building sat bleakly
exposed on the sod, flanked on each side by still more inhospitable
dormitories—all humming with unseen life. Across the river—the one
grateful, gracious touch of all—the yellowed conical tents of the
Cheyennes rose amidst green willows, and far beyond, on the beautiful
velvet green of the prairies, their untethered ponies fed.

To the careless observer this village was lonely, repulsive; to the
sympathetic mind it was a place of drama, for there the passions,
prejudices, ancestral loves and hates of two races met and clashed.

There the man of the polished stone age was trying, piteously,
tragically trying, to take on the manner of life of a race ten
thousand years in advance of him, and there a few devoted Quakers
were attempting to lead the nomads into the ways of the people of
the plow.

The Cheyennes, at the time practically military prisoners, had given
but a nominal consent to the education of their children, and many
individuals openly opposed it. For the most part the pupils in the
school wore buckskin shirts and were the wastrels and orphans of the
tribe, neglected and stupid. The fine, bold sons of the principal
chiefs would not surrender their freedom, and their contempt for
those who did was expressed in the cry, “Ahyah! Whiteman, Whiteman!”

It will appear that the problem before the teacher of the Cheyenne
and Arapahoe school in those days was not merely to govern the pupils
in the schoolroom, but to induce men like Tomacham and Tontonava to
send their own brave and handsome sons. With great native wit and
shrewdness, Seger, the newly appointed master, said to the agent:
“Our point of attack is the child. The red man’s love for his
offspring is very deep. We must also convince the mothers. They are
the conservative forces.”

The young teacher, Seger, had already won many friends among the
chief men by his unfailing helpfulness as well as sympathy with their
ways, and not content with the few pupils he had, he went out among
the tepees pleading the cause of education with the fathers in the
hearing of the mothers.

The old men listened gravely and for the most part courteously—never
interrupting, weighing each word as it fell. Some of them admitted
the reasonableness of his plea. “We think you are telling us the
truth,” they said, “but our hearts will not let us go with you on
the road. We love the old things. We do not like these new things.
We despise the white man’s clothing—we do not want our sons to go
crop-haired like a black man. We have left the warpath—never to go
back to it. What is before us we do not know—but we are not yet ready
to give our children into your hands.” And the women sitting near
applauded and said, “Aye, aye!”

Seger argued: “What will you do? The buffaloes are gone. The elk and
deer are going. Your sons cannot live by hunting—they must live as
the white man lives—by tilling the earth.”

“All that is strange,” darkly answered Tomacham. “We are as the Great
Spirit made us. We cannot change. If the Great One wished us to be
white why did He not make us so in the first place?”

Nevertheless, Seger’s words sank deep in the ears of Tomacham
and Wahiah, his wife, and one day the chief appeared at the door
of the school bringing his son Atokan, a splendid young lad of
fourteen—handsome as a picture of Hiawatha, with his fringed leggins,
beaded shirt, shining, braided hair and painted cheeks. Behind—a long
way back—came the mother.

“You see I have brought my son,” began the chief after Seger’s
delighted greeting.

“It is good. He will make a fine man.”

The chief’s face clouded. “I do not bring him to become like these,”
and he pointed at a couple of stupid, crop-haired boys who stood
gaping at him. “I bring my son to learn to read and write, but he
must not be clipped and put into white man’s clothing. He can follow
your ways without losing his hair. Our way of dress pleases us
better.”

Seger was obstinate. “I will not take him. If he comes he must do as
the rest—and he must obey me!”

The old chief stood in silence looking on his son, whose grace and
dignity appealed even to the teacher’s unæsthetic mind, and his eyes
grew dim with prophetic sadness. The mother drew near, and Tomacham
turned and spoke to her and told her what the white man said.

“No, no!” she wailed.

Then Tomacham was resolved: “No, my friend, I cannot do it. Let me
have him one more day. I cannot bear to leave him to become a white
man to-day. See, there is his mother, waiting, weeping; let him be a
small, red brave till to-morrow. I have given my word; I will bring
him.”

With some understanding of the chief’s ache in the heart Seger
consented, and Tomacham let his young warrior stay home for one more
day of the old kind.

What sorrowful ceremonies took place in that well-smoked tepee
Seger did not know, but next day the chief came again; he was very
sorrowful and very tender, but the boy’s face was sullen, his head
drooping.

Slowly the father said: “Friend, I have thought all night of what you
have said to me. The mother is singing a sad song in our tepee, but
we have decided. We give our boy into your hands; teach him the road.”

And with a quiet word to his son the heroic red man turned and went
away to hide his quivering lips. It was as if he had given his son to
an alien tribe, never to see him again.

When the mother saw her boy next day she burst into a moan of
resentful pain. All his wild, free grace was gone. His scissored
hair was grotesque. His clumsy gray coat pinched his shoulders, his
trousers were absurdly short, and his boots hard and clumsy. He slunk
into the circle of the fire like a whipped dog and would not lift his
head even in reply to questions. Tomacham smoked hard to keep back
the tears, but his mind was made up, his word given. “We are on the
road—we cannot turn back,” he said, though it cut him to the heart to
see his eaglet become a barnyard fowl.

By this time Seger had reduced the school to something like order,
and the pupils were learning fast; but truancy continued to render
his afternoon sessions farcical, for as soon as they had eaten
their midday meal many of the children ran away to the camp across
the river and there remained the entire afternoon. Others paid no
heed to the bell, but played on till weary before returning to the
school. In all this rebellion Atokan was a leader, and Seger, after
meditating long, determined on a form of discipline which might have
appalled the commander of a regiment of cavalry. He determined to
apply the rod.

Now this may seem a small thing, but it was not; it was a very
momentous thing. It was indeed the most dangerous announcement he
could make to a warlike tribe chafing under restraint, for red people
are most affectionate parents and very seldom lay violent hands upon
their children or even speak harshly to them. Up to this time no
white man had ever punished a red child, and when Seger spoke to the
agent about it he got no help; on the contrary, the old Quaker said:

“Friend Seger, I think thee a very rash young man and I fear thee
will involve us all in a bloody outbreak.” Then he added, “Can’t thee
devise something else?”

“I must have discipline,” argued Seger. “I can’t have my pupils
making a monkey of me. There are only four or five that need welting,
and if you give me leave to go ahead I’ll make ’em toe the mark;
otherwise, I’ll resign.”

“Thee can go ahead,” testily exclaimed the agent. “But thee sees how
we are situated. We have no troops in call. Thee knows, also, that I
do not approve of force; and yet,” he added, in reflection, “we have
made a failure of the school—thee alone seems to have any control of
the pupils. It is not for me to criticize. Proceed on thy way, but I
will not be responsible for any trouble thee may bring upon thyself.”

“I will take all that comes,” responded Seger—who had been trained
in the school of the Civil War, “and I will not involve you in any
outbreak.”

That night Seger made his announcement: “Hereafter every scholar must
obey my bell—and return to the schoolroom promptly. Those who do not
will be whipped.”

The children looked at him as if he had gone crazy.

He went on: “Go home and tell your people. Ask them to think it
over—but remember to be here at sunset, and after this every bell
must be obeyed instantly.”

The children ran at once to the camp, and the news spread like
some invisible vapor, and soon every soul in the entire agency,
red and white alike, was athrill with excitement. The half-breeds
(notoriously timorous) hastened to warn the intrepid schoolmaster:
“Don’t do that. They will kill you.” The old scouts and squaw-men
followed: “Young feller, you couldn’t dig out of the box a nastier
job—you better drop it right now and skip.”

“I am going to have discipline,” said Seger, “or tan the jacket of
every boy I’ve got.”

Soon after this he met Tomacham and Tontonava, both men of great
influence. After greeting him courteously Tomacham said:

“I hear that you said you were going to whip our children. Is this
true?”

“It is!” answered Seger, curtly.

“That is very wrong and very foolish,” argued Tontonava. “We did
not give our children into your care to be smitten with rods as the
soldiers whip mules.”

“If the children act like mules I will whip them,” persisted Seger.
“I punish only bad children—I do not beat good ones.”

“It is not our custom to strike our children. Do you think we will
permit white men to do so?” asked Tontonava, breathing hard.

Assuming an air of great and solemn deliberation, Seger said, using
the sign language to enforce his words: “Go home and think of this.
The Great Father has built this schoolhouse for your children. He has
given them warm clothing and good food. He has given them beds to
sleep in and a doctor to help them when they are sick. Now listen.
Miokany is speaking. So long as they enjoy all these things they are
bound to obey me. They must obey me, their teacher,” and he turned
and left the two old men standing there, amazed and indignant.

That night all the camps were filled with a discussion of this
wondrous thing. Seger’s threat was taken up formally by the men in
council and informally by the women. It was pivotal, this question of
punishment—it marked their final subjection to the white man.

“If we lose our children, then surely we are doomed to extinction,”
Tomacham said.

“Let us fight!” cried fierce Unko. “What is the use of sitting here
like chained wolves till we starve and die? Let us go out against
this white man and perish gloriously.” And a few applauded him.

But the graver men counseled patience and peace.

“We do not fear death—but we do not wish to be bound and sent away
into the mysterious hot lands where our brethren languish.”

“Then let us go to the school and frighten ‘Johnny Smoker’ so that he
will not dare to whip any child,” cried Unko.

To this Tomacham answered: “‘Johnny Smoker’ is my friend. I do not
wish to harm him. Let us see him again and counsel with him.”

“No,” answered Unko. “Let us face him and command him to let our
children alone. If he strikes my child he must die.”

And to this many of the women cried out in piercing nasal tones: “Ah,
that is good—do that!”

But Wahiah, the mother of Atokan, looked at the ground and remained
silent.

III

When the pupils next assembled they were as demure as quails, and
Seger knew that they had been warned by their parents not to incur
their teacher’s displeasure; but Atokan looked aside, his proud head
lifted. Beside him sat a fine boy, two years younger, son of Unko,
and it was plain that they were both ready to rebel.

The master recognized the gravity of the moment. If he did not
punish, according to his word, his pupils would despise him,
his discipline was at an end; and to stripe the backs of these
high-spirited lads was to invite death—that he knew better than
any white man could tell him. To provoke an outbreak would be a
colossal crime, and yet he was a stubborn little man—persistent as a
bulldog—capable of sacrificing himself in working out a theory. When
a friendly half-breed came late that night and warned him that the
camp was in debate whether to kill him or not he merely said: “You
tell them I am doing the will of the Great Father at Washington and I
am not afraid. What they do to me will fly to Washington as the light
flies, and the soldiers will come back as swiftly.”

Immediately after school opened next morning several of the parents
of the children came quickly in and took seats, as they were
accustomed to do, along the back wall behind the pupils. They were
graver than usual—but otherwise gave no sign of anger and remained
decorously quiet. Among them was Wahiah.

The master went on with firm voice and ready smile with the morning’s
work, well aware that the test of his authority would come after
intermission, when he rang the bell to recall his little squad to
their studies.

As the children ran out to play all the old people followed and
took seats in the shade of the building, silent and watchful. The
assistant teacher, a brave little woman, was white with excitement
as Seger took the bell some ten minutes later and went to the door
personally to give the signal for return. He rang as cheerily as if
he were calling to a feast, but many of the employees shuddered as if
it were their death knell.

The larger number of the children came scurrying, eager to show their
obedience, but a squad of five or six of the boys remained where they
were, as if the sound of the bell had not reached them. Seger rang
again and called personally: “Come, boys, time to work.”

At this three others broke away from the rebellious group and came
slowly toward him, but Atokan and the son of Unko turned toward the
river.

[Illustration: A Kiowa Maiden

_That Indian parents are very proud of their children’s progress
is evidenced by the eagerness with which they send their sons and
daughters to the schools established by the Government on the
different Indian reservations. The Kiowa maiden here pictured
is one of the many Indian girls and boys who more and more are
availing themselves of the opportunity to obtain an education and
thus fit themselves to take their places in civilized society._

_Illustration from_
THE WEST FROM A CAR WINDOW
_by_ Richard Harding Davis

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _May 14, 1892_]

[Illustration: The Red Man’s Parcel Post

_Illustration from_
A PILGRIM ON THE GILA
_by_ Owen Wister

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _November, 1895_]

Seger made a pleasant little speech to the obedient ones and ended:
“I know we are to be good friends in the future as we have been in
the past,” but a little shiver passed over the school as he went out,
stern faced and resolute, to recall the truants.

The wife of Unko rose and scuttled away to give the alarm, but Wahiah
stood with her robe drawn over her lips as if in struggle to repress
a cry. Tomacham smoked on quietly, waiting the issue.

Meanwhile, Atokan strolled along the path, shooting his arrow at
small objects on the ground, apparently oblivious of his teacher’s
hastening footsteps.

When within hearing Seger called: “You know the rules, Atokan. Why do
you not answer the bell?”

Atokan made no reply, and Seger was tempted to lay hands upon him;
but to do this would involve a smart chase, and, besides, he was too
wise to seem to be angry. He followed the boys, pleading with them,
till Atokan turned and said: “You go away. Bimeby I come.”

“You must come now!”

“You going whip me?”

“Yes!”

“Then I don’t come.”

After half an hour of this humiliating parley Seger had the
dubious satisfaction of seeing the truant set his face toward the
schoolroom—for Atokan knew his father and mother were waiting, and
into his heart came the desire to test “Johnny Smoker’s” courage.
With insolent slowness he led the way past the group of his elders,
on into the schoolroom, followed by twenty-five or thirty Cheyennes
and Arapahoes. Some of the men were armed and all were stern. The
women’s faces were both sour and sad. It was plain that something
beside brute force must be employed in dealing with the situation.
Seger knew these people. Turning suddenly to Tomacham he asked:

“My friend, what do you send your children to school for?”

Taken by surprise, the chief hesitated. “To learn to read and write
and speak like the white man.”

“What do you think I am here for?”

“To show our children the way,” he reluctantly answered. “But not to
punish them.”

Seger was addressing the women through the chief. “Do you think I can
teach your children if they are out shooting birds?”

“No, I do not think so.”

“Do you think it would be honest if I took pay for teaching your
children and let them run to camp all the time?”

“No, I think it is necessary that the children be kept in school—but
you must not whip them.”

Seger faced Unko. “What kind of a person do you want to have teach
your children—a liar?”

“No, a liar is bad for them.”

Unko saw the drift of Seger’s remarks, and he moved about uneasily,
the butt of his pistol showing from beneath his blanket.

Seger then said in a loud voice, “I am not a liar!” and repeated this
in signs. “I told your children I would whip them if they did not
obey me, and now I am going to do it! You know me; I do not say ‘I am
your friend,’ and then work evil to your children. Jack, come here!”
A little boy rose slowly and came and stood beside his teacher, who
went on: “This is an orphan. He was dying in his grandmother’s tepee
when I went to him. I took him—I nursed him—I sat by his bed many
nights when you were asleep. Jennie,” he called again, “you come
to me!” A shy little girl with scarred face tiptoed to her beloved
teacher. “This one came to me so covered with sores that she was
terrible to see. I washed her—she was almost blind. I made her see. I
have done these things many times. There is not a child here that has
not been helped by me. I am not boasting—this is my duty, it is the
work the Great Father has told me to do. It is my work also to make
your children obey me. I am the friend of all red men. I have eaten
in your lodges. I have been in council with you. I am not a liar. It
is my duty to whip disobedient children, and I will do it. Atokan,
come up here!”

The boy rose and came forward, a smoldering fire in his black eyes.
As Seger laid a hand on his shoulder and took up his whip Wahiah
uttered a shuddering moan. A sinister stir went through the room.
The white man’s dominion was about to be put to the final test. In
Wahiah’s heart a mighty struggle was in progress. Love and pride in
her son demanded that she put an end to the whipping, but her sense
of justice, her love for Seger and her conviction that the boy was
wrong kept her fixed and silent, though her lips quivered and the
tears ran down her face. Tomacham’s broad breast heaved with passion,
but he, too, remained silent.

“Will you obey me?” asked the master.

Receiving no answer, he took firm hold of Atokan’s collar and
addressed the spectators. “Little Unko is younger than Atokan. He was
led away by him. I will therefore give both whippings to Atokan,” and
he brought the hissing withe down over the boy’s shoulders. Again a
moan of involuntary protest went through the room. Never before had
a white man struck a Cheyenne child and remained unpunished for his
temerity—and no other man, not even the agent himself, could have
struck that blow and survived the wrath of Tomacham.

Atokan seized the lapel of his coat in his teeth, and bit hard in
order to stifle any moan of pain the sting of the whip might wring
from him. His was the heart of a warrior, for, though the whip fell
hissing with speed he uttered no cry, and when the rod was worn to a
fragment he remained silent as a statue, refusing to answer a single
word.

Seger, convinced that the punishment was a failure unless it
conquered the culprit, caught up another willow withe and wore it out
upon him, to no effect—for, casting a glance at the pieces lying on
the floor, the boy’s lips curled in a smile of disdain as if to say:
“I am a warrior; I do not cry!”

Realizing his failure, Seger caught him with a wrestler’s twist,
threw him across his knee, and beat him with the flat of his hand.
The suddenness of this attack, the shame of the attitude, added to
the pain he was already suffering, broke the boy’s proud spirit. He
burst into loud lamentation, dropped to the floor, and lay in a heap,
sobbing like a child.

Straightening up, the teacher looked about him, expecting to meet a
roused and ready group of warriors. Every woman and all the children
were wildly moaning and sobbing. The men with stern and sorrowful
faces were struggling in silence to keep back the tears. The resolute
little white man had conquered by his logic, his justice, his bravery.

“Atokan, will you obey me?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” the boy answered—his spirit broken.

Turning to the mother, Seger very gently said: “I do not like to
do this, Wahiah; it hurts my heart as it does yours, but it was
necessary. Tomacham, once I was a soldier—like you. I was taught to
obey. You may kill me for this, but the Great Father at Washington
will say, ‘Miokany died doing his duty.’ I know how hard it is for
you to plow and reap and do as the white man does, but it must be
done or you will die. Your children can do nothing till they learn
to speak the tongue. I am here to do that work. The children must
stay in school. They must obey me. I do not whip good children who
obey—only those who are bad. Now you old people go home and think
over what I have said, and we will return to our lessons.”

Then a wonderful, an incredible, thing happened! Tomacham rose and
took Seger’s hand and shook it silently in token of conviction. But
Wahiah, the mother of Atokan, with tears still streaming down her
cheeks, pressed the teacher’s hand in both of hers and looked into
his face as if to speak, but could not; then snatching her son’s
symbols of freedom, his bow and arrows, she broke them over her knee
and stamped on the fragments in the face of all the school. “Obey
Miokany,” she commanded, with Spartan vigor, and, turning swiftly,
went out, followed by the sad and silent chieftain.

NISTINA

There was lamentation in the lodges of Sunmaker’s people, for the
white soldiers had taken away the guns of Hawk’s young warriors, and
now they were to be sent away into lands of captivity. Huddled in big
wagons, the young men sat, downcast and sullen, ashamed to weep, yet
choking with grief and despair.

“Had I known this,” said Hawk to the captain of the escort, “I would
have died fighting,” and this defiant word he uttered in the harsh,
booming tone of a village crier. It was heard by everyone in the
camp, and the old women broke forth into wailing war songs, which
made the fingers of sedate old sages clinch.

But the blue-coated soldiers, ranked and ready, stood with loaded
guns in their hands, calmly observant, and the colonel sat his horse,
not far away, ready to give the signal for departure.

Hawk, young, handsome, and reckless, for some ruffianism put upon
him by a band of cattlemen, had organized a raid of retaliation, and
for this outbreak the government was sending him and his band to
Florida—a hot, strange land, far in the South. He, as its unconquered
leader, sat bound and helpless in one of the head wagons, his feet
chained to a rod, his hands ironed, and working like the talons of an
eagle.

It was hard to sit thus in the face of his father and mother, but it
was harder yet to know that Nistina, the daughter of Sunmaker, with
her blanket over her face, sat weeping at the door of her father’s
lodge. All the girls were moaning, and no one knew that Nistina loved
Hawk—no one but her inseparable friend, Macosa, the daughter of Crane.

Hawk knew it, for they had often met at the river’s edge of a
morning, when she came for water.

Now they were to part without one word of love, with no touch of
hands, never to see each other again, for it was well known that
those who went into that far country never returned—the breath of the
great salt water poisoned them.

At last the colonel uttered a word of command. A bugle rang out.
The piercing cries of the bereaved women broke forth again, wild
and heart-breaking: the whips cracked like pistol shots, the mules
set their shoulders to the collars, and the blue chariots and their
hopeless captives moved slowly out across the prairie.

Hawk turned his head and caught one last glance from Nistina as she
lifted her face to him, flung her robe over her head, and fell face
downward on the earth, crushed, broken, and despairing.

With teeth set like those of a grizzly bear, the young chief strained
at his cords, eager to fight and die in the face of his tribe, but
the white man’s cruel chains were too strong. He fell back exhausted,
too numb with despair to heed the taunt of the white soldier riding
beside the wheel, cynical, profane, and derisive.

And while the young prisoner sat thus, with bowed head and
low-hanging, lax hands, the little village of his people was lost to
view—hidden by the willows on the river’s bank.

In the months which followed, the camp of Sunmaker resumed its
accustomed round of duties and pleasure. The babes rollicked on the
grass, the old men smoked placidly in their council lodges, and
planned their next buffalo hunt; the children went reluctantly to the
agency school of a morning, and came home with flying feet at night.
All seemed as placid as a pool into which a suicide has sunk; but
no word came to Nistina, from whose face the shadow never lifted.
She had never been a merry girl like Macosa. She had been shy and
silent and wistful even as a child, and as the months passed without
a message from Hawk, she moved to her duties as silent as a shadow.
Macosa, when the spring came again, took another lover, and laughed
and said, “They have forgotten us, that Elk and Hawk.”

Nistina had many suitors, for was she not Sunmaker’s daughter,
and tall and handsome besides? Mischievous Macosa, even after her
marriage, kept her friend’s secret, but she could not forbear to
tease her when they were alone together. “Hawk is a bad young man,”
she said. “He has found another girl by this time. Why don’t you
listen to Kias?” To such questions Nistina made no answer.

At the end of a year even Sunmaker, introspective as he was, could
not fail to remark upon her loneliness. “My daughter, why do you seem
so sad? There are many young men singing sweet songs for you to hear,
yet you will not listen. It is time you took thought of these things.”

“I do not wish to marry,” she replied.

Then the old father became sorrowful, for he feared his loved one had
placed her heart on some white soldier, and one day he called her
to him and said: “My daughter, the Great Spirit decreed that there
should be people of many colors on the earth. He called each good in
his place, but it is not good that they mate one with the other. If
a white man comes to speak soft words into your ears, turn away. He
will work evil, and not good. Why do you not take a husband among
your own people, as others do, and be content? You are of the age
when girls marry.”

To this she replied: “My heart is not set on any white man, and I do
not wish to marry. Let me stay with you and help to keep your lodge.”

The old man’s voice trembled as he said: “My daughter, since my son
is gone, you are my staff. It is good to see you in our lodge, but I
do not like to see you sad.”

Then she pretended to laugh, and said, “I am not sad,” and ran away.

When she was gone Sunmaker called Vetcora and told her what had
happened. She smoked the pipe he handed to her and listened
patiently. When he had finished speaking, she said:

“She will come round all right. All girls are not alike. By and by
the true one will come, and then you’ll see her change her song. She
will be keeping her own lodge soon.”

But Sunmaker was troubled by his daughter’s frequent visits to the
agency across the river, and by her intimacy with Neeta, the daughter
of Hahko, who had been away to school, and who had returned much
changed, being neither white woman nor red.

She was living alone in a small hut on the river bank, and was not a
good woman for Nistina to visit.

He could not know that his daughter went there because Neeta could
read the white man’s papers, and would know if anything had happened
to Hawk. No one knew, either, that Nistina slyly asked about learning
to read. She laughed when she asked these questions, as though the
matter were of no consequence. “How long did it take you to learn to
read? Is it very hard to learn to write?”

“Oh no; it is very easy,” Neeta replied, boastingly, and when Nistina
went away her eyes were very thoughtful.

Again and again she called before she could bring herself to the
point of asking Neeta to go with her to the head of the school.

Neeta laughed. “Ho! Are you going to school? You will need to hump
low over your toes, for you will go among the smallest girls.”

Nistina did not waver. “Come, go with me.”

With a smile on her face Neeta led the way to the office of the
superintendent. “Professor Morten, I bring you a new scholar.”

Morten, a tall, grave-faced man, looked up from his desk, and said:
“Why, it’s Nistina! Good morning, Nistina.”

“Mornin’,” said she, as well as she could.

“She wants to go to school, eh? Well, better late than never,” he
added, with a smile.

“Tell him I want to work and earn money,” said Nistina.

When Neeta interpreted this, the teacher exclaimed: “Well, well! This
is most astonishing! Why, I thought she hated the white man’s ways!”

“I think she want to marry white man,” remarked Neeta.

Mr. Morten looked at her coldly. “I hope not. You’re a mighty smart
girl, Neeta, but I don’t like the way you carry on.”

Neeta smiled broadly, quite unabashed. “I’m all settled down now—no
more skylarking round. I’m keeping house.”

“Well, see that you keep settled. I don’t understand this change in
Nistina, but you tell her I’ll put her in charge of Mrs. Morten, and
we’ll do the best we can for her. But tell her to send all these
white men away; tell her not to listen to them.”

To Nistina Neeta said, “He says he will let you help his squaw, and
she will teach you how to read and write.”

Nistina’s heart failed her when she heard this, for she had seen
Mrs. Morten many times, and had heard many disturbing stories of her
harshness. She was a tall, broad-shouldered woman, with keen gray
eyes and a loud voice.

At last Mr. Morten turned, and said: “Nistina, you may come this
afternoon after four o’clock, and we will arrange the whole matter. I
am glad you are going to forsake Indian ways, which are very bad. Be
a good girl, and you will be happy.”

When Neeta had explained what he said Nistina burst into a low cry,
and, covering her face with her blanket, rushed away.

“That’s the last you’ll see of her,” said Neeta, maliciously. “She
likes the Indian ways best.”

But Nistina was moved by a deeper impulse than fickle-hearted Neeta
could comprehend. A sick boy had returned from Florida a few days
before—a poor dying lad—and to Nistina he had brought word from young
Hawk. “I am studying so that I can send words on paper, like the
white man,” the message ran. “By and by I will send a white word to
you.”

This message instantly sank deep, although Nistina gave no sign. She
had more than the usual shyness of the maidens of her tribe, and it
was painful to her to have even this vague message transmitted by
another.

The girl thought long. She wished to send a message to her lover, but
for some days could not bring herself to confide in Neeta. Days went
by, and her resolution remained unformed. Nearly every evening she
had been going to see Neeta, but always her courage had failed her,
and then came the thought: “I, too, will learn to write and to read,
and then I can tell him how much I love him, and that I will wait
till I am old and I will love no one else.”

There was a great deal of gossip among the red women. “She is going
to marry a white soldier, that Nistina,” they said. “She is working
for money to buy fine beads and cloth.”

“It may be,” said her stepmother. “She does not open her heart to me.
She talks no more than an owl.”

The teachers marveled at ’Tina’s dullness in arithmetic and her
amazing progress in writing. In an incredibly short time she was able
to scrawl a note to her lover. It was a queer little letter, written
with painful exactness, in imitation of the copybooks:

I heard you words what you sent. They was good words. It made my
heart glad that words Black Fox which he brought. I am wait all
time for you. No one else is in my thoughts. This letter I am
written me myself all lone—no one is help me. No one knows that I
put it in puss-tofis. I send mogasuns.

NISTINA.

With this letter all stamped and directed, and the packages of
moccasins, she hurried with beating heart to the store in which
the post-office occupied a corner. There she hovered like a mother
partridge about its nest, coming and going, till a favorable moment
offered. She knew just what to do. She had rehearsed it all in her
mind a hundred times, and when she had slipped the letter into the
slit she laid the package on the window, and flew away to watch and
to wait for a word from the far-away land.

Weeks passed, and her heart grew sad and heavy. She dared not ask for
a letter, but lingered at the store till the clerks grew jocose and
at last familiar, and her heart was bitter toward all white men.

In her extremity she went to Macosa, who was now a matronly wife,
mother of a sturdy son, and asked her to go to the post-office and
inquire for a letter.

“A letter!” exclaimed she. “Who is going to write you a letter?”

After much persuasion she consented to go, but returned empty handed.
She had only half regarded Nistina’s request, but as the tears came
to her friend’s eyes, she believed, and all of the goodness of her
heart arose, and she said:

“Don’t cry. I will go every day and ask, if you wish me to.”

It is hard to wait for a letter when the letter is the one thing in
life worth waiting for, and Nistina was very silent and very sad
all the time, and her mistress wondered at this; but her questions
brought no reply from the girl, who kept at her writing diligently,
steadily refusing to confuse her mind with other things. She did
not seem to wish to talk—only to write at every spare moment, and
each day her writing grew in beauty of line till it was almost as
beautiful as the printed copy.

At last she composed another letter:

HAWK. My friend. I not hearing from you. If you are sick you
don’t write. My heart is now very sad. May be you die by this
time. Long time I am here waiting. Listening for your words I am
standing each day. No one my loving but you. Come home you get
away quick, for I all time waiting.

NISTINA.

After she had mailed this Nistina suddenly lost all interest in her
studies, and went back to the lodge of her father. In her heart she
said: “If he does not answer me I will go out on the hill and cry
till I die. I do not care to live if he is not coming to me.”

She took her place in her father’s lodge as before, giving no
explanation of her going nor the reason for her return. The kindly
old chief smoked and gazed upon her sadly, and at last said, gently:

“My daughter, you are sad and silent. Once you laughed and sang at
your sewing. What has happened to you? My child has a dark face.”

“I am older. I am no longer a child,” she said, unsmilingly.

And at last, in the middle of the third winter, when the white people
were giving presents to each other, a letter and a little package
came for Nistina, and Macosa came running with them.

“Here is your talking leaf,” she said. “Now I think you will laugh
once more. Read it, for I am very curious.”

But Nistina snatched the precious package and ran into her lodge, to
be alone with her joy.

It was a marvelous thing. There was the letter—a blue one—with her
name spelled on it in big letters, _Nistina_, but she opened the
package first. It contained a shining pouch, and in the pouch was a
necklace of wondrous beads such as she had never seen, and a picture
of her lover in white man’s dress. How strange he looked with his
hair cut short! She hardly knew him.

Her heart beat strong and loud as she opened the letter, and read the
first words, “Nistina, I am loving you.” After that she was confused,
for Hawk could not write as well as she, and she read with great
trouble, but the end she understood—“I am coming home.”

She rose and walked to her father’s lodge, where Macosa sat. She
entered proudly, the letter in her hand. Her head was lifted, her
eyes shone with pride.

“My letter is from Hawk,” she said, quietly. “He is coming home.”

And at this message Macosa and Vetcora covered their mouths in sign
of inexpressible astonishment.

Sunmaker smoked on with placid face till he began to understand it
all; then he said: “My daughter, you warm my heart. Sit beside me and
tell me of this wonderful thing.”

Then she spoke, and her story was to him a sweet relief from care.
“It is good,” he said. “Surely the white people are wonder-working
beings.”

THE IRON KHIVA

For countless generations a gentle brown people had dwelt high on the
top of a mesa—far in the desert. Their houses rose like native forms
of sandstone ledges on the crest of the rocky hills—seemed indeed a
part of the cliffs themselves.

To join the old women climbing the steep path laden with water
bottles of goatskin, to mingle with the boys driving home the
goats—and to hear the girls chattering on the roofs was to forget
modern America. A sensitive nature facing such scenes shivered with
a subtle transport such as travelers once felt in the presence of
Egypt before the Anglo-Saxon globe trotter had vulgarized it. This
pueblo was a thousand years old—and to reach it was an exploration.
Therefore, while the great Mississippi Valley was being overrun these
simple folk lived apart.

They were on the maps of Arizona, but of this they had no knowledge
and no care. Some of them were not even curious to see the white man
who covered the mysterious land beyond the desert. The men of mystery
in the tribe, the priests and the soothsayers, deeply resented the
prying curiosity and the noisy impertinence of the occasional cowboy
who rode across the desert to see some of their solemn rites with
snakes and owls.

The white men grew in power just beyond the horizon line, but they
asked no favors of him. They planted their corn in the sand where
the floods ran, they guarded their hardy melons, and gathered
their gnarled and rusty peaches year by year as contentedly as any
people—chanting devout prayers and songs of thanksgiving to the
deities that preside over the clouds and the fruitful earth. They
did not ask for the corrugated-iron roofs of the houses which an
officious government built for them, nor for the little schoolhouse
which the insistent missionary built at the foot of their mesa.

They were a gentle folk—small and round and brown of limb, peaceful
and kindly. The men on their return from the fields at night
habitually took their babes to their arms—and it was curious and
beautiful to see them sitting thus on their housetops, waiting for
supper—their crowing infants on their knees. Such action disturbed
all preconceived notions of desert dwellers.

They had their own governors, their sages, their physicians. Births
and deaths went on among them accompanied by the same joy and sorrow
that visit other human beings in greener lands. They did not complain
of their desert. They loved it, and when at dawn they looked down
upon the sapphire mists which covered it like a sea, song sprang to
their lips, and they rode forth to their toil, caroling like larks.

True, pestilences swept over them from time to time—and droughts
afflicted them—but these they accepted as punishment for some
devotional remission on their part and redoubled their zealous
chants. They had no doubts, they knew their way of life was superior
to that of their neighbors, the Tinné; and their traditions of
the Spaniards who had visited them, centuries before, were not
pleasant—they put a word of fervent thanks into their songs that “the
men of iron” came no more.

But this new white man—this horseman who wore a wide hat—who sent
pale-faced women into the desert to teach a new kind of song, and
the worship of a new kind of deity—this restless keen-eyed, decisive
_Americano_ came in larger numbers year by year. He insisted that all
Pueblan ways were wrong—only his were right.

Ultimately he built an Iron Khiva near the foot of the trail, and
sent word among all the Pueblo peoples that they should come and
view this house—and bring their children, and leave them to learn the
white man’s ways.

“We do not care to learn the white man’s way,” replied the head men
of the village. “We have our own ways, which are suited to us and
to our desert, ways we have come to love. We are afraid to change.
Always we have lived in this manner on this same rock, in the midst
of this sand. Always we have worn this fashion of garments—we did not
ask you to come—we do not ask you to stay nor to teach our children.
We are glad to welcome you as visitors—we do not want you as our
masters.”

“We have come to teach you a new religion,” said the missionary.

“We do not need a new religion. Why should we change? Our religion is
good. We understand it. Our fathers gave it to us. Yours is well for
you—we do not ask you to change to ours. We are willing you should go
your way—why do you insist on our accepting yours?”

Then the brows of the men in black coats grew very stern, and they
said:

“If you do not do as we say and send your children to our Iron House
to learn our religion, we will bring blue-coated warriors here to
make you do so!”

Then the little brown people retreated to their rock and said: “The
iron men of the olden time have come again in a new guise,” and they
were very sad, and deep in their cavelike temples in the rocks, they
prayed and sang that this curse might pass by and leave them in peace
once more.

Nevertheless, there were stout hearts among them, men who said: “Let
us die in defense of our homes! If we depart from the ways of our
fathers for fear of these fierce strangers—our gods will despise us.”

These bold ones pushed deep into the inner rooms of their khivas,
and uncovered broken spears, and war clubs long unused—and restrung
their rude bows and sharpened their arrows, while the sad old
sages sang mournful songs in the sacred temples under ground—and
children ceasing their laughter crept about in coveys like scared
quail—dreading they knew not what.

Then the white men withdrew, and for a time the Pueblans rejoiced.
The peaceful life of their ancestors came back upon them. The men
again rode singing to the purple plain at sunrise. The old women,
groaning and muttering together, went down to the spring for water.
The deft potters resumed their art—the girls in chatting, merry
groups, plastered the houses or braided mats. The sound of the
grinding of corn was heard in every dwelling.

But there were those who had been away across the plain and who
had seen whence these disturbing invaders came—they were still
dubious—they waited, saying: “We fear they will come again! They are
like the snows of winter, bitter and not to be turned aside with
words.”

One day they came again—these fierce, implacable white men—preceded
by warriors in blue, who rode big horses—horses ten times as large
as a burro, and they were all agrin like wild cats, and they camped
near the Iron Khiva, and the war chief sent word to all the men of
the hill to assemble, for he intended to speak to them. “Your Little
Father is here also, and wishes to see you.”

All night this imperious summons was debated by the fathers, and
at last it was agreed that six old men should go down—six gray
grandsires—and hear what this war chief had to say.

“We can but die a few days before our time,” they said. “If they
carry us into the East to torture us—it will not be for long. Our old
bones will soon fall apart.”

So while all the villagers sat on their housetops to watch in silence
and dread, the aged ones wrinkled, gray, and half blind, made their
sad way down toward the peace grove in which the white lodges of the
warriors glittered. With unfaltering steps led by the chief priest of
the Antelope Clan, they approached and stood in silence before the
war chief of the bluecoats who came to meet them. Speaking through a
Tinné interpreter, he said:

“The Great Father, my chief, has sent me to tell you this. You must
do as this man says,” and he pointed at the man in black. “He is your
teacher. He has come to gather your children into that Iron House and
teach them the white man’s ways. If you don’t—if you make war—then I
will go up against you with my warriors and my guns that go _boom_,
_boom_, _boom_, a hundred times, and I will destroy you. These are
the commands of my chief.”

When the old men returned with this direful message, despair seized
upon the people. “Evil times are again upon us,” they cried. “Surely
these are the iron men more terrible than before.”

They debated voluminously all night long, and at last decided to
fight—but in the early morning a terrible noise was heard below on
the plain, and when they rushed to see—behold the warriors in blue
were rushing to and fro on their horses, shouting, firing off their
appalling weapons. It was plain they were doing a war dance out of
wanton strength, and so terrible did they seem that the hearts of the
small people became as wax. “We can do nothing against such men; they
are demons; they hold the thunder in the palms of their hands. Let
us submit; perhaps they will grow weary of the heat and sand and go
away. Perhaps they will long for their wives and children and leave
us. We will wait.”

Others said: “Let us send our children—what will it matter? We can
watch over them, they will be near us, and we can see that they do
not forget our teachings. Our religion will not vanish out of their
minds.”

So the old men went again to the war chief, and, with bowed heads and
trembling voices, said: “We yield. You are mighty in necromancy and
we are poor and weak. Our children shall go to the Iron Khiva.”

Then the war chief gave them his hand and smiled, and said: “I do not
make war with pleasure. I am glad you have submitted to the commands
of my great chief. Live in peace!”

III

For two years the children went almost daily to the Iron Khiva, and
they came to love one of those who taught them—a white woman with a
gentle face—but the man in the black coat who told the children that
the religion of their fathers was wicked and foolish—him they hated
and bitterly despised. He was sour-faced and fearful of voice. He
shouted so loud the children were scared—they had no breath to make
reply when he addressed them.

But to even this creature they became accustomed, and the life of the
village was not greatly disturbed. True, the children began to speak
in a strange tongue and fell into foolish songs which did little
harm—they were, in fact, amusing, and, besides, when the cattlemen
came by and wished to buy baskets and blankets, these skilled
children could speak their barbarous tongue—and once young Kopeli
took his son who had mastered this hissing language, and went afar to
trade, and brought back many things of value. He had been to the home
of the Little Father, and the fort.

In short the Pueblans were getting reconciled to the Iron Khiva
and the white people, and several years went by so peacefully,
with so little change in their life and thought, that only the
most far-seeing expressed fear of coming trouble—but one night the
children came home in a panic—breathless and storming with excitement.

A stranger had arrived at the Iron House, accompanied by a tall old
man who claimed authority over them—the man who lived in the big
white man’s town—and they had said to the teacher, “we want six
children to take away with us into the East.”

This was incredible to the people of the cliff, and they answered:
“You were mistaken, you did not understand. They would not come to
tear our children from our arms.”

[Illustration: A Cow-puncher Visiting an Indian Village

_Far in advance of settlers, in those early days when every man
had to fight for his right of way, the American cow-puncher used
to journey along the waste hundreds of miles of the then far
Western country. Like a true soldier of fortune, he adventured
with bold carelessness, ever ready for war, but not love; for in
the Indian villages he visited there was no woman that such a man
as he was could take to his heart._

_Illustration from_
THE EVOLUTION OF THE COW-PUNCHER
_by_ Owen Wister

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _September, 1895_]

[Illustration: An Apache Indian

_In the ’eighties the habitat of the Apaches was in the Sierra
Madre Mountains in Arizona. When pursued the Apaches always
took to the mountains. They were hideously cruel. The settlers
entertained a perfect dread of these marauding bands, whose
onslaughts were so sudden that they were never seen. When they
struck, all that would be seen was the flash of the rifle,
resting with secure aim over a pile of stones or a bowlder,
behind which was the red-handed murderer._

_Illustration from_
SOME INDIAN RIDERS
_by_ Colonel Theodore Ayrault Dodge, U.S.A.

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _May, 1891_]

But the little ones were shivering with fear and would not go back to
the plain. They moaned and wept all night—and at sunrise the old men
went down to the Iron House, and said:

“Our little ones came home last night, crying. They said you had
threatened to carry them away into the East; what does this mean?”

Then the strange men said, “This is true. We want six of your
children to take away to school. We will not hurt them. They will
live in a big house, they will have warm clothing, they will want for
nothing. We are your friends. We want to teach your children the ways
of the white man.”

Passionately the grandsires responded. “We do not want to hear of
these things. Our children are happy here, their hearts will break if
you take them away. We will not submit to this. We will fight and die
together.”

Then the old white man who had been speaking became furious. His
voice was sharp and fierce. “If you don’t give up the children I will
take them. You are all fools—your religion is wicked, and you are not
fit to teach your children. My religion, my God, is the only God that
is true and righteous, and I will take your children in order that
you may be taught the true path and become as white men.”

Then the old men withdrew hurriedly, their lips set in a grim line.
Their return—their report, froze every heart. It was true then—these
merciless men of the East were planning to carry their children
into captivity. Swiftly the word passed, the goats were driven into
their corrals, the water bags were filled, the storehouses were
replenished. “We will not go down to the plain. Our children shall go
no more to the Iron House. If they take them, it will be when all our
warriors are dead.”

So it was that when the agent and the missionaries climbed the mesa
path they came upon a barricade of rocks, and men with bows and war
clubs grimly standing guard. They made little talk—they merely said,
“Go your ways, white men, and leave us alone. Go look to your own
sons and daughters, and we will take care of ours. The world is wide
to the East, go back to it.”

The agent said, “If you do not send your children down to school I
will call my warriors, and I will kill every man with a war club in
his hand.”

To this young Kopeli, the war chief, said: “We will die in defense of
our home and our children. We were willing that our children should
go down to the Iron Khiva—till now—now when you threaten to steal
them and carry them afar into captivity where we can never see them
again, we rebel. We will fight! Of what value is life without our
children? Your great war chief will not ask this hard thing of us. If
he does then he has our answer.”

Then with dark faces the white men went away and sent a messenger
across the desert, and three days later the sentinels of the highest
roof saw the bluecoat warriors coming again. Raising a wild song,
the war song of the clan, the cliff people hastily renewed their
defenses. They pried great rocks from the ledges, and set them where
they could be toppled on the heads of the invaders. They built the
barricades higher. They burnished their arrows and ground their
sickles. Every man and boy stood ready to fight and die in defense of
their right to life, and liberty, and their rocky home.

Once again the timid prevailed; they said: “See this terrible white
man, his weapons are most murderous. He can sit where he is, in
safety, and send his missiles against our unprotected babes. He is
too great. Let us make our peace with him.”

So at last, for a third time, the elders went down to talk with the
conquerors, and said, “What can we do to make our peace with you?”

Then the tall, old man said, “If you will give us two of your
brightest sons to go away into the East we will ask no more, but
your other children must return to the Iron House each day as before.”

The elders withdrew, and the news flew about the pueblo, and every
mother looked at her handsomest son in sudden terror, and the men
assembled in furious debate. The war party cried out with great
bitterness of clamor, “Let us fight and die! We are tired of being
chased like wolves.” But at last up rose old Hozro, and said, “I
have a son—you know him. He is a good son, and he has quick feet and
a ready tongue. He is not a brawler. He is beloved of his teachers.
Now, in order that we may be left in peace, I will give my son.”

His short and passionate speech was received with expressions of
astonishment as well as approval, for the boy Lelo was a model
youth—and Hozro a proud father. “What will the mother say?” thought
all the men who sat in the council.

Then gray old Supela, chief priest and sage, rose slowly, and said,
“I have no son—but my son’s son I have. Him I will dedicate, though
he is a part of my heart. I will cut him away because I love peace
and hate war. Because if the white man rages against us he will
slaughter everybody.”

While yet they were in discussion some listening boys crept away and
scattered the word among the women and children. “Lelo and Sakoni are
to be bound and cast among the white men.”

There was wailing in the houses as though a plague had smitten them
again—and the mothers of the lads made passionate protestations
against the sacrifice of their sons—all to no purpose. The war chief
came to tell them to make ready. “In the morning we must take the
lads to their captors.”

But when morning came they could not be found in their accustomed
places, they had fled upon the desert to the West. Then, while the
best trailers searched for their footprints, the fathers of the tribe
went down and told the white chief. He said:

“I do not believe it, you are deceiving me.”

“Come and see,” said Hozro, and led the way round the mesa to the
point where the trailers were slowly tracing the course of the
fugitives.

“They are running,” said young Klee. “They are badly scared.”

“Perhaps they go to Oraibi,” said one of the priests.

“We have sent runners to all the villages. No, they are heading for
the great desert.”

They followed them out beyond all hope of water—out into the desolate
sand—where the sun flamed like a flood of fire and only the sparse
skunk-weed grew—and at last sharp eyes detected two dark flecks on
the side of a dune of yellow sand.

“There they are!” cried Klee, the trailer.

The stern old white man spurred his horse—the soldier chief did the
same—but Klee outran them all. He topped the sand dune at a swift
trot, but there halted and stood immovably gazing downward.

At last he came slowly down the slope and, meeting the white man, the
agent, and the soldier, he said, with a sullen, accusing face, and
with bitter scorn:

“There they are; go get them; my work is done!”

With wonder in their looks the pursuers rode to the top of the hill
and stood for a moment looking; then the lean hand of old Hozro
lifted and pointed to a little hollow. “There they lie—exhausted!”

But Klee turned and said, “They are not sleeping—they are dead! I
feel it.”

With a sudden hoarse cry the father plunged down the hill and fell
above the body of his son.

When the white men came to him they perceived that the bodies of the
boys lay in the dark stain of their own blood as in a blanket. They
were dead, slain by their own hands.

Then old Hozro rose and said, “White man, this is your work. Go back
to your home. Is not your thirst slaked? Drink up the blood of my
son and go back to the white wolves who sent you. Leave us with our
dead!”

In silence, with faces ashamed and heads hanging, the war chief and
stern old white man rode back to their camp, leaving the heroic
father and grandsire alone in the desert.

That night the great mesa was a hill of song, a place of lamentation.
Hozro and Supela were like men stunned by a sudden blow. The old
grandsire wept till his cry became a moan, but Hozro, as the
greatness of his loss came to him, grew violent.

Mounting his horse, he rode fiercely up and down the streets.
“Now, will you fight, cowards, prairie dogs? Send word to all the
villages—assemble our warriors—no more talk now; let us battle!”

But when the morning came, behold the tents of the white soldiers
were taken down, and when the elders went forth to parley, the
soldier chief said:

“You need not send your children away. If they come down here to the
Iron House that is enough. I am a just man; I will not fight you to
take your children away. I go to see the Great Father and to plead
against this man and his ways.”

“And so our sons died not in vain,” said Supela to Hozro, as they met
on the mesa top.

“Aye, but they are dead!” said Hozro, fiercely. “The going of the
white man will not bring them back.”

And the stricken mothers sat with haggard faces and unseeing eyes;
they took no comfort in the knowledge that the implacable white man
had fled with the blue-coated warriors.

THE NEW MEDICINE HOUSE

The spring had been cold and wet, and pneumonia was common throughout
the reservation on the Rosebud, and yet the trained nurse whom the
government had sent out to preside over the little school hospital
had little to do.

She was a grimly conscientious person, but not lovable. Men had not
considered her in their home plans, and a tragic melancholy darkened
her thin, plain visage, and loneliness added something hard and
repellent to her devotional nature. She considered herself a martyr,
one carried to far countries for the love of the gentle Galilean. She
never complained vocably, but her stooping walk, her downcast eyes,
and her oft-bitten lips revealed her discontent with great clearness
to the red people, who interpret such signs by instinct.

“Why does she come here?” asked reflective old Tah-You, the sage of
the camp on the Rosebud.

“She comes to do you good, to give your children medicine when they
are sick,” replied the subagent, speaking in signs.

“She is not happy. Send her away. We do not need her. I am medicine
giver.”

“I can’t do that. Washington sent her. She must stay. She looks
unhappy, but she is quite content. When your children are sick you
should send them to her.”

To this Tah-You made slow answer. “For many generations we have
taken care of our own sick in our own way,” said he. “I do not think
Washington should require us to give up all our ways. You tell
Washington that we are able to care for our sick.”

It was only later that the agent found that the little hospital,
the pride of his eyes, had been tabooed among the tribe from the
very start. On the surface this did not appear. The children marched
over, two and two, each morning, and took their prevention medicine
with laughter, for it had a sweet taste, and the daily march was a
ceremony. Their teacher took occasion to show them the clean white
walls and the wide soft beds, and told them to tell their parents
that this beautiful little house was for any one who was sick.

To this they all listened with that patient docility which is their
most marked characteristic, and some of the old men came and looked
at the “medicine house” and spoke with the “medicine woman,” and
while they did not show enthusiasm, they were not openly opposed.

All this gave way to a hidden, determined aversion after one of the
employees had died in the place. The nurse, being sheathed in the
boiler iron of her own superstitions, could not understand the change
in the attitude of the red people. It was not her business to give
way to or even to take into account their own feelings. If they were
sick she insisted that the superintendent hale them forthwith to her
rooms and bind them on her beds of painful neatness. The opposition
of the old people she would put down with the bayonet if necessary.

A group of the old men came to the agent and said: “Friend, a white
man has died in the medicine house. That is bad. Among us we do not
let any one use the lodge in which one has died—we burn it and all
that is connected with the dead one. There is something evil which
comes from the clothing of one who is dead of a disease. We do not
wish our children to enter this medicine house.”

“Furthermore,” said Tah-You, “there are many bottles standing about
in the house, and they stink very strong—they make us sick even when
we go in for a few moments. It is not good for our children to sleep
there when they are ill.

“More than this,” continued Tah-You, prompted by another, “the
medicine woman drinks whisky in the night, and our children ought not
to see that their medicine woman is a drunkard.”

Slowly and painfully Mr. Williams explained that all the bed-clothes
were purified and the room made clean after a person died in it. Also
that the smell of the bottles was not harmful. As to the medicine
woman and her drinking, they were mistaken. She was taking some drink
for her cough.

“We do not believe in keeping a house for people to die in,” repeated
Tah-You. “Spirits and things evil hover round such a place. They cry
in the night and make a sick child worse. They are very lonely. It
is better that they come back to the tepee when they are ill. The
children are now frightened, and we want you to promise that when any
of them fall sick you will not send them to this lonesome house which
is death-tainted.”

The face of the agent hardened. To this end he knew the talk would
come. “Listen, friends. Washington is educating your children. He is
feeding them. He has sent also a medicine man and a medicine woman to
take care of you when you are ill. I have built a nice clean house
for you to be sick in. When your children are sick they must go
there. I will not consent to their returning to the tepee.”

This was the usual and unavoidable end of every talk. Every wish
of the red man was necessarily thwarted—for that is manifestly the
way to civilize them. They rose silently, sadly, with the patient
resignation to which they had schooled themselves, and passed out,
leaving the agent with a sneaking, heart-burning sense of being
woefully in the wrong.

In the weeks that followed, the smug little hospital stood empty,
for no sick one from the camp would so much as look toward its
glass-paneled door. The children no longer laughed as they lined
up for their physic. The nurse sat and read by the window, with no
duties but those of caring for her own bed. She had the professed
sympathy of all those who have keen noses for the superstitions
of other people, but none whatever for their own. She thought “the
government should force these Indians to come in and be treated.”

And as for Tah-You, these people of a creed were agreed that he was
the meanest Indian in the tribe, and it was his influence which stood
in the way of the medicine woman’s curative courses, and interfered
with the plan to convert them into Christian citizens. “The power of
these medicine men must be broken,” said the Rev. Alonzo Jones.

Once in a while a child was made to stay overnight in the dread,
sleek little rooms of the hospital, but each one escaped at the
earliest moment. In one case, when the sick one chanced to be an
orphan, she was made a shining decoy and coddled and fed on dainties
fit for a daughter of millions, in order that her enthusiastic report
of the currant jelly and chicken broth might soften the hearts of her
companions toward the hard-glazed walls and echoing corridors of the
little prison house. But it did not. She told of the smells, of the
awful silence and loneliness, of the sour-faced nurse who did many
most mysterious things in the deep of the night, and the other girls
shuddered and laughed nervously and said, “When we are sick we will
run away and go to camp.” The opposition deepened and widened.

The struggle came when Robert, the first sergeant of the school, the
captain of the baseball team, fell sick. He was a handsome, steady,
good-humored boy of twenty, of fine physical development, and a
good scholar. He spoke English readily and colloquially, and was
a cheering example of what a reservation school can turn out. The
superintendent trusted him implicitly, and found him indispensable
in the government of the school and the management of the farm
and garden, and the agent often invited him to his house to meet
visitors.

[Illustration: At an Apache Indian Agency

_This incident occurred in the days of the so-called “Indian
Ring,” when the Interior Department used to appoint as Indian
agents men whose sole object was to enrich themselves by stealing
the property of their savage wards. As a result of their reckless
operations there was constant friction between these agents and
the men of the army._

_Illustration from_
NATCHEZ’S PASS
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _February, 1901_]

[Illustration: The Adventure of Old Sun’s Wife

_When a mere maid, the chief of the Gros Ventres Indians kidnaped
her and, binding her securely to himself, rode off for his own
village. When within sight of their destination the girl stabbed
him, killing him. This feat not only won her the right to wear
three eagle feathers, but Old Sun, the rich and powerful chief of
the North Blackfeet Indians of Canada, made her his wife._

_Illustration from_
CHARTERING A NATION
_by_ Julian Ralph

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _December, 1891_]

Robert, after ploughing all one cold, rainy afternoon, took a griping
chill and developed a cough which troubled him for some days. He said
nothing about it, and kept on with his work when he should have been
in bed, for he dreaded the hospital, and was careful to minimize
all his bad symptoms, but one morning he found himself unable to
rise, and the doctor pronounced him a very sick boy—“Another case of
pneumonia,” said he.

Robert was silent as they moved him across the road into the men’s
ward of the little hospital; but his eyes, bright with fever, seemed
to plead for something, and when the agent bent down to ask him if he
wanted anything, the boy whispered, “Stay with me.”

“All right, Robert, I’ll watch with you to-night. I must go now, but
I’ll come back at noon.”

It was a long day for the sick boy, who watched and listened, giving
little heed to the nurse who was tirelessly active in ministering to
his needs. He knew just what was going on each minute. He listened
for the assembly bell at seven o’clock. He could see the boys in
their uniforms lining up in the halls. Now they were marching to
chapel. They were singing the first song—he could hear them. Now they
were listening to the little talk of the superintendent—and all was
quiet.

At last they went whooping to their games in the play hour just
before bedtime, and it seemed hard to lie there and hear them and be
alone and forgotten. “The teachers will come to see me,” he thought,
“and some of the boys.” But they did not come. It began to grow dark
at last, and the taciturn nurse lit a smoking lamp and sat down to
read. When she asked him a question it sounded like the snarl of a
cat, but her hands were tender and deft. Oh, it was hard to be sick
and lie still so long!

When the agent came in the boy said: “Major, tell my mother. Let her
come. Tell her I’m very sick, Major!”

“All right, Robert. I’ll take the first opportunity to send her word.
But she’s a long way off, you know. I hear she went to Tah-You’s old
camp. But I will watch with you, my boy. Go to sleep and rest.”

The boy grew very much worse in the night, and in his temporary
delirium he called piteously for his mother and in his native tongue,
and the agent told one of the policemen to carry word to the mother,
“Pawnee Woman,” that her son was sick. “Say to her that we are doing
all we can for him, and that he is in no danger,” he added.

That day was a long day to Robert, a day that was filled with moments
of delirium as a June day is filled with cloud shadows. Each hour
carried him farther from the white man’s religion and the white man’s
medicine—only his good agent comforted him; to him he clung with
ever-weakening fingers. The agency doctor, earnest to the limits of
his powers (you can’t buy great learning at eight hundred dollars per
year), drew the agent aside and said: “The boy is in for a siege,
Major. His temperature is rising in spite of everything. He must be
watched closely to-night.”

“I’ll look out for that,” said Williams. Weary as he was, he watched
again the second night, for the boy would not let him go, and his
heart was very tender toward him.

The next morning as he sat in his little office he heard the swift
soft thud of moccasined feet in the hall, and a timid knock. “Come!”
he shouted, and before he could turn, a Cheyenne woman ran swiftly
in. Her comely face was set in tragic lines of grief, and sobbing
convulsively, while the tears flooded her cheeks. She laid one hand
upon the agent’s shoulder, and with the other she signed: “Father, my
son is going to die. Your work and your lodge have killed him. Have
pity!” As she signed she wailed heart-brokenly, “He will die.”

“Dry your tears,” he replied, “He is not going to die. Two nights I
have watched with him. I have myself given him strong medicine. He is
better.”

She moaned as if all hope were gone. “No, no. He is very sick,
father. He does not know me. His eyes are like those of a dead boy.
Oh, have pity! Come with me. Come and aid him.”

To comfort her the weary man went back to the hospital, and as they
entered, the mother made a wild gesture of repulsion, and said to the
nurse: “Go away, dog woman! You are killing my son.”

In vain Williams tried to tell her how faithful the nurse had been.
She would not listen.

“Father, let me take my son to the lodge. Then he will get well.”

He shook his head. “No, that would not do. He would die on the way.
Let him stay here till he is better. You and I will watch over him
here. No harm will come then. See how nice and clean his bed is, how
sheltered his room is. It will be cold and windy in camp; he will be
made worse. Let him remain till he is able to stand. Then it will be
safe to take him away.”

By putting forth all his powers of persuasion he comforted and
reassured the distracted mother, and she sat down in the hospital;
but an understanding that she wanted to have Tah-You the medicine
man visit the boy and breathe upon him and sing to him ran round
the school and the agency, and the missionaries and the nurse were
furious.

“The idea of that nasty old heathen coming into the hospital!” said
the nurse to one of the teachers. “If he comes, I leave—that’s all!”

The doctor laughed. “The old cuss might do him good. Who knows?”

The Reverend Jones pleaded with Williams: “Don’t permit it. It will
corrupt the whole school. Deep in their hearts they all believe in
the old medicine man, and if you give in to them it will set them all
back ten years. Don’t let them take Robert to camp on any plea. All
they want to do is to smoke and make gibberish over him.”

To these impassioned appeals Williams could only say: “I can’t order
them not to do so. They are free citizens under our present law, and
I have no absolute control over them. If they insist on taking Robert
to camp, I can’t stop them.”

Mr. Jones went away with a bitter determination to make some kind of
complaint against somebody, to something—he couldn’t quite make up
his mind to whom.

Then old Tah-You came, very grave and very gentle, and said: “Father,
the Great Spirit in the beginning made both the white man and the
red man. Once I thought we could not be friends and live on the same
soil. I am old now and wise in things I once knew nothing of. I now
see that the white man knows many good things—and I know also that
the red man is mistaken about many other things. Therefore we should
lay our medicines side by side, and when we have chosen the better,
throw the worthless one away. I have come to put my curative charms
and my lotions beside those of the white medicine man. I will learn
of him, he will learn of me. This sick boy is my grandson. He is
very ill. I ask you to let me go in to him, and look upon him, and
smoke the sacred pipe, and breathe upon him, and heal him with strong
decoction of roots.”

To this Williams replied: “Tah-You, what you ask I cannot grant. This
medicine house was built for the white man’s doctor by people who do
not believe as you do. Those who gave the money would be very angry
at me if I let you enter the door.”

The old man’s face fell and his lips worked as he watched the signs
made by the white chief.

“So be it,” he replied as he rose. “The white man’s heart is hard.
His eyes are the eyes of a wolf. He gives only in his own way. He
makes all men walk in his own road. He will kill my son and laugh.”

Williams rose also. “Do not harden your heart to me, friend. I know
that much of your medicine is good. I do not say you shall not treat
the boy. To-morrow, if he is no better, you can take him to camp. I
cannot prevent that, but if you do and he dies I am not to blame.”

The old man’s face grew tender. “I see now that you are our friend. I
am content.”

The Reverend Mr. Jones came down upon the agent again, and the nurse
and the teachers (though they dared say nothing) looked bitter
displeasure. It seemed that the props on which their sky rested,
were tottering, but Williams calmly said: “To have the boy die in
hospital would do us a great deal more harm than to have him treated
by Tah-You. Were you ever young? Don’t you remember what it meant
to have your old grandmother come and give you boneset tea and sit
by your bed? Robert is like any other boy; he longs for his old
grandfather, and would be quieted and rested by a return to the
tepee. I will not sacrifice the boy for the sake of your mission. I
won’t take any such responsibility.”

“It will kill him to be moved,” said the nurse.

“I’m not so sure of that. Anyhow and finally, these people, under
the present ruling of the department, are citizens, and I have no
authority to make them do this or that. I have given my consent to
their plan—and that ends the matter.”

Early the next morning the father and mother, together with the
grandmother, tenderly folded Robert in a blanket and took him away
to camp, and all day the missionaries could hear the sound of the
medicine man’s rattle, and his low chant as he strove to drive out
the evil influences, and some of them were exceedingly bitter, and
the chief of the big medicine house was very sad, for it seemed that
his work was being undone.

Now it happened that Tah-You’s camp stood in the bend of the deep
little river, and the tepees were based in sweet-smelling grasses,
and when the sick boy opened his eyes after his swoon, he caught
the flicker of leaf shadows on the yellowed conical walls of his
mother’s lodge, and heard the mocking-bird’s song in the oaks. The
kind, wrinkled face of his grandfather, the medicine man, bent over
him, and the loving hands of his mother were on his neck. He was at
home again! His heart gave a throb of joy, and then his eyes closed,
a sweet langour crept over him, an utter content, and he fell asleep
with the humming song of Tah-You carrying him ever farther from the
world of the white man’s worry and unrest.

The following day, as Williams lifted the door-flap and entered,
Tah-You sat contentedly smoking. The mother, who was sewing on a
moccasin, looked up with a happy smile on her face and said, “He is
almost well, my son.”

“I am glad,” said Williams.

Tah-You blew a whiff from his pipe and said, with a spark of
deep-seated humor in his glance:

“The white men are very clever, but there are some things which they
do not know. You—you are half red man; that accounts for your good
heart. You see my medicine is very strong.”

Williams laughed and turned toward the boy who lay looking out at the
dear world with big, unwavering eyes. “Robert, how are you?”

Slowly the boys lips shaped the whispered word, “Better.”

“There is no place like home and mother when you’re sick, Robert.
Hurry up and get well. I need you.”

As Williams was going, the mother rose and took his hand and cried
out, poignantly: “You are good. You let me have my son. You have
saved him from the cruel-hearted medicine woman. Do not let her make
evil medicine upon us.”

“I will not let any one hurt him. Be at peace.”

Then the mother’s face shone with a wonderful smile. She stood in
silence with heaving breast as her white chieftain went out. “He is
good,” she said. “He is our brother.”

To this, serene old Tah-You nodded: “He knows my medicine is very
strong—for he is half red man.”

RISING WOLF—GHOST DANCER

He sat in the shade of the lodge, smoking his pipe. His face was
thin, keen, and very expressive. The clear brown of his skin was
pleasant to see, and his hair, wavy from long confinement in braids,
was glossy as a blackbird’s wing. Around his neck he wore a yellow
kerchief—yellow was his “medicine” color—and he held a soiled white
robe about his loins. He was about fifty years of age, but seemed
less than forty.

He studied me quizzically as I communicated to him my wish to hear
the story of his life, and laughingly muttered some jocose remark to
his pretty young wife, who sat near him on a blanket, busy at some
needlework. The humorous look passed out of his face as he mused, the
shadows lengthened on the hot, dry grass, and on the smooth slopes of
the buttes the sun grew yellow.

After a long pause, he lifted his head and began to speak in a low
and pleasant voice. He used no gestures, and his glance was like that
of one who sees a small thing on a distant hill.

“I am well brought up,” were his first words. “My father was chief
medicine man[1] of his tribe, and one who knew all the stories of
his people. I was his best-loved son, and he put me into the dances
of the warriors when I was three years old. I carried one of his
war-bonnet feathers in my hand, and was painted like the big warriors.

“When my father wished to give a horse to the Cut Throat or Burnt
Thigh people who visited us and danced with us, he put into my hands
the little stick which counted for a horse, and I walked across the
circle by his side and handed the stick to our friend. Then my mother
was proud of me, and I was glad to see her smile.

“My father made me the best bows, and my mother made pretty
moccasins for me, covered with bright beads and the stained quills of
the porcupine. I had ponies to ride, and a little tepee of my own in
which to play I was chief.

“When I was a little older I loved well to sit near my father and the
old men and hear them tell stories of the days that were gone. My
father’s stories were to me the best of all, and the motions of his
hands the most beautiful. I could sit all day to listen. Best of all
I liked the stories of magic deeds.

“One day my father saw me holding my ear to the talk, and at night he
said to me, ‘My son, I see you are to be a medicine man. You are not
to be a warrior. When you are older, I will teach you the secrets of
my walk, and you shall follow in my path.’

“Thereafter I watched everything the medicine men did. I crept near,
and listened to their words. I followed them with my eyes when they
went aside to pray. Where magic was being done—there was I. At the
dance I saw my father fling live squirrels from his empty hand. I saw
him breathe smoke upon the body of a dead bird, and it awoke and ran
to a wounded man and tore out the rotting flesh and cured him. I saw
a mouse come to life in the same way. I saw the magic bladder move
when no one touched it; and I saw a man buried and covered with a big
stone too great for four men to lift, and I saw him come forth as if
the stone were a blanket.

“I saw there were many ways to become a medicine man. One man went
away on a high mountain, and there stood and cried all the day and
all the night, saying:

“‘O Great Spirit!
I am a poor man.
I want to be wise.
I want to be big medicine man.
Help me, Great Spirit!
I want to be honored among my people.
Help me get blankets, horses.
Help me raise my children.
Help me live long,
Honored of my people.’

“So he chanted many hours, without food or water, and it was cold
also. At last he fell down in a sleep and dreamed. When he came home,
he had medicine. A big bird had told him many secrets.

“Another went into a sweat house to purify himself. He stayed all
night inside, crying to the Great Spirit. He, too, dreamed, but he
did not tell his dreams.

“A third man went into his tepee on a hill near the camp, and there,
with nothing to eat or drink, sat crying like the other two, and at
last he slept, and in the night voices that were not of his mouth
came in the tepee, and I, who listened unobserved, was afraid, and
his women were afraid also. He soon became a great medicine man; and
I went to my father, and I said:

“‘Make me a medicine man like Spotted Elk.’

“He looked upon me and said:

“‘My son, you are too young.’

“Nevertheless I insisted, and he promised that, when I became sixteen
years of age, he would help me to become like Spotted Elk. This
pleased me.

“As I grew older I put away in my memory all the stories my father
knew of our people. I listened always when the old men talked. I
watched the medicine men as they smoked to the Great Spirits of the
world. I crept near, and heard them cry to the Great Spirit overhead
and to the Dark One who lives below the earth. I listened all the
time, and by listening I grew wise as an old man.

“I knew all the wonderful stories of the coyote and of the
rattlesnake. I knew what the eagle said to his mate, and I knew the
power of the great bear who sits erect like a man. I was a hunter,
but I followed the game to learn its ways. In those days we were
buffalo eaters. We did not eat fish, nor fowl, nor rabbits, nor the
meat of bear. Our women pounded wild cherries and made cakes of them,
and of that we ate sometimes, but always we lived upon buffalo meat,
and we were well and strong, not as we are now.

“I learned to make my own bows and also to make moccasins,
though that was women’s work, and I did not sew beads or paint
porcupine quills. I wanted to know all things—to tan hides, to draw
pictures—all things.

“By and by time came when I was to become a medicine man. My father
took me to Spotted Elk, the greatest of all medicine men, he that
could make birds from lumps of meat and mice from acorns.

“To him my father said: ‘My son wishes to be great medicine man.
Because you are old and wise I bring him to you. Help me to give him
wisdom.’

“Then they took me to a tepee on a hill far from the camp, and there
they sat down with me and sang the old, old songs of our tribe. They
took food, and offered it to the Great Spirits who lived in the six
directions, beginning at the southeast. Then they smoked, always
beginning at the southeast. This they taught me to do, and to chant a
prayer to each. Then they closed the tepee, and left me alone.

“All night I cried to the Great Spirits:

“‘Hear me—oh, hear me!
You are close beside me.
You are here in the tepee.
Hear me, for I am poor and weak.
I wish to be great medicine man.
I need horses, blankets. I am a boy.
I wish to be great and rich.
Hear me—oh, hear me!’

“All night, all next day I cried. I grew hungry and cold by and by.
I fell asleep; then came to me in my sleep a fox, and he opened
his mouth, and talked to me. He told me to put weasel skin full of
medicine, and wear fox skin on my head, and that would make me big
medicine. Then he went away, and I woke up.

[Illustration: The Medicine Man’s Signal

_Illustration from_
THE SIOUX OUTBREAK IN SOUTH DAKOTA
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _January 24, 1891_]

[Illustration: The Ghost Dance by the Ogallala Sioux at Pine Ridge
Agency, Dakota, December, 1890

_Illustration from_
THE NEW INDIAN MESSIAH
_by_ Lieutenant Marion P. Maus, U.S.A.

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _December 6, 1890_]

“I was very hungry, and I opened the tepee and came out, and it was
sunrise. My father was sleeping on the ground, and when I touched
him, he woke quickly and said:

“‘My son, I am glad to see you. I heard voices that were not yours
calling in the tepee, and I was afraid.’

“‘All is well,’ I said. ‘Give me food.’

“When I was fed, I took my bow and arrow and went forth to kill a
weasel. When I was alone, I sat down and prayed to the Great Spirits
of the six world directions, and smoked, beginning at the southeast,
and a voice came in my ear which said, ‘I will lead you.’ Soon I came
upon a large, sleeping weasel; he was white all over as snow, though
it was yet fall. Him I killed and skinned, and stretched the pelt on
a flat stick to make a pouch. Then I sought the medicine to go in it.
What that was I will not tell, but at last it was filled, and then I
slew a big red fox, and out of his fur I made my cap.

“Each night I went into my tepee alone to smoke and chant, and each
night strange birds and animals came to me and talked and taught me
much wisdom. Then came voices of my ancestors, and taught me how to
cure the sick and how to charm the buffalo and the elk. Then I began
to help my father to heal the sick people, and I became honored among
my companions; and when I caught a maid on her way to the spring,
she did not struggle; she was glad to talk with me, for I had a fine
tepee and six horses and many blankets.

“I grew skillful. I could do many things white people never see. I
could be buried deep in the ground, while a mighty stone which six
men alone could lift was rolled upon me. Then in the darkness, when I
cried to the Great Spirits, they came swiftly and put their hands to
the stone and threw it far away, and I rose and walked forth, and the
people wondered. I cured many people by the healing of my hands, and
by great magic like this: I had a dried mouse, and once when a man
came to be stiff and cold with a hole in his side, I said, ‘Put him
before me.’

“When they did as I bid, I took the mouse and put it before the
man who was dead, and I blew smoke upon the mouse and said: ‘Great
Spirits, help me to do this great magic.’ Then the mouse came to
life, and ran to the dead man and put his beak in the hole, and
pulled out the bad flesh, and the wound closed up and the man rose.

“These wonderful things I did, and I became rich. I had a fine,
large tepee and many horses and skins and blankets. People said:
‘See, there goes Rising Wolf. He is young, but he has many horses.’
Therefore, I came to be called ‘Many Horses’; but I had only one
wife, Sailing Hawk. I cared only for her.”

The chief’s handsome face had long since become grave and rapt. Now
it suddenly grew grim. His little wife moved uneasily in her seat by
his side, and he looked at her with a strange glance. Between them
had crept the shadow of Sailing Hawk’s death.

“One day while I sat with Sailing Hawk in my tepee, a big, black
cloud came flying from the west like an eagle, and out of it the red
fire stabbed and killed my wife and set my tepee on fire. My heart
was like ice when I rose and saw my Sailing Hawk dead. I seized my
gun. I fired many times into the cloud. I screamed at it in rage.
My eyes were hot. I was crazy.—At last I went away, but my wife was
dead, and my heart empty and like ashes. I did not eat for many days,
and I cared no more for the Great Spirits. I prayed no more. I could
not smoke, but I sat all night by the place where my Sailing Hawk
lay, and no man dared come to me. My heart was very angry toward
everybody and all things. I could not see the end of my trail. All
was black before me.

“My people at this time were living on their own lands. The big fight
with ‘Long Hair’ had passed away, and we were living at peace once
more; but the buffalo were passing also, and we feared and wondered.

“Then the white man came with his soldiers, and made a corral here
in the hot, dry country, and drove us therein, and said, ‘If you
go outside we will shoot you.’ Soon we became poor. We had then no
buffalo at all. We were fed poor beef, and had to wear white men’s
clothes which did not fit. We could not go to hunt in the mountains,
and the land was waterless and very hot in summer, and we froze in
winter. Then there were many sick, but the white men sent a doctor,
and he laughed at me, and ordered me not to go near the sick ones.
This made my heart black and sorrowful, for the white man gave
strange white powders that were very bitter in the mouth, and the
people died thereafter.

“But many times when he had gone I went in and made strong magic
and cured the sick, and he thought it was his white powders.
Nevertheless, more and more of my people came to believe in the white
man, and so I grew very poor, and was forced to get rations like the
rest. It was a black time for me.

“One night there came into our midst a Snake messenger with a big
tale. ‘Away in the west,’ he said to us in sign talk, ‘a wonderful
man has come. He speaks all languages, and he is the friend of all
red men. He is white, but not like other white men. He has been
nailed to a tree by the whites. I saw the holes in his hands. He
teaches a new dance, which is to gather all the Indians together in
council. He wants a few head men of all tribes to meet him where
the big mountains are, in the place where the lake is surrounded by
pictured rocks. There he will teach us how to make mighty magic and
drive away the white man and bring back the buffalo.’

“All that he told us we pondered long, and I said: ‘It is well, I
will go to see this man. I will learn his dance.’

“All this was unknown to the agent, and at last, when the time came,
four of us set forth at night on our long journey. On the third day
two Snake chiefs and four Burnt Thighs joined us, then four Cut
Throat people, and we all journeyed in peace. At last we came to the
lake by the pictured rocks where the three snow mountains are.

“There were many Indians there. The Big Bellies were there from
the north; and the Blackfeet, and the Magpies, and the Weavers,
and the People-of-the-south-who-run-round-the-rocks, and the
Black-people-of-the-mountains all were there. We had council, and
we talked in signs, and we all began to ask, ‘Where is the Great
Helper?’ A day passed, and he did not come; but one night when we sat
in council over his teachings, he suddenly stepped inside the circle.
He was a dark man, but not so dark as we were. He had long hair on
his chin, and long, brown head-hair, parted in the middle. I looked
for the wounds on his wrists; I could not see any. He moved like
a big chief, tall and swift. He could speak all tongues. He spoke
Dakota, and many understood. I could understand the language of the
Cut Throat people, and this is what he said:

“‘My people, before the white man came you were happy. You had many
buffalo to eat and tall grass for your ponies. You could come and go
like the wind. When it was cold, you could go into the valleys to
the south, where the healing springs are; and when it grew warm, you
could return to the mountains in the north. The white man came. He
dug the bones of our mother, the earth. He tore her bosom with steel.
He built big trails and put iron horses on them. He fought you and
beat you, and put you in barren places where a horned toad would die.
He said you must stay there; you must not hunt in the mountains.

“‘Then he breathed his poison upon the buffalo, and they disappeared.
They vanished into the earth. One day they covered the hills, the
next nothing but their bones remained. Would you remove the white
man? Would you have the buffalo come back? Listen, and I will tell
you how to make great magic. I will teach you a mystic dance, and
then let everybody go home and dance. When the grass is green, the
change will come. Let everybody dance four days in succession, and
on the fourth day the white man will disappear and the buffalo come
back; our dead will return with the buffalo.

“‘The earth is old. It will be renewed. The new and happy world will
slide above the old as the right hand covers the left.

“‘You have forgotten the ways of the fathers; therefore great
distress is upon you. You must throw away all that the white man
has brought you. Return to the dress of the fathers. You must use
the sacred colors, red and white, and the sacred grass, and in the
spring, when the willows are green, the change will come.

“‘Do no harm to any one. Do not fight each other. Live in peace. Do
not tell lies. When your loved ones die, do not weep, nor burn their
tepees, nor cut your arms, nor kill horses, for you will see the dead
again.’

“His words made my heart glad and warm in my breast. I thought of the
bright days when I was a boy and the white man was far away, when the
buffalo were like sagebrush on the plains—there were so many. I rose
up. I went toward him. I bowed my head, and I said:

“‘Oh, father, teach us the dance!’ and all the people sitting round
said, ‘Good! teach us the dance!’

“Then he taught us the song and the dance which white people call
‘the ghost dance,’ and we danced all together, and while we danced
near him he sat with bowed head. No one dared to speak to him. The
firelight shone on him. Suddenly he disappeared. No one saw him go.
Then we were sorrowful, for we wished him to remain with us. It came
into my heart to make a talk; so I rose, and said:

“‘Friends, let us now go home. Our father has given us the mighty
magic dance. Let us go home and teach all our people, and dance the
four days, so that the white man may go and the buffalo come back.
All our fathers will come back. The old men will be made young. The
blind will see again. We will all be happy once more.’

“This seemed good to them, and we all smoked the pipe and shook
hands and took our separate trails. The Blackfeet went north, the
People-that-click-with-their-tongues went west, and the Magpies, the
Cut Throats, and the Snakes started together to the east. The Burnt
Thighs kept on, while the Magpies and the Cut Throats turned to the
northeast.

“At last we reached home, and I called a big dance, and at the dance
I told the people what I had seen, and they were very glad. ‘Teach us
the dance,’ they cried to me.

“‘Be patient,’ I said. ‘Wait till all the other people get home. When
the grass is green and the moon is round, then we will dance, and all
the red people will dance at the same time; then will the white man
surely fade away, and the buffalo come up out of the earth where he
is hid and roam the sod once more.’

“Then they did as I bid, and when the moon was round as a shield, we
beat the drum and called the people to dance.

“Then the white man became much excited. He called for more soldiers
everywhere to stop the dance, so I heard afterward. But the people
paid no attention, for was not the white man poor and weak by the
magic of the dance?

“Then we built five fires, one to each world direction and one in the
center. We put on our best dress. We painted our faces and bodies in
memory of our forefathers, who were mighty warriors and hunters. We
carried bows and arrows and tomahawk and war clubs in memory of the
days before the white man’s weapons. Our best singers knelt around
the drum, and the women sat near to help them sing. When the drum
began to beat, our hearts were very glad. There were Magpies and Cut
Throats among us, but we were all friends. We danced between the
fires, and as we danced the drummers sang the mystic song:

“Father, have pity on us.
We are crying for thirst—
All is gone!
We have nothing to eat,
Our Father, we are poor—
We are very poor.
The buffalo are gone,
They are all gone.
Take pity on us, O Father!
We are dancing as you wish,
Because you commanded us.
We dance hard—
We dance long.
Have pity!

“The agent came to see us dance, but we did not care. He was a good
man, and we felt sorry for him, for he must also vanish with the
other white people. He listened to our crying, and looked long, and
his interpreter told him we prayed to the Great Spirits to destroy
the white man and bring back the buffalo. Then he called me with his
hand, and because he was a good man I went to him. He asked me what
the dance meant, and I told him, and he said, ‘It must stop.’ ‘I
cannot stop it,’ I said. ‘The Great Spirits have said it. It must go
on.’

“He smiled, and went away, and we danced. He came again on the third
day, and always he laughed. He said: ‘Go on. You are big fools. You
will see the buffalo will never come back, and the white man is too
strong to be swept away. Dance till the fourth day, dance hard, but I
shall watch you.’

“On the fourth night, while we danced, soldiers came riding down the
hills, and their chiefs, in shining white hats, came to watch us. All
night we prayed and danced. We prayed in our songs.

“Great Spirit, help us.
You are close by in the dark.
Hear us and help us.
Take away the white man.
Send back the buffalo.
We are poor and weak.
We can do nothing alone.
Help us to be as we once were,
Happy hunters of buffalo.

“But the agent smiled, and the soldiers of the white chiefs sat not
far off, their guns in their hands, and the moon passed by, and the
east grew light, and we were very weary, and my heart was heavy. I
looked to see the red come in the east. ‘When the sun looks over the
hills, then it will be,’ I said to my friends. ‘The white man will
become as smoke. The wind will sweep him away.’

“As the sun came near we all danced hard. My voice was almost gone.
My feet were numb, my legs were weak, but my heart was big.

“‘Oh, help us, Great Spirits,’ we cried in despair.

“‘Father, the morning star,
Father, the morning star,
Look on us!
Look on us, for we have danced till dawn;
Look on us, for we have danced until daylight.

Take pity on us,
O Father, the morning star!
Show us the road—
Our eyes are dark.

Show us our dead ones.
We cry and hold fast to you,
O morning star.
We hold out our hands to you and cry.
Help us, O Father!
We have sung till morning
The resounding song.’

“But the sun came up, the soldiers fired a big gun, and the soldier
chiefs laughed. Then the agent called to me,

“‘Your Great Spirit can do nothing. Your Messiah lied.’

“Then I covered my head with my blanket and ran far away, and I fell
down on the top of the high hill. I lay there a long time, thinking
of the white man’s laugh. The wind whistled a sad song in the grass.
My heart burned, and my breath came hard.

“‘Maybe he was right. Maybe the messenger was two-tongued and
deceived us that the white man might laugh at us.’

“All day I lay there with my head covered. I did not want to see the
light of the sun. I heard the drum stop and the singing die away.
Night came, and then on the hills I heard the wailing of my people.
Their hearts were gone. Their bones were weary.

“When I rose, it was morning. I flung off my blanket, and looked down
on the valley where the tepees of the white soldiers stood. I heard
their drums and their music. I had made up my mind. The white man’s
trail was wide and dusty by reason of many feet passing thereon, but
it was long. The trail of my people was ended.

“I said, ‘I will follow the white man’s trail. I will make him my
friend, but I will not bend my neck to his burdens. I will be cunning
as the coyote. I will ask him to help me to understand his ways, and
then I will prepare the way for my children. Maybe they will outrun
the white man in his own shoes. Anyhow, there are but two ways. One
leads to hunger and death, the other leads where the poor white man
lives. Beyond is the happy hunting ground, where the white man cannot
go.’”

THE RIVER’S WARNING

We were visiting the camp of Big Elk on the Washeetay and were
lounging in the tepee of the chief himself as the sun went down. All
about us could be heard the laughter of the children and the low hum
of women talking over their work. Dogs and babies struggled together
on the sod, groups of old men were telling stories and the savory
smell of new-baked bread was in the air.

The Indian is a social being and naturally dependent upon his
fellows. He has no newspapers, no posters, no handbills. His news
comes by word of mouth, therefore the “taciturn red man” does not
exist. They are often superb talkers, dramatic, fluent, humorous.
Laughter abounds in a camp. The men joke, tell stories with the point
against themselves, ridicule those who boast and pass easily from the
humorous to the very grave and mysterious in their faith. It is this
loquacity, so necessary to the tribe, which makes it so hard for a
red man to keep a secret.

In short, a camp of Indians is not so very unlike a country village
where nothing but the local paper is read and where gossip is the
surest way of finding out how the world is wagging. There are in both
villages the same group of old men with stories of the past, of the
war time, to whom the young men listen with ill-concealed impatience.
When a stranger comes to town all the story tellers rejoice and gird
up their loins afresh. It is always therefore in the character of the
eager listener that I visit a camp of red people.

Big Elk was not an old man, not yet sixty, but he was a story teller
to whom everybody listened, for he had been an adventurous youth,
impulsive and reckless, yet generous and kindly. He was a handsome
old fellow natively, but he wore his cheap trousers so slouchily and
his hat was so broken that at a distance in the daytime he resembled
a tramp. That night as he sat bareheaded in his tepee with his
blanket drawn around his loins, he was admirable. His head was large,
and not unlike the pictures of Ben Franklin.

“You see, in those days,” he explained, “in the war time with the
game robbers, every boy was brought up to hate the white man who came
into our land to kill off our buffalo. We heard that these men killed
for money like the soldiers who came to fight us, and that made our
fathers despise them. I have heard that the white boys were taught to
hate us in the same way, and so when we met we fought. The white man
considered us a new kind of big game to hunt and we considered him a
wolf paid to rob and kill us. Those were dark days.

“I was about twenty-two, it may be, when the old man agent first came
to the east bank of the Canadian, and there sat down. My father went
to see him, I remember, and came back laughing. He said, ‘He is a
thin old man and can take his teeth out in pieces and put them back,’
and this amused us all very much. To this day, as you know, that is
the sign for an agent among us—to take out the upper teeth.

“We did not care for the agent at that time for we had plenty
of buffalo meat and skins. Some of the camp went over and drew
rations, it is true, but others did not go. I pretended to be very
indifferent, but I was crazy to go, for I had never seen a white
man’s house and had never stood close to any white man. I heard the
others tell of a great many wonderful things over there—and they said
there were white women and children also.

“I was ambitious to do a great deed in those days and had made myself
the leader of some fourteen reckless young warriors like myself. I
sat around and smoked in tepee, and one night I said, ‘Brothers, let
us go to the agency and steal the horses.’

“This made each one of them spring to his feet. ‘Good! Good!’ they
said. ‘Lead us. We will follow. That is worth doing.’

“‘The white men are few and cowardly,’ I said. ‘We can dash in and
run off the horses, and then I think the old men will no longer call
us boys. They will sing of us in their songs. We shall be counted in
the council thereafter.’

“They were all eager to go and that night we slipped out of camp and
saddled and rode away across the prairie, which was fetlock deep in
grass. Just the time for a raid. I felt like a big chief as I led my
band in silence through the night. My bosom swelled with pride like a
turkey cock and my heart was fierce.

“We came in sight of the white man’s village next day about noon, and
veering a little to the north, I led my band into camp some miles
above the agency. Here I made a talk to my band and said: ‘Now you
remain here and I will go alone and spy out the enemy and count his
warriors and make plans for the battle. You can rest and grow strong
while I am gone.’”

Big Elk’s eyes twinkled as he resumed. “I thought I was a brave lad
to do this thing and I rode away trying to look unconcerned. I was
very curious to see the agency. I was like a coyote who comes into
the camp to spy out the meat racks.” This remark caused a ripple of
laughter, which Big Elk ignored. “As I forded the river I glanced
right and left, counting the wooden tepees” (he made a sign of the
roof), “and I found them not so many as I had heard. As I rode up the
bank I passed near a white woman and I looked at her with sharp eyes.
I had heard that all white women looked white and sicklike. This I
found was true. This woman had yellow hair and was thin and pale. She
was not afraid of me—she did not seem to notice me and that surprised
me.

“Then I passed by a big wooden tepee which was very dirty and smoky.
I could see a man, all over black, who was pounding at something. He
made a sound, _clank, clank, clunk-clank_. I stood at the door and
looked in. It was all very wonderful. There were horses in there and
this black man was putting iron moccasins on the horses’ feet.

“An Arapahoe stood there and I said in signs, ‘What do they do that
for?’

“He replied, ‘So that the horses can go over rocks without wearing
off their hoofs.’

“That seemed to me a fine thing to do and I wanted my pony fixed that
way. I asked where the agent was, and he pointed toward a tall pole
on which fluttered a piece of red and white and blue cloth. I rode
that way. There were some Cheyennes at the door, who asked me who
I was and where I came from. I told them any old kind of story and
said, ‘Where is the agent?’

“They showed me a door and I went in. I had never been in a white
man’s tepee before and I noticed that the walls were strong and the
door had iron on it. ‘Ho!’ I said, ‘This looks like a trap. Easy to
go in, hard to get out. I guess I will be very peaceful while I am in
here.’

“The agent was a little old man—I could have broken his back with a
club as he sat with his back toward me. He paid no attention till a
half-breed came up to me and said, ‘What do you want?’

“‘I want to see the agent.’

“‘There he is; look at him,’ and he laughed.

“The agent turned around and held out his hand. ‘How, how!’ he said.
‘What is your name?’

“His face was very kind, and I went to him and took his hand. His
tongue I could not understand, but the half-breed helped me. We
talked. I made up a story. ‘I have heard you give away things to the
Cheyennes,’ I said; ‘therefore I have come for my share.’

“‘We give to good red people,’ he said. Then he talked sweetly to
me. ‘My people are Quakers,’ he said. ‘We have visions like the red
people—but we never go to war. Therefore has the Great Soldier,
the Great Father at Washington, put me here. He does not want his
children to fight. You are all brothers with different ways of life.
I am here to help your people,’ he said, ‘and you must not go to war
any more.’

“All that he said to me was good—it took all the fire and bitterness
out of my heart and I shook hands and went away with my head bowed in
thought. He was as kind as my own father.

“I had never seen such white people before; they were all kind. They
fed me; they talked friendly with me. Not one was making a weapon.
All were preparing to till the soil. They were kind to the beasts,
and all the old Cheyennes I met said, ‘We must do as this good old
man says.’

“I rode home very slowly. I strutted no more. The stuffing was
gone out of my chest. I dreaded to come back into my camp where
my warriors were waiting for me. I spread my blanket and sat down
without speaking, and though they were all curious to hear, they
waited, for I smoked a pipe in sign of thought. At last I struck the
ashes from my pipe and rose and said: ‘Listen, brothers I shall not
go to war against the agency.’

“They were all astonishment at this and some were instantly angry.
‘Why not? What has changed your plan so suddenly?’

“‘I have seen the agent; he is a good old man. Every one was pleasant
to me. I have never seen this kind of white man. No one was thinking
of war. They are all waiting to help the Cheyennes. Therefore my
heart is changed—I will not go out against them.’

“My band was in a turmoil. One by one they cried out: ‘You are a
girl, a coyote with the heart of a sparrow.’ Crow Kill made a long
speech: ‘This is strange business. You talk us into making you chief;
you lead us a long hard ride and now we are without meat, while you,
having your belly full of sweet food and a few presents in your hand,
want to quit and run home crying like a papoose.’”

The old story teller was pitilessly dramatic in reciting the flood of
ridicule and abuse poured out upon his head.

“Well, at last I said: ‘Be silent! Perhaps you are right. Perhaps
they deceived me. I will go again to-morrow and I will search closely
into hidden things. Be patient until I have studied the ground once
more.’

“As I thought of it all that night I came to feel again a great
rage—I began to say: ‘You are a fool. You have been blinded.’ I
slept uneasily that night, but I was awake early and rode away to
the agency. I remained all day among them. I talked with all the
Cheyennes and in signs I conversed with the Arapahoe—all said the
same thing—‘The agent does not lie. He is a good man.’ Nevertheless,
I looked the ground all over and at night I rode slowly back to the
camp.

“Again I said, ‘I will not go to war against these people,’ and again
my warriors cried out against me. They were angrier than before. They
called me a coward. ‘We will go on without you. You are fitted only
to carry a papoose and stir the meat in a pot,’ they said.

“This filled me with wrath and I rose and said: ‘You call me a woman!
Who of you can show more skill in the trail? Who of you can draw a
stronger bow or bring down bigger buffalo bulls? It is time for you
to be silent. You know me—you know what I have done. Now listen: I am
chief. To-morrow when the east gets light we will cross the river and
attack the agency! I have spoken!’

“This pleased them very much and they listened and looked eagerly
while I drew on the sand lines to show where the horse corral was and
where the storehouse was. I detailed five men to go to the big fence
and break the chain on the gate, while I led the rest of the band to
break into the storehouse. Then I said: ‘Do not kill any one unless
they come out against you with arms in their hands. Some of them gave
me food; I shall be sorry if they are hurt.’

“That night I could not sleep at all, for my heart was swollen big
in my bosom. I knew I was doing wrong, but I could not stand the
reproach of my followers.

“When morning came, the river was very high, and we looked at it in
astonishment, for no clouds were to be seen. The banks were steep and
the current swift, and there was no use attempting to carry out our
plan that day.

[Illustration: On an Indian Reservation

_At Fort Reno in 1890, in the then Oklahoma Territory, there was
an agency for the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. In those days one
might see the Indians in their fantastic mixture of colors and
beads and red flannel and feathers—so theatrical in appearance
that the visitor expected to see even the army officers look back
over their shoulders when one of these braves rode by._

_Illustration from_
THE WEST FROM A CAR WINDOW
_by_ Richard Harding Davis

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _May 14, 1892_]

[Illustration: In a Stiff Current

_Illustration from_
TALKING MUSQUASH
_by_ Julian Ralph

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _March, 1892_]

“‘We must wait,’ I said, and with black looks and aching bellies we
waited all that day. ‘The river will go down to-morrow,’ I said, to
comfort them.

“We had only a little dried beef to eat and the river water to drink,
and my warriors were very hungry.

“That second morning I was awake before dawn, watching to see what
the river had done during the night. Behold, it was an arrow’s length
higher than before! Then I said: ‘Friends, I am no liar. I started on
this plan with a heart to carry it out, but now I am deeply troubled.
I did not sleep last night, for a pain in my breast kept me awake. I
will not deceive you. I am glad the water is deeper this morning. I
believe it is a sign from the Great Spirit that we are to turn back
and leave these white people in peace.’

“But to this Crow Kill and most of the others would not listen. ‘If
we go back now,’ said he, ‘everybody will laugh at us.’

“Quickly I turned upon him and cried out: ‘Are you the boaster who
has prattled of our plans? The camp will know nothing of our designs
if you have not let your long tongue rattle on the outside of your
mouth.’ At this he fell silent and I went on. ‘Now I will wait one
more day. If the river is high to-morrow—the third day—then it will
surely be a sign, and we must all bow to the will of the Great One
who is above us.’

“To this they all agreed, for the sky was still clear and blue and
the river was never known to rise on three successive days. They put
their weapons in order, and I recounted my words of instruction as to
the battle.

“I went aside a little from the camp that night, and took my watch
on a little mound. The moon rose big in the east and made a shining
trail over the water. When a boy I used to think, may be that trail
led to the land of the spirits—and my heart was full of peaceful
thoughts that night. I had no hate of anybody.” The old man’s voice
was now deep and grave and no one laughed. “I prayed to the Great
Spirit to send the water so that I could go back without shame.
All night I heard the water whisper, whisper in the grass. It grew
broader and broader and the moon passed over my head. I slept a
little, and then I woke, for something cold had touched my heel. I
looked down and in the grass at my feet lay the shining edge of the
river.

“I leaped up and ran and touched the others. ‘See,’ I called out,
‘the water has come to speak to you!’ and I scooped water from the
river’s edge and flung it over them. ‘The Great Spirit has spoken.
All night I heard it whisper in the grass. It said: “_Peace, peace!
You must go to war no more._” Come. We will ride away with clean
hands and glad hearts.’”

As he finished his story Big Elk put away his pipe abstractedly,
as though his mind yet dwelt on the past. His hearers were silent
and very serious. He had touched the deepest chord in the red man’s
soul—the chord which vibrates when the Great Spirit speaks to him in
dreams.

LONE WOLF’S OLD GUARD

Now it happened that Lone Wolf’s camp was on the line between the
land of the Cheyennes and the home of his own people, the Kiowas, but
he did not know this. He had lived there long, and the white man’s
maps were as unimportant to him as they had been to the Cheyennes.
When he moved there he considered it to be his—a gift direct from the
Creator—with no prior rights to be overstepped.

But the Consolidated Cattle Company, having secured the right to
enclose a vast pasture, cared nothing for any red man’s claim,
provided they stood in with the government. A surveying party was
sent out to run lines for fences.

Lone Wolf heard of these invaders while they were at work north
of him, and learned in some mysterious way that they were to come
down the Elk and cut through his camp. To his friend John, the
interpreter, he sent these words:

“The white man must not try to build a fence across my land. I will
fight if he does. Washington is not behind this thing. He would not
build a fence through my lines without talking with me. I have sent
to the agent of the Kiowas, he knows nothing about it—it is all a
plan of the cattlemen to steal my lands. Tell them that we have
smoked over this news—we have decided. This fence will not be built.”

When “Johnny Smoker” brought this stern message to the camp of the
surveyors some of them promptly threw up their hands. Jim Bellows,
scout and interpreter, was among these, and his opinion had weight,
for he wore his hair long and posed as an Indian fighter of large
experience.

“Boys,” he began, impressively, “we got to get out o’ here as soon
as darkness covers us. We’re sixty miles from the fort, and only
fifteen all told, and not half-armed. Old Lone Wolf holds over us,
and we might as well quit and get help.”

This verdict carried the camp, and the party precipitately returned
to Darlington to confer with the managers of the company.

Pierce, the chief man, had reasons for not calling on the military
authorities. His lease was as yet merely a semi-private arrangement
between the Secretary of the Interior and himself, and he feared the
consequences of a fight with Lone Wolf—publicity, friction, might
cause the withdrawal of his lease; therefore he called in John Seger,
and said:

“Jack, can you put that line through?”

“I could, but I don’t want to. Lone Wolf is a good friend of mine,
and I don’t want to be mixed up in a mean job.”

“Oh, come now—you mustn’t show the white flag. I need you. I want you
to pick out five or six men of grit and go along and see that this
line is run. I can’t be fooling around here all summer. Here’s my
lease, signed by the Secretary, as you see. It’s all straight, and
this old fool of an Indian must move.”

Jack reluctantly consented, and set to work to hire a half dozen
men of whose courage he had personal knowledge. Among these was a
man by the name of Tom Speed, a border man of great hardihood and
experience. To him he said:

“Tom, I don’t like to go into this thing; but I’m hard up, and Pierce
has given me the contract to build the fence if we run the line, and
it looks like we got to do it. Now I wish you’d saddle up and help me
stave off trouble. How does it strike you?”

“It’s nasty business, Jack; but I reckon we might better do it than
let some tenderfoot go in and start a killin’. I’m busted flat, and
if the pay is good, I jest about feel obliged to take it.”

So it happened that two avowed friends of the red man led this second
expedition against Lone Wolf’s camp. Pierce sent his brother as boss,
and with him went the son of one of the principal owners, a Boston
man, by the name of Ross. Speed always called him “the Dude,” though
he dressed quite simply, as dress goes in Roxbury. He wore a light
suit of gray wool, “low-quartered shoes,” and a “grape box hat.” He
was armed with a pistol, which wouldn’t kill a turtledove at fifteen
feet. Henry Pierce, on the contrary, was a reckless and determined
man.

Moving swiftly across the Divide, they took up the line on Elk
Creek, and started directly toward Lone Wolf’s camp. As they were
nearing the bend in the river where Lone Wolf was camped, a couple
of young warriors came riding leisurely up from the south. They were
very cordial in their greeting, and after shaking hands all around
pleasantly inquired:

“What are you doing here?”

“Running a line to mark out the land which the cattlemen have leased
of the Cheyennes.”

“We will go along and see where you are going,” they replied.

A couple of hours later, while they were still with the camp, two
others came riding quietly in from the east. They said, “We are
looking for horses,” and after shaking hands and asking Seger what
the white men were doing, rode forward to join their companions, who
seemed deeply interested in the surveyors and their instruments.
Turning to Pierce, Jack said,

“You noticed that these four men were armed, I reckon?”

“Oh, yes, but they are all right. Didn’t you see how they shook hands
all round? They’re just out hunting up ponies.”

“Yes, I saw that; but I noticed they had plenty of ammunition and
that their guns were bright. Indians don’t hunt horses in squads, Mr.
Pierce.”

Pierce smiled, giving Seger a sidewise glance. “Are you getting
nervous? If you are, you can drop to the rear.”

Now Seger had lived for the larger part of his life among the red
people, and knew their ways. He answered, quietly:

“There are only four of them now; you’ll see more of them soon,” and
he pointed away to the north, where the heads of three mounted men
were rising into sight over a ridge. These also proved to be young
Kiowas, thoroughly armed, who asked the same question of the manager,
and in conclusion pleasantly said,

“We’ll just go along and see how you do it.”

As they rode forward Seger uttered a more pointed warning.

“Mr. Pierce, I reckon you’d better make some better disposition of
your men. They are all strung out here, with their guns on their
backs, in no kind of shape to make a defense.”

Pierce was a little impressed by the scout’s earnestness, and took
trouble to point out the discrepancy between “a bunch of seven
cowardly Indians” and his own band of twenty brave and experienced
men.

“That’s all right,” replied Seger; “but these seven men are only
spies, sent out to see what we are going to do. We’ll have to buckle
up with Lone Wolf’s whole band very soon.”

A few minutes later the seven young men rode quietly by and took a
stand on a ridge a little in front of the surveyors. As he approached
them, Seger perceived a very great change in their demeanor. They
no longer smiled; they seemed grim, resolute, and much older.
From a careless, laughing group of young men they had become
soldiers—determined, disciplined, and dignified. Their leader, riding
forth, held up his hand, and said,

“Stop; you must wait here till Lone Wolf comes.”

Meanwhile, in the little city of tents, a brave drama was being
enacted. Lone Wolf, a powerful man of middle age, was sitting in
council with his people. The long-expected had happened—the cattlemen
had begun to mark off the red man’s land as their own, and the time
had come either to submit or to repel the invaders. To submit was
hard, to fight hopeless. Their world was still narrow, but they had
a benumbing conception of the power and the remorseless greed of the
white man.

[Illustration: A Modern Comanche Indian

_In the ’nineties the Comanche of the Fort Sill region was
considered a good type of the Indian of that day. Not only was
he the most expert horse-stealer on the plains—a title of honor
rather than reproach among Indians—but he was particularly
noteworthy for knowing more about a horse and horse-breeding than
any other Indian._

_Illustration from_
SOME INDIAN RIDERS
_by_ Colonel Theodore Ayrault Dodge, U.S.A.

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _May, 1891_]

[Illustration: A Band of Piegan Indians in the Mountains

_Having made out the camp of the Crow Indians in the plain many
miles below, the Piegans are making their way slowly through the
mountains on foot, their object being to raid the Crow camp and
steal their war ponies._

_Illustration from_
SUN-DOWN’S HIGHER SELF
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _November, 1898_]

“We can kill those who come,” said Lone Wolf. “They are few, but
behind them are the soldiers and men who plough.”

At last old White Buffalo rose—he had been a great leader in his
day, and was still much respected, though he had laid aside his
chieftainship. He was bent and gray and wrinkled, but his voice was
still strong, and his eyes keen.

“My friends, listen to me! During seventy years of my life I lived
without touching the hand of a white man. I have always opposed
warfare, except when it was necessary; but now the time has come to
fight. Let me tell you what to do. I see here some thirty old men,
who, like me, are nearing the grave. This thing we will do—we old
men—we will go out to war against these cattlemen. We will go forth
and die in defense of our lands. Big Wolf, come—and you, my brother,
Standing Bear.”

As he called the roll of the gray old defenders, the old women broke
into heart-piercing wailing, intermingled with exultant cries as some
brave wife or sister caught the force of the heroic responses, which
leaped from the lips of their fathers and husbands. A feeling of awe
fell over the young men as they watched the fires flame once more in
the dim eyes of their grandsires, and when all had spoken, Lone Wolf
rose and stepped forth, and said,

“Very well; then I will lead you.”

“Whosoever leads us goes to certain death,” said White Buffalo. “It
is the custom of the white men to kill the leader. You will fall at
the first fire. I will lead.”

Lone Wolf’s face grew stern. “Am I not your war chief? Whose place
is it to lead? If I die, I fall in combat for my land, and you, my
children, will preserve my name in song. We do not know how this will
end, but it is better to end in battle than to have our lands cut in
half beneath our feet.”

The bustle and preparation began at once. When all was ready the
thirty gray and withered old men, beginning a low humming song, swept
through the camp and started on their desperate charge, Lone Wolf
leading them. “Some of those who go will return, but if the white men
fight, I will not return,” he sang, as they began to climb the hill
on whose top the white man could be seen awaiting their coming.

Halfway up the hill they met some of the young warriors. “Go bring
all the white men to the council,” said Lone Wolf.

As the white men watched the band leaving the village and beginning
to ascend the hill, Speed turned and said: “Well, Jack, what do you
think of it? Here comes a war party—painted and armed.”

“I think it’s about an even chance whether we ever cross the Washita
again or not. Now, you are a married man with children, and I
wouldn’t blame you if you pulled out right this minute.”

“I feel meaner about this than anything I ever did,” replied Speed,
“but I am going to stay with the expedition.”

As Lone Wolf and his heroic old guard drew near, Seger thrilled
with the significance of this strange and solemn company of old men
in full war-paint, armed with all kinds of old-fashioned guns, and
bows and arrows. As he looked into their wrinkled faces, the scout
perceived that these grandsires had come resolved to die. He divined
what had taken place in camp. Their exalted heroism was written
in the somber droop of their lips. “We can die, but we will not
retreat!” In such wise our grandsires fought.

Lone Wolf led his Spartan host steadily on till near enough to be
heard without effort. He then halted, took off his war-bonnet and
hung it on the pommel of his saddle. Lifting both palms to the sky,
he spoke, and his voice had a solemn boom in it: “The Great Father
is looking down on us. He sees us. He knows I speak the truth. He
gave us this land. We are the first to inhabit it. No one else has
any claim to it. It is ours, and I will go under the sod before any
cattlemen shall divide it and take it away from us. I have said it.”

When this was interpreted to him, Pierce with a look of inquiry
turned to Speed. “Tell the old fool this line is going to be run, and
no old scarecrows like these can stop us.”

Seger, lifting his hand, signed: “Lone Wolf, you know me. I am your
friend. I do not come to do you harm. I come to tell you you are
wrong. All the land on my left hand the Great Father says is Cheyenne
land. All on my right is Kiowa land. The Cheyennes have sold the
right to their land to the white man, and we are here to mark out the
line. We take only Cheyenne land.”

“I do not believe it,” replied the chief. “My agent knows nothing
of it. Washington has not written anything to me about it. This is
the work of robbers. Cattlemen will do anything for money. They are
wolves. They shall not go on.”

“What does he say?” asked Pierce.

“He says we must not go on.”

“You tell him that he can’t run any such bluff on me with his old
scarecrow warriors. This lines goes through.”

Lone Wolf, tense and eager, asked, “What says the white chief?”

“He says we must run the line.”

Lone Wolf turned to his guard. “You may as well get ready,” he said,
quietly.

The old men drew closer together with a mutter of low words, and each
pair of dim eyes selected their man. The clicking of their guns was
ominous, and Pierce turned white.

Speed drew his revolver-holster round to the front. “They’re going to
fight,” he said. “Every man get ready!”

But Seger, eager to avoid the appalling contest, cried out to Pierce:

“Don’t do that! It’s suicide to go on. These old men have come out
to fight till death.” To Lone Wolf he signed: “Don’t shoot, my
friend!—let us consider this matter. Put up your guns.”

Into the hot mist of Pierce’s wrath came a realization that these old
men were in mighty earnest. He hesitated.

Lone Wolf saw his hesitation, and said: “If you are here by right,
why do you not get the soldier chief to come and tell me? If the
Great Father has ordered this—then I am like a man with his hands
tied. The soldiers do not lie. Bring them!”

Seger grasped eagerly at this declaration. “There is your chance,
Pierce. The chief says he will submit if the soldiers come to make
the survey. Let me tell him that you will bring an officer from the
fort to prove that the government is behind you.”

Pierce, now fully aware of the desperate bravery of the old men, was
looking for a knothole of escape. “All right, fix it up with him,” he
said.

Seger turned to Lone Wolf. “The chief of the surveyors says: ‘Let us
be friends. I will not run the line.’”

“Ho, ho!” cried the old warriors, and their faces, grim and wrinkled,
broke up into smiles. They laughed, they shook hands, while tears of
joy filled their eyes. They were like men delivered from sentence of
death. The desperate courage of their approach was now revealed even
to Pierce. They were joyous as children over their sudden release
from slaughter.

Lone Wolf, approaching Seger, dismounted, and laid his arm over his
friend’s shoulder. “My friend,” he said, with grave tenderness, “I
wondered why you were with these men, and my heart was heavy; but now
I see that you were here to turn aside the guns of the cattlemen. My
heart is big with friendship for you. Once more you have proved my
good counselor.” And tears dimmed the fierceness of his eyes.

A week later, a slim, smooth-cheeked second lieutenant, by virtue
of his cap and the crossed arms which decorated his collar, ran the
line, and Lone Wolf made no resistance. “I have no fight with the
soldiers of the Great Father,” he said: “they do not come to gain my
land. I now see that Washington has decreed that this fence shall be
built.” Nevertheless, his heart was very heavy, and in his camp his
heroic old guard sat waiting, waiting!

BIG MOGGASEN

Far in the Navajoe Country there are mountains almost unknown to the
white man. Beginning on the dry penon spotted land they rise to pine
clad hills where many springs are. Deep cañons with wondrous cliffs
of painted stone cut athwart the ranges and in crevices of these
walls, so it is said, are the stone houses of most ancient peoples.
It is not safe for white men to go there—especially with pick and
shovel, for Big Moggasen the Chief is keenly alive to the danger of
permitting miners to peer about the rocks and break them up with
hammers.

Because these mountains are unknown they are alluring and men often
came to the agency for permission to enter the unknown land. To them
the agent said, “No, I don’t want a hellabaloo raised about your
death in the first place, and in the second place this reservation
belongs to the Navajoes—you’d better prospect in some other country.”

Big Moggasen lived far away from the agency and was never seen even
by the native police. He lived quite independent of the white man’s
bounty. He drew no rations and his people paid no taxes. His young
men tended the sheep, the old men worked in silver and his women wove
blankets which they sold to the traders for coffee and flour. In such
wise he lived from the time that his father’s death made him a chief.

In winter his people retreated to the valleys where they were
sheltered from the wind—where warm hogans of logs and dirt protected
them from the cold, and in the spring when the snow began to melt
they drove their flocks of black and white sheep, mixed with goats,
higher in the hills. In midsummer when the valleys were baking hot,
the young herders urged their herd far up among the pines where good
grass grew and springs of water gushed from every cañon.

Their joys equaled their sorrows. True the old were always perishing
and birth was a pain, and the sheep sometimes starved because the
snow covered the grass, and the children died of throat sickness,
but of such is human life in all lands. For the most part they had
plenty of meat to roast, and berries and pinon nuts to make it
savory, and the young men always had hearts for dancing and the young
girls pulled at their robes and every one laughed in the light of the
dance-fire.

But at last the people began to complain. Women chattered their
discontentment as they wove their blankets under the cedars and
the old men gossiped in twos and threes before their camp fires.
The children cried for coffee and cakes of flour, and at last Big
Moggasen was forced to consider the discontent of his people. His
brow was black as he rose in council to say: “What is the matter that
you all grumble and whine like lame coyotes? Of old it was not so,
you took what that sun spirits sent and were brave, now you have the
hearts of foxes. What is it you want?”

Then Black Bear, a young chief man arose and said: “We will tell you,
father. The Tinné to the south have a better time than we do. They
have better clothing and coffee each day and wagons in which to ride
or carry heavy loads. They have shovels with which to build hogans
and to dig wells for their sheep. They have hats also which keep off
the sun in summer and snow in winter. Why do we not have some of
these good things also? We need wells and have nothing to dig them
with. We go about bareheaded and the sun is hot on our hair. We grow
tired of meat without drink. We think therefore that we should go
down and see the white man and get some of these needed things.”

To this applauded speech old Big Moggasen sharply replied: “I have
heard of these things for a long time, but a bear does not present
me with his ears for love of me. Why does the white man give these
things? I have trapped deer by such sly actions. It is for some
reason that our cousins are fed on sweet things by the white man.
They wish to make captives of us. They will steal our children and
our wives. I have known of the ways of white men for many years. I am
old and my face is wrinkled with thinking about him. I am not to be
instructed of boys in such a matter.”

All the night long the talk raged. Big Moggasen stood like a rock in
the wash of the current. He repeated again and again his arguments.
“The white man does not give his coat to the Tinné without hope of
pay. It is all a trick.”

At last he gave way and consented to go with two of his head men and
see the Little Father and find out for himself the whole truth. He
went reluctantly and with drawn brows for he was not at all sure of
returning again. All the old people shared his feeling but Brown Bear
and Four Fingers who had traveled much laughed openly and said: “See,
they go like sick men. Their heads hang down toward their feet like
sick ponies. They need some of the white man’s hot drink.”

They traveled hard to the south for three days coming into a hot dry
climate, which they did not like. There was little grass and the
sheep were running to and fro searching for food somewhere, even
eating sagebrush. The women were everywhere making blankets, and each
night when they stopped the men of the north had coffee to drink and
the people told many strange things of the whites. The old men had
heard these things before but they had not really believed them.
Some of the women said, “My children are away at the white man’s big
house. They wear the white man’s clothes and eat three times each day
from white dishes. They are learning the ways of the white man.”

“I like it not,” said Big Moggasen, “it is their plan to steal them
and make them work for the white man. Why do they do these things?”

One woman held up a big round silver piece, “You see this? My man
digs for the white man far in the south where the big iron horse runs
and he gets one of these every day. Therefore we have coffee and
flour often—and shoes and warm clothing.”

Big Moggasen shook his head and went on to the south. He came at last
to the place where the soldiers used to be in the olden time and
behold there were some big new red houses and many boys and girls and
ten white people, and all about stood square hogans in which Tinné
also lived. At the door of one of these hogans stood a white-haired
man and he said:

“Friend, I do not know you but you are welcome. Come in and eat.”

The old man entered and in due time Big Moggasen told his name and
his errand and his fears.

To this White-hairs replied: “It is natural for you to feel so. Once
I felt the same but the white man has not harmed me yet. My children
have learned to speak his tongue and to write. They are happier than
they were and that makes me happy. I do not understand the white
people. They are strange. Their thoughts are not our thoughts but
they are wonder-workers. I am in awe of them. They are wiser than
the spirits. They do things which it is impossible for us to do,
therefore I make friends with them. They have done me no harm. My
children are fond of them and so I am content.”

All the evening the old men from the northern mountains sat arguing,
questioning, shaking their heads. At last they said, “Very well, in
the morning we will go to the Little Father and hear what he has to
say. To us it now seems that these strange people have thrown dust in
your eyes and that they are scheming to make pack-ponies of you.”

In the morning they drank again of the white man’s coffee with sweet
in it and ate of the white man’s bread and it was all very seductive
to the tongue. Then old White-hairs led them to the Little Father’s
room.

The Little Father was a small man who wore bits of glass before his
eyes. He was short-spoken and his voice was high and shrill but calm.

“What is it?” he said to White-hairs in the Tinné tongue.

“These are they from the mountains,” replied White-hairs. “This is
Big Moggasen.”

The Little Father rose and held out his hand, “How is your health?”

Big Moggasen took his hand but coldly.

“This is Tall-man and this Silver Arrow.”

After they had shaken hands the Little Father said: “Sit down and we
will smoke.” He gave them some tobacco and when they had rolled it
into little leaves of paper he said: “Well now, what can I do for
you?”

After a long pause Big Mogassen began abruptly: “We live in the
mountains, three days’ journey from here. We are poor. We have no
wagons or shovels like the people who live here. We are of one blood
with them. We do not see why we should not have these things. We have
come for them. My people want wagons to carry logs in and shovels to
dig wells and harnesses to put on our ponies.”

To this the Little Father replied: “Yes, we have these good things
and I give them to your people. They are for those who are good and
who walk in the white man’s trail. We wish to help you also. Did you
bring any children with you?”

“No.”

“You must do that. We wish to educate your children. If you bring
twenty children to school I will see what I can do for you.”

Big Moggasen harshly replied: “I did not come to talk about school.”

The answer was quick and stern: “But I did. You will get nothing
until you send your children to me to be schooled.”

Big Moggasen’s veins swelled with the rush of his hot blood. He
leaped to his feet tense and rigid. “No. My children shall not come.
I do not believe in the white man or his ways. I do not like the
white man’s ways. I am old and I have seen many things. The white man
makes our young men drunk. He steals away our daughters. He takes
away their hearts with sweet drinks and clothes. He is a wolf.”

The Little Father remained calm. “It is true there are bad white men,
but there are those who are good.”

“Those I do not see,” growled the chief. “All my life I have thrust
the white men away because they came to steal our land. I do not want
my children to learn their ways.”

“Then you can’t have any of the great fellow’s presents.”

“Then I will go home as I came, hungry and cold,” replied the old
man, wrapping his blanket around him.

“To show that I am not angry,” said the Little Father. “I will give
you something to eat on your way home.”

The old man grew stern and set. “I did not come to beg of the white
man. I did not come to ask anything for myself. I came because my
people in council decided to send me. I have come. I am old and I
have not departed from the ways of my fathers. I have lived thus far
without the white man’s help, I will die as I have lived. I have
spoken.”

Turning abruptly he went out, followed by his companions and old
White-hairs, whose face was very sad.

THE STORM-CHILD

There was tranquillity in the warm lodge of Waumdisapa, chief of the
Tetons. It was always peaceful there for it is the duty of a head man
to render his people harmonious and happy—but it was doubly tranquil
on this midwinter day, for a mighty tumult had arisen in the tops of
the tall willows, and across the grass of the bleak plain an icy dust
was wildly sliding. Nearly all the men of the band were in camp, so
fierce was the blast.

Waumdisapa listened tranquilly to the streams of snow lashing his
tepee’s cap and felt it on his palm as it occasionally sifted down
through the smoke-vent, and said, “The demons may howl and the white
sands slide—my people are safe here behind the hills. With food and
plenty of blankets we can wait.”

Hour by hour he smoked, or gravely meditated, his mind filled with
the pursuits and dangers of the past. Now and again as an aged
wrinkled warrior lifted the door-flap he was invited to enter to
partake of tobacco and to talk of the gathering spirits of winter.

In a neighboring lodge the chief’s wife was at work beside her kettle
singing a low song as she minded her fire, and through the roaring,
whistling, moaning riot of the air-sprites other women could be heard
cheerfully beating their way from fire to fire. A few hunters were
still abroad, but no one was alarmed about them. The tempest was a
subject of jest and comparison with other days. No one feared its
grim power. Was it not a part of nature, an enemy always to be met!

Suddenly the sound of a moaning cry broke in upon the chief’s
meditation. The tent-door was violently thrown up and with a hoarse
wail, Oma, a young widow, entered the lodge, and threw herself
before the feet of Waumdisapa. “My baby! My little boy is lost in the
snow. O father, pity me—help me!”

Quickly the chief questioned her. “Where?”

“Out there!” she motioned with her hand—a wild gesture toward
the bleak remorseless north. “I was with my brothers hunting the
buffalo—the storm came on—my baby wandered away from the camp. We
could not find him. They came away—taking me, too. They would not let
me stay. Send hunters—find him. Take pity on me, my father!”

The chief turned to her brothers (who had followed her and were
looking on with sad faces) and said, “Is this true?”

“It is!” they said. “We were in temporary camp. We were resting.
The tempest leaped upon us. All was in confusion. The baby wandered
away—the snow must have covered him quickly. We could not find him
though we searched hard and long. The storm grew. Some of us came on
to bring the women and children to camp. Three of us, my brothers and
I, remained to look for the boy. We could not find him. He is buried
deep in the snow.”

The chief, touched by the woman’s agony, rose in reproof. “Go back!”
he said, sternly. “Take other of the young men. Cover every foot of
ground near your camp.”

“The night is coming.”

“No matter—search!” commanded the chief.

A party of braves was soon made up. As they rode away into the blast
Oma wished to go with them, but the chief prevented her.

All the afternoon she remained in the chief’s lodge crowding close
to his feet—listening, moaning, waiting. She was weak with hunger,
and shivering with cold, but she would not eat, would not go to her
silent and lonely fireplace.

“No, no, father, I will stay with you,” she said.

Swiftly the darkness fell upon the camp. The cold intensified. The
tempest increased in violence, howling above the willows like an
army of flying demons. The snows beat upon the stout skins of the
lodges and fell in heaps which grew ever higher, but the mothers of
the camp came one by one, young and old, to comfort the stricken one,
speaking words of cheer.

“They will bring him.”

“The brave hunters will find your boy.”

“They know no fear.”

“They have sharp eyes.”

“Their hearts are warm.”

“They will rescue him.”

Nevertheless, two by two the hardy trailers returned, cold, weary,
covered with ice, their faces sad, their eyes downcast. “Blackness
is on the plain,” they reported. “Nothing moves but the snow. We
have searched hard. We have called, we have listened close, no voice
replies. Nothing is to be seen, or heard.”

With each returning unsuccessful scout the mother’s grief and despair
deepened. Heartbroken, she lay prone on the ground, her face in the
dust, while the sorrowful songs of the women went on around her.
Truly hers was a piteous plight.

“To lose one’s only child is sad. She has no man. She is alone.”

“The sun-god has forsaken her,” said one old woman. “He is angry. She
has neglected some sacrifice.”

At last Hacone, the bravest, most persistent scout of all, one
who loved Oma, came silently in and dropped exhausted beside the
chieftain’s fire.

“Night, black stranger, has come,” he said, “I can search no longer.
Twice I lost my way, twice my horse fell. Blinding was the wind. My
breath was taken. Long I looked for the camp. The signal fires guided
me. Dead is the child.”

With a whimper of anguish the poor mother fell back upon the floor
and lay as one dead, hearing no sound. All night long her low moans
went on—and the women who lifted and bore her away sang songs of
grief with intent to teach her that sorrow was the lot of all women
and that happiness was but a brief spot of sunlight in a world of
shadow.

The morning broke at last, still, cold, clear, and serene. The tall
trees stood motionless to the tips as though congealed into iron,
and the smoke of each fire rose slow as though afraid to leave the
tepee’s mouth. Here and there an old woman scurried about bearing
fuel. The dogs slunk through the camp whining with cold—holding up
their half-frozen feet. The horses uneasily circled, brushing close
against each other for warmth. Indeed it was a morning of merciless
cruelty—the plain was a measureless realm of frost.

In Oma’s tent physical agony was added to grief, or so it seemed, but
in truth the mother knew only sorrow. She was too deeply schooled
by the terrors of the plains not to know how surely the work of the
winter demon had been done. Somewhere out there her sweet little babe
was lying stiff and stark in his icy bed—somewhere on the savage and
relentless upland his small limbs were at the mercy of the cold.

One by one her friends reassembled to help her bear her loss—eager to
offer food, quick to rebuild her fire—but she would not listen, could
not face the cheerful flame. Meat and the glow of embers were of no
avail to revive her frozen, hopeless heart.

The chief himself came at last to see her—to inquire again minutely
of her loss. “We will seek further,” he said. “We will find the boy.
We will bring him to you. Be patient.”

Suddenly a shout arose. “A white man! a white man!” and the warning
cry carried forward from lip to lip announced the news to Waumdisapa.

“A white man comes—riding a pony and bearing something in his arms.
He is within the camp circle!”

[Illustration: Footprints in the Snow

_To an old hunter, footprints in the snow are as an open book,
and it was by these “signs” on the trail that the buffalo hunters
knew the Sioux had crawled in upon the dispatch-bearer as he
rested in a timbered bottom and poured in the bullets that put
an end to his career. To the trooper, the plains white with snow
had seemed lonely indeed, but, as he well knew, one could not, in
those days, trust the plains to be as lonely as they looked, what
with the possibility of Mr. Sitting Bull or Mr. Crazy Horse, with
a band of his braves, popping out of some coulee, intent upon
taking the scalp of any chance wayfarer._

_Illustration from_
WHEN A DOCUMENT IS OFFICIAL
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _September, 1899_]

[Illustration: Geronimo and His Band Returning from a Raid in Mexico

_Leaving their reservation under such leaders as Geronimo, the
Apache Indians, in the period 1882-86, used to take refuge in
the Sierra Madre Mountains, and from this stronghold raid the
settlements in Mexico and Arizona._

_Illustration from_
BORDER TROUBLES
_by_ William M. Edwardy

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _August 18, 1888_]

“Bring him to me!” commanded Waumdisapa. “I will know his errand.”

To all this Oma paid little heed. What to her was any living
creatures now that she was utterly bereaved?

But the wail of a child pierced her heart and she sprang up, listened
intently, just as a smiling young white man, carrying a bundle in his
arms, entered the door and nodding carelessly to the chief, said in
Sioux, “Here’s a little chap I found in the snow last night. I reckon
it belongs here.”

The frenzied mother leaped toward him and snatched the babe from his
arms. Her cry of joy was sweet to hear, and as she cuddled the baby
close, the hunter’s brown face grew very tender—though he laughed.

“I reckon that youngster’s gone to the right spot, chief. I thought
he belonged to your band.”

Then Waumdisapa shook him by the hand and commanded him to sit. “Go
shelter the white man’s horse,” he said, to his people, “and let
a feast be cried, for the lost child is found. This warm-hearted
stranger has brought the dead to life, and we are all glad.”

The hunter laughed in some dismay, and put away the food which the
women began to press upon him. “I must go, chief. My people wait. I
do not deserve this fuss.”

“I will send a messenger to say you are here. They shall also come to
our feast.”

“They may kill your messenger for we are at war.”

The chief considered. “Write large on a piece of paper. Say that we
are at war no more. This deed has made us friends. You are one of
us—we will honor you. We cannot let you go. See the mother’s joy? She
wishes to thank you!”

It was true. Oma, holding her child in her arms, was kneeling before
the young hunter, her face upturned in gratitude. She caught his hand
and kissed it, pressing it to her cheek.

“You are a good man. You have a brave warm heart. You have restored
my child. I love you. I will love all white people hereafter. Stay
and feast with us for I am very happy.”

Flushed with embarrassment the young man shrank away. “Don’t do that!
I have done very little. Any white man would have acted the same.”

But the people of the snow would not have it so. Smilingly they laid
hands upon him and would not let him go. “No, you must remain and
dance with us. We will send for your companions—we will write a new
treaty of peace. Our gratitude shall make us brothers.”

Like a flower that springs up in the wet grass after a rain the
mother’s head lifted and her face shone with joy. The child was
untouched of frost, not even a toe had been pinched, and he fell
asleep again as soon as he was fed. Then Oma laid him down and came
to flutter about his rescuer with gestures of timid worship. She
smiled with such radiance that the young man wondered at the change
in her, and her ecstasy awoke his pity. Then the chief said:

“See! Oma is a widow. She already loves you. Stay with us and take
her to wife.”

Then the youth grew more uneasy than ever and with hesitation said:
“No, chief, I can’t do that—far away among the white villagers is a
girl who is to be my wife. I cannot marry anyone else. I have made a
vow.”

The gentle old chief did not persist, but the women perceived how
Oma’s gratitude grew and one of them took the hunter by the sleeve
and while Oma stood before him in confusion said: “See! You have made
her very happy. She desires to show you how much she owes to you—stay
and be happy.”

He shook them off, but in no unkindly way. “No,” he repeated. “I must
go,” and stepped toward the door of the lodge, strangely moved by the
passion of this primitive scene. These grateful women moved him but
he looked not back.

Waumdisapa followed him. “Friend, tell me your name.”

“Your people call me ‘Blazing Hand,’” returned the young man.

“Hah!” shouted the chief in surprise. “Blazing Hand! you are much
admired among my men. You are swift to shoot.”

Blazing Hand! The name ran from lip to lip, for they had all heard of
this reckless and remorseless young outlaw. More eagerly than ever
they crowded to see him—but the chief after a moment regained his
calm dignity of manner. “Blazing Hand, you have befriended my people
before. Now we are doubly anxious to have you remain with us....”

The young man lifted the door-flap. “_Addios_,” he said, fixing his
eyes on Oma.

She plucked her child from its bed and ran toward him. “I have heard
your name. It shall remain in my ears while I live and I will teach
my child that he may say it after I am dead.”

Waumdisapa called to his scouts: “See that this man is guided
safely to his fellows. And let no one molest him. Henceforth we are
brothers. He and his may hunt and trap where they choose on Teton
land.”

The light was gray on the face of Oma as the stranger rode away—but
the voice of her babe comforted her. Her smile came back and she
said: “Perhaps the kind hunter will return. The face of Blazing Hand
will live forever in my heart.”

THE BLOOD LUST

John Seger, having been detailed to run a mail route across the
country from Fort Reno to Camp Supply, selected his friend Little
Robe to be his guide. Little Robe was Cheyenne, a tall, grave and
rather taciturn man, much respected in his tribe. Just as they were
about to start he said to his employer, with gentle decision:

“I don’t know you—you don’t know me. I am Cheyenne, you are white
man. It is best that we take no weapons along. Each of us may carry a
knife, to use about the camp, but no guns.”

This struck Seger as a bit risky, but, realizing that his life was in
the red man’s hands anyway, he decided to accept. “Very well,” said
he. “If you don’t need a gun, I don’t.”

Driving a span of horses and carrying a meager camping outfit Seger
set forth hopefully. It was in the days of the Star Routers, and this
was a bogus line, but neither he nor Robe knew it. They were indeed
very much in earnest.

The weather was beautiful, and the prairies glorious. Larks were
whistling, plovers crying. “I never enjoyed a ride more in my
life,” said Seger, and, as for Little Robe, he proved a capital
companion. His talk was most instructive. He never once became
coarse or commonplace, and after the second day Seger trusted him
perfectly—though he went to his blanket the first night with some
apprehension.

He soon saw why Robe had been recommended to him. His knowledge of
the whole country was minute. Every stream suggested a story, every
hill discovered a memory. As he came to like his white companion, he
talked more and more freely of his life as a warrior, telling tales
quite as Seger would have done had he been able to speak of his part
in the Vicksburg campaign. To the chief, every enterprise of his
career was honorable. It’s all in the point of view.

He knew the heavens, too, and could lay his course almost as well by
night as by day, and Seger soon came to have a genuine admiration
as well as a feeling of affection for him. He was handy as a woman
around the camp kettle, and never betrayed weariness or anger or
doubt.

One night as they rode down to camp in the valley of a small stream
Robe looked about him with more than usual care, and a perceptible
shadow fell over his face. “I know this place,” he said, and Seger
could see that he was saddened by some recollection connected with it.

He said no more till after they had eaten their supper, and were
sitting beside the smouldering fire; then he began slowly to utter
his mind.

“Aye, friend, I know this place. It is filled with sad thoughts. I
camped here many years ago. I was a young warrior then and reckless,
but my wife was with me, and my little daughter.” His lips took on
a sweetness almost feminine as he paused. “She was very lovely, my
child. She had lived five years and she could swim like an otter. She
used to paddle about in this little pool. Several days I camped here
debating whether to go on into the south country or not. You see,
friend, I was in need of horses and in those days it was the custom
for the young warriors of my tribe to make raids among the peaked
hats, whom you call Mexicans, in order to drive off their horses.
This was considered brave and honorable, and I was eager to go and
enrich myself.

“My wife did not wish me to take this journey. She wept when I told
her my plan. ‘Do not go,’ she said, ‘stay with me!’ Then I began to
consider taking her and my little daughter with me—for I did not like
to be separated from them even for a day. My child was so pretty, her
cheeks were so round and her eyes so bright. She had little dimpled
hands, and when she put her arms about my neck my heart was like wax.”

The old warrior’s voice trembled as he reached this point in his
story, and for a long time he could not go on. At last he regained
composure. “It was foolish to make the raid—it was very wrong to take
my little girl, but I could not leave her behind. Therefore one day
with my wife and daughter and my three brothers, I set out into the
southwest, resolute to win some ponies.

“After the first two days we traveled at night and camped in a
concealed place during the day. Slowly we stole forward, until at
last we came near a small village of The Peaked Hats, where some fine
horses and mules were reported to be had by advancing with boldness
and skill.

“My own ponies were poor and weak and as I saw the horses about this
village I became very eager to own some of them. Especially did I
desire a fine sorrel mare. It was not easy to get her, for these
people had been many times raided by the Comanches and were very
careful to round up their best animals at night and put them into a
high corral. Nevertheless, I told my brothers to be ready and that
I myself would adventure to the gate, open it, and drive forth our
prizes.

“My wife begged me to give up my plan. She wept and clung to my arm.
‘It will lead to evil, I feel it,’ she said. ‘You will be killed.’
But I had given my word. I could not fail of it. ‘Take my wife,’ I
said sternly to my younger brother. ‘Take her and the little one and
ride northward toward that black butte. I will meet you there at
daybreak,’ I said.

“My wife took our little daughter in her arms, and my brother led
them away. I could hear my wife moaning as she rode into the dark
night——”

Again the deep voice faltered, as the memory of this parting wail
came back to him, but he soon resumed quietly: “Slowly I crept
forward. I reached the corral, but could not find the gate. It was
on the side nearest the village and as I crept round feeling of the
poles, the dogs began to bark. I kept on, however, and at last found
and tore down the bars. Entering the corral, I began to lash the
horses with my lariat. As the sorrel was about to pass me I caught
her and leaped upon her back. In a few moments I was driving the
whole herd like a whirlwind across the plain.

“My brother joined me and we tried to turn the herd northward, but
the leaders gave me great trouble. At last some of them escaped and
returned to the village. We heard shouting, we were pursued. Roping
and tying some of the best of the ponies we could overtake, we drove
them before us toward the butte, well pleased with our capture.

“We traveled hard, overtaking my brother and my wife and baby girl,
but thereafter we were unable to make speed on account of the child
and its mother, and on account of the horses, two of which were fine
but very stubborn. I could not consent to set them loose though I
knew I was endangering my dear ones by delay. It was very foolish and
I was made to suffer for my folly.

“The Mexicans must have had other horses hidden and ready saddled,
for they came swiftly on our trail and before long they began to
shoot. Almost the first shot they fired struck my wife in the back,
and passing entirely through her body wounded my little daughter. I
turned then and began to shoot in return and my pursuers fell back.
We abandoned all the horses but two and when my wife told me of her
hurt I took my little girl in my arms and rode fast for a place of
concealment. My wife was badly crippled and got upon another horse,
and followed me closely.

“That day we spent in swiftest flight—using every precaution to
conceal our trail. I did not know how sadly mangled my child was, but
she moaned with pain and that nearly broke my heart, and yet I dared
not stop. I realized how crazy I had been to bring her into this
land, but my repentance came too late. At every stream I gave her
water to drink and bathed her wound, but it was of no avail—she died
in my arms—”

The warrior stopped abruptly. His lips quivered and his eyes were dim
with memories too sad for speech. For some minutes he sat in silence,
the tears rolling down his browned and wrinkled cheeks. At last he
brokenly resumed.

“Friend, we buried her there in that lonely land and kept on our way.
But thereafter I could not sleep. When I closed my eyes I could see
my baby’s little round face and feel her soft arms about my neck, and
my heart was full of bitterness. I longed for revenge. My blood cried
out for the death of the man whose bullet had taken her life. Each
night in our homeward way my heart burned hot in my bosom, flaming
with hate. It was like a live ember in my flesh.

“My woman who knew what was in my mind begged me not to return to the
south—but I shut my ears to her pleading. I assembled my clan round
me. I called upon those who wished to help me revenge the death of my
daughter to join me. Many stepped forth and at last with a band of
brave young men I swept back and fell like a whirlwind on that town.

“When I left it, only a heap of ashes could be seen. Of all who
inhabited that village not one escaped me—not one.” Then with a face
of bronze and with biblical brevity of phrase he concluded: “_After
that I slept._”

THE REMORSE OF WAUMDISAPA

THE REMORSE OF WAUMDISAPA[2]

There was dissension in the camp of Waumdisapa. Mattowan, his cousin,
jealous of his chief’s great fame, was conspiring to degrade and
destroy him.

Waumdisapa, called “King of the Plains” by those border men who
knew him best, was famed throughout the valley of the Platte.
Grave, dignified, serious of face and commanding of figure, he rose
intellectually above all his people as his splendid body towered in
the dance, a natural leader of men. His people were still living
their own life, happy in their own lands, free to come and go,
sweeping from north to south as the bison moved, needing nothing of
the white man but his buffalo guns and his ammunition. It was in
these days that women emptied the flour of their rations upon the
grass in order to use the cloth of the sack, careless of the food
of the paleface which was considered enervating and destructive to
warriors and hunters.

Yet even in those days Waumdisapa was friendly with the traders, and
like the famous Sitting Bull of the north, was only anxious to keep
his people from corrupting contact with the whites, jealous to hold
his lands and resolute to maintain his tribal traditions. His was the
true chief’s heart—all his great influence was used to maintain peace
and order. He carried no weapon—save the knife with which he shaved
his tobacco and cut his meat, and on his arm dangled the beaded
bag in which the sacred pipe of friendship and meditation lay, and
wherever he walked turmoil ceased.

For these reasons he was greatly beloved by his people. No one
feared him—not even the children of the captive Ute woman who served
Iapa—and yet he had gained his preëminence by virtue of great deeds
as well as by strong and peaceful thoughts. He was a moving orator
also—polished and graceful of utterance, conciliatory and placating
at all times. Often he turned aside the venomous hand of revenge and
cooled the hot heart of war. In tribal policies he was always on the
side of justice.

Mattowan was a brave warrior, too, a man respected for his
horsemanship, his skill with death-dealing weapons, and
distinguished, too, for his tempestuous eloquence—but he was also
feared. His hand was quick against even his brothers in council. He
could not tolerate restraint. Checked now and again by Waumdisapa, he
had darkened with anger, and in his heart a desire for revenge was
smoldering like a hidden fire in the hollow of a great tree.

He was ambitious. “Why should Waumdisapa be chief? Am I not of equal
stature, of equal fame as a warrior?” So he argued among his friends,
spreading disaffection. “Waumdisapa is growing old,” he sneered. “He
talks for peace, for submission to the white man. His heart is no
longer that of a warrior. He sits much in his tepee. It is time that
he were put away.”

When the chief heard these words he was very sad and very angry. He
called a council at once to consider what should be done with the
traitor and the whole tribe trembled with excitement and awe. What
did it mean when the two most valiant men of the tribe stood face to
face like angry panthers?

When the head men were assembled Waumdisapa, courteous, grave and
self-contained, placed Mattowan at his left and old Mato, the
hereditary chief, upon his right, and took his seat with serene
countenance. Outside the council tepee the women sat upon the
ground—silent, attentive, drawn closer to the speakers than they were
accustomed to approach. The children, even the girl babies, crouched
beside their mothers—their desire for play swallowed up in a dim
sense of some impending disaster. No feast was being prepared, smiles
were few and furtive. No one knew what was about to take place, but a
foreboding of trouble chilled them.

The chief lighted his pipe and passed it to Mato who put it to
his lips, drew a deep whiff and passed it to his neighbor. So it
went slowly from man to man while Waumdisapa sat, in silence, with
downcast eyes, awaiting its return.

As the pipe came to Mattowan he, the traitor, passed it by with a
gesture of contempt.

The chief received it again with a steady hand, but from his lowered
eye-lids a sudden flame shot. Handing the pipe to Mato he rose, and
looking benignantly, yet sadly, round the circle, began very quietly:

“Brothers, the Lakotans are a great people, just and generous to
their foes, faithful to the laws of their tribe. I am your chief. You
all know how I became so. Some of you knew my father—he was a great
warrior——”

“Aye, so he was,” said Mato.

“He was a wise and good man also,” continued Waumdisapa.

“Aye, aye,” chorused several of the old men.

“He brought me up in the good way. He taught me to respect my elders
and to honor my chief. He told me the stories of our tribe. He taught
me to pray—and to shoot. He taught me to dance, to sing the ancient
songs, and when I was old enough he led me to battle. My skill with
the spear and the arrow I drew from him, he gave me courage and
taught me forbearance. When he died you made me leader in his place
and carefully have I followed his footsteps. I have kept the peace
among my people. I have given of my abundance to the poor. I have not
boasted or spoken enviously because my father would be ashamed of me
if I did so. Now the time has come to speak plainly. I hear that my
brother who sits beside me—Mattowan, the son of my mother’s sister—is
envious. I hear that he wishes to see me put aside as one no longer
fit to rule.”

He paused here and the tension was very great in all the assembly,
but Mattowan sullenly looked out over the heads of the women—his big
mouth close set.

The chief gently said: “This shall be as you say. If you, my
brothers, head men of the Lakotans, say I am old and foolish, then
Waumdisapa will put aside his chief’s robes and go forth to sit
outside the council circle.” His voice trembled as he uttered this
resolution—but drawing himself to proud height he concluded in a firm
voice: “Brothers, I have spoken.”

As he took his seat a low mournful sound passed among the women, and
the mother of Mattowan began to sing a bitter song of reproach—but
some one checked her, as old Mato rose. He was small, with the face
of a fox, keen, shrewd, humorous. After the usual orator’s preamble,
he said: “Brothers, this is very foolish. Who desires to have
Mattowan chief? Only a few boys and grumblers. What has he done to
be chief? Nothing that others have not done. He is a crazy man. His
heart is bad. Would he bring dissension among us? Let us rebuke this
braggart. For me I am old—I sit here only by courtesy of Waumdisapa,
but for me I want no change. I do not wish to make a wolf the war
chief of my people. I have spoken.”

As the pipe went round and one by one the head men rose to praise
and defend their chieftain, Mattowan became furious. He trembled
and his face grew ferocious with his almost ungovernable hate and
disappointment—plainly the day was going against him.

At last he sprang up, forgetting all form—all respect. “You are all
squaws,” he roared. “You are dogs licking the bones this whining
coward throws to you——”

He spoke no more. With the leap of a panther his chief fell upon him
and with one terrible blow sunk his knife to the hilt in his heart.
Smitten with instant palsy Mattowan staggered a moment amid the moans
of the women, and the hoarse shouts of the men, and fell forward,
face down in the very center of the council circle.

[Illustration: An Indian Brave

_Illustration from_
A BUNCH OF BUCKSKINS
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published by_
R. H. RUSSELL, _1901_]

For a minute Waumdisapa, tense and terrible in his anger, stood
looking down upon his fallen calumniator—rigid, menacing, ready
to strike again—then his vast muscles relaxed, his eyes misted with
tears and with a moan of remorse and anguish he lifted his blanket
till his quivering lips were covered—crying hoarsely, “I have killed
my brother. I am no longer fit to be your chief.”

Thereupon dropping his embroidered pipe-bag and his ceremonial fan
upon the ground he turned and walked slowly away with staggering,
shaking limbs, onward through the camp, out upon the plain and there,
throwing himself down upon the ground, began to chant a wild song of
uncontrollable grief.

All night long he lay thus, mourning like a wounded lion, and his
awed people dared not approach. Over and over, with anguished voice,
he cried: “Father pity me. My hand is red with my brother’s blood. I
have broken the bond of the council circle. My heart is black with
despair!—Pity me!—My brother!”

* * * * *

In the morning he returned to his tepee, moving like an old man, bent
and nerveless, avoiding all eyes, ignoring all greetings—and when
next the council met, Waumdisapa, clad in rags, with dust upon his
head, silently took his place outside the council circle—self-accused
and self-deposed.

The sight of their chief moving so humbly to a seat among the
obscure, deeply affected the women, and a wailing song ran among
them like an autumn wind—but Waumdisapa’s head was bowed to hide his
quivering lips.

A DECREE OF COUNCIL

Big Nose was an inveterate gambler. Like all the plains tribes the
Shi-an-nay are a social people. They love companionship and the
interchange of jest and story. At evening, when the day’s hunt is
over, they come together to tell stories and joke and discuss each
other’s affairs precisely as the peasants of a French village do. And
when amusement is desired they dance or play games.

It is this feeling on their part which makes it so difficult for the
Government to carry out its theories of allotment. It is difficult to
uproot a habit of life which has been thousands of years forming. It
is next to impossible to get one of these people to leave the village
group and go into his lonely little cabin a mile or two from a
neighbor. And the need of amusement is intensified by the sad changes
in the life of these people. Games of chance appeal to them precisely
as they do to the negro and to large classes of white people. They
play with the same abandon with which the negro enters into a game of
craps.

One evening Big Nose was in company with three or four others in the
midst of Charcoal’s camp playing The Hand game. He had been doing
some work for the Post and had brought with him to the camp a little
heap of silver dollars. He was therefore in excellent temper for
a brisk game. But luck was against him. His little store of money
melted away and then he began taking his ponies, his gun, and finally
his blankets and his tepee; all went into the yawning gulf of his bad
luck. Before midnight came he had staked everything but the clothing
on his back and had reached a condition of mind bordering on frenzy.

Nothing was too small for his opponents to accept and nothing was
too valuable for him to stake. He began putting his moccasins up on
the chance and ended by tearing off his Gee string which represented
his absolute impoverishment. A reasonable being would have ended the
game here but with a desperation hitherto unknown to the gamblers of
his tribe, he sat naked on the ground and gambled both his wives away.

When he realized what had happened to him, that he was absolutely
without home or substance in the world, naked to the cold and having
no claim upon a human being, his frenzy left him and he sank into
pitiful dejection. Walking naked through the camp, he began to cry
his need, “Take pity on me, my friends. I have nothing. The wind is
cold. I have no blanket. I am hungry. I have no tepee.”

For a long time no one paid any heed to him, for they were disgusted
with his foolishness and they would not allow his wives to clothe him
or give him shelter. However, at last, his brother came out and gave
him a blanket and took him into his tepee. “Let this be a lesson to
you,” he said. “You are a fool. Yet I pity you.”

Next day a council was called to consider his case, which was the
most remarkable that had ever happened in the tribe. There were many
who were in favor of letting him take care of himself, but in the end
it was decreed that he should be clothed and that he should have a
tepee and the absolute necessities of life.

The question of restoring him to his wives was a much more serious
one, the general opinion being that a man who would gamble his wives
away in this way had no further claim upon a woman.

[Illustration: In an Indian Camp

_The two men standing are in argument about the squaw seated
between them, for the possession of whom they had gambled, the
brave in the breech-clout, although the loser, refusing, in
Indian parlance, “to put the woman on the blanket.”_

_Illustration from_
SUN-DOWN LEFLARE’S WARM SPOT
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _September, 1898_]

[Illustration: Crow Indians Firing into the Agency

_This incident occurred in 1887 on the Crow Reservation in
Northern Montana. A score or so of young Crow braves having
captured sixty horses in a raid they made on a Piegan camp, were
wildly celebrating the victory when the agent sought to arrest
them with his force of Indian police. Upon this the raiders
assumed a hostile attitude and as a defiance they began firing
into the agency buildings._

_Illustration from_
THE TURBULENT CROWS

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _November 5, 1887_]

At last, old Charcoal arose to speak. He was a waggish old fellow
whose eye twinkled with humor as he said, “Big Nose has two wives
as you know. One of them is young. She is industrious. She is very
quiet, saying little and speaking in a gentle voice. The other is
old and has a sharp tongue. Her tongue is like a whip. It makes
her husband smart. Now let us restore him to his old wife. She will
be good discipline for him. She will not let him forget what he has
done.”

This suggestion made every one laugh and it was agreed with. And the
news was carried to Big Nose. “I don’t want my old wife,” he said. “I
want my young wife.”

“The council has decreed,” was the stern answer, “and there is no
appeal.”

Big Nose accepted the ruling of the tribe and resolutely turned his
face in the right direction. He gave up gambling and became one of
the most progressive men of the tribe. By hard work he acquired a
team and a wagon and worked well, freighting for the Agency and for
the Post traders.

His old wife, however, grew more and more unsatisfactory as the years
went by. For some inscrutable reason, she did not care to make a
home, but was always moving about from camp to camp, full of gossip
and unwelcome criticism. All this Big Nose patiently endured for four
years. But one day he came to Seger, the superintendent of the school
near him, and said:

“My friend, you know I am walking the white man’s road. You see that
I want to do right. I have a team. I work hard. I want a home where
I can live quietly. But my old wife is trifling. She is good for
nothing. She wants to gad about all the time and never stay home and
look after the chickens. I want to put her away and take another and
better wife.”

Seger was very cautious. “What do the old chiefs say about it?”

Big Nose looked a little discouraged, but he answered defiantly, “Oh,
I am walking the white man’s road these days. I don’t care what they
say. I am listening to what you say.”

“I’ll consider the matter,” he replied evasively, for he wished to
consult the head men. When he had stated the matter to White Shield,
he said, “Now, of course, whatever you think best in this matter will
be acceptable. I don’t know anything about the circumstances, but if
this old woman is as bad as Big Nose says, she is of no account.”

White Shield, very quietly, replied, “Big Nose can never marry again.”

“Why not?” inquired Seger, being interested in White Shield’s brevity
and decision of utterance.

White Shield replied, “Haven’t you heard how Big Nose gambled his
wives away? That thing he did. Gambled away his tepees, his clothing,
and walked naked through the camp. We gave him clothes. We gave back
one wife, but we marked out a road and he must walk in it. He cannot
marry again.”

And from this decree there was no appeal.

DRIFTING CRANE

The people of Boomtown invariably spoke of Henry Wilson as the oldest
settler in the Jim Valley, as he was of Buster County, but the
Eastern man, with his ideas of an “old settler,” was surprised as he
met the short, silent, middle-aged man, who was very loath to tell
anything about himself, and about whom many strange and thrilling
stories were told.

Between his ranch and the settlements in Eastern Dakota there was the
wedge-shaped reservation known as the Sisseton Indian Reserve, on
which were stationed the customary agency and company of soldiers.
The valley was unsurveyed for the most part, and the Indians
naturally felt a sort of proprietorship in it, and when Wilson drove
his cattle down into the valley and squatted, the chief, Drifting
Crane, welcomed him, as a host might, to an abundant feast whose
hospitality was presumed upon, but who felt the need of sustaining
his reputation for generosity, and submitted graciously.

The Indians during the first summer got to know Wilson, and liked
him for his silence, his courage, his simplicity; but the older men
pondered upon the matter a great deal and watched with grave faces
to see him ploughing up the sod for his garden. There was something
strange in this solitary man thus deserting his kindred, coming
here to live alone with his cattle; they could not understand it.
What they said in those pathetic, dimly lighted lodges will never
be known; but when winter came, and the newcomer did not drive his
cattle back over the hills as they thought he would, then the old
chieftains took long counsel upon it. Night after night they smoked
upon it, and at last Drifting Crane said to two of his young men:
“Go ask this cattleman why he remains in the cold and snow with his
cattle. Ask him why he does not drive his cattle home.”

This was in March, and one evening a couple of days later, as Wilson
was about re-entering his shanty at the close of his day’s work, he
was confronted by two stalwart Indians, who greeted him pleasantly.

“How d’e do?” he said in reply. “Come in.”

The Indians entered and sat silently while he put some food on the
table. They hardly spoke till after they had eaten. The Indian is
always hungry, for the reason that his food supply is insufficient
and his clothing poor. When they sat on the cracker-boxes and
soap-boxes which served as seats, they spoke. They told him of the
chieftain’s message. They said they had come to assist him in driving
his cattle back across the hills; that he must go.

To all this talk in the Indian’s epigrammatic way, and in the dialect
which has never been written, the rancher replied almost as briefly:
“You go back and tell Drifting Crane that I like this place; that I’m
here to stay; that I don’t want any help to drive my cattle. I’m on
the lands of the Great Father at Washington, and Drifting Crane ain’t
got any say about it. Now that sizes the whole thing up. I ain’t got
anything against you nor against him, but I’m a settler; that’s my
constitution; and now I’m settled I’m going to stay.”

While the Indians discussed his words between themselves he made a
bed of blankets on the floor, and said: “I never turn anybody out. A
white man is just as good as an Indian as long as he behaves himself
as well. You can bunk here.”

In the morning he gave them as good a breakfast as he had,—bacon and
potatoes, with coffee and crackers. Then he shook hands, saying:
“Come again. I ain’t got anything against you; you’ve done y’r duty.
Now go back and tell your chief what I’ve said. I’m at home every
day. Good day.”

The Indians smiled kindly, and drawing their blankets over their
arms, went away toward the east.

During April and May two or three reconnoitering parties of
land-hunters drifted over the hills and found him out. He was glad
to see them, for, to tell the truth, the solitude of his life was
telling on him. The winter had been severe, and he had hardly caught
a glimpse of a white face during the three midwinter months, and his
provisions were scanty.

These parties brought great news. One of them was the advance
surveying party for a great Northern railroad, and they said a line
of road was to be surveyed during the summer if their report was
favorable.

“Well, what d’ye think of it?” Wilson asked, with a smile.

“Think! It’s immense!” said a small man in the party, whom the
rest called Judge Balser. “Why, they’ll be a town of four thousand
inhabitants in this valley before snow flies. We’ll send the
surveyors right over the divide next month.”

They sent some papers to Wilson a few weeks later, which he devoured
as a hungry dog might devour a plate of bacon. The papers were
full of the wonderful resources of the Jim Valley. It spoke of the
nutritious grasses for stock. It spoke of the successful venture of
the lonely settler Wilson, how his stock fattened upon the winter
grasses without shelter, what vegetables he grew, etc.

Wilson was reading this paper for the sixth time one evening in May.
He felt something touch him on the shoulder, and looked up to see a
tall Indian gazing down upon him with a look of strange pride and
gravity. Wilson sprang to his feet and held out his hand.

“Drifting Crane, how d’e do?”

The Indian bowed, but did not take the settler’s hand. Drifting Crane
would have been called old if he had been a white man, and there was
a look of age in the fixed lines of his powerful, strongly modeled
face, but no suspicion of weakness in the splendid poise of his
broad, muscular body. There was a smileless gravity about his lips
and eyes which was very impressive.

“I’m glad to see you. Come in and get something to eat,” said Wilson,
after a moment’s pause.

The chief entered the cabin and took a seat near the door. He took a
cup of milk and some meat and bread silently, and ate while listening
to the talk of the settler.

“I don’t brag on my biscuits, chief, but they _eat_, if a man is
hungry. An’ the milk’s all right. I suppose you’ve come to see why I
ain’t moseying back over the divide?”

The chief, after a long pause, began to speak in a low, slow voice,
as if choosing his words. He spoke in broken English, of course, but
his speech was very direct and plain and had none of these absurd
figures of rhetoric which romancers invariably put into the mouths of
Indians. His voice was almost lionlike in its depth, and yet was not
unpleasant.

“Cattleman, my young men brought me bad message from you. They
brought your words to me, saying, he will not go away.”

“That’s about the way the thing stands,” replied Wilson, in response
to the question that was in the old chief’s steady eyes. “I’m here
to stay. This ain’t your land; this is Uncle Sam’s land, and part of
it’ll be mine as soon as the surveyors come to measure it off.”

“Who gave it away?” asked the chief. “My people were cheated out of
it; they didn’t know what they were doing.”

“I can’t help that; that’s for Congress to say. That’s the business
of the Great Father at Washington.”

There was a look of deep sorrow in the old man’s face. At last he
spoke again: “The cattleman is welcome; but he must go, because
whenever one white man goes and calls it good, the others come.
Drifting Crane has seen it far in the east twice. The white men come
thick as the grass. They tear up the sod. They build houses. They
scare the buffalo away. They spoil my young men with whisky. Already
they begin to climb the eastern hills. Soon they will fill the
valley, and Drifting Crane and his people will be surrounded. The sod
will all be black.”

“I hope you’re right,” was the rancher’s grim reply.

“But they will not come if the cattleman go back to say the water is
not good, there is no grass, and the Indians own the land.”

Wilson smiled at the childish faith of the chief. “Won’t do,
chief—won’t do. That won’t do any good. I might as well stay.”

The chief rose. He was touched by the settler’s laugh; his eyes
flashed; his voice took on a sterner note. “The white man _must_ go!”

Wilson rose also. He was not a large man, but he was a very resolute
one. “I shan’t go,” he said through his clenched teeth.

It was a thrilling, a significant scene. It was in absolute truth the
meeting of the modern vidette of civilization with one of the rear
guard of retreating barbarism. Each man was a type; each was wrong,
and each was right. The Indian as true and noble from the barbaric
point of view as the white man. He was a warrior and hunter; made so
by circumstances over which he had no control.

The settler represented the unflagging energy and fearless heart of
the American pioneer. Narrow-minded, partly brutalized by hard labor
and a lonely life, yet an admirable figure for all that. As he looked
into the Indian’s face he seemed to grow in height. He felt behind
him all the weight of the millions of westward-moving settlers; he
stood the representative of an unborn state. He took down a rifle
from the wall, the magazine rifle, most modern of guns; he patted the
stock, pulled the crank, throwing a shell into view.

“You know this thing, chief?”

The Indian nodded slightly.

“Well, I’ll go when—this—is—empty.”

“But my young men are many.”

“So are the white men—my brothers.”

The chief’s head dropped forward. Wilson, ashamed of his boasting,
put the rifle back on the wall.

“I’m not here to fight. You can kill me any time. You could ’a’
killed me to-night, but it wouldn’t do any good. It’ud only make it
worse for you. Why, they’ll be a town in here bigger’n all your tribe
before two grass from now. It ain’t no use, Drifting Crane; it’s
_got_ to be. You an’ I can’t help n’r hinder it.”

Drifting Crane turned his head and gazed out on the western sky,
still red with the light of the fallen sun. His face was rigid as
bronze, but there was a dreaming, prophetic look in his eyes. A lump
came into the settler’s throat; for the first time in his life he
got a glimpse of the infinite despair of the Indian. He forgot that
Drifting Crane was the representative of a “vagabond race”; he saw
in him, or rather _felt_ in him, something almost magnetic. He was a
_man_; and a man of sorrows. The settler’s voice was husky when he
spoke again, and his lips trembled.

“Chief, I’d go to-morrow if it’ud do any good, but it won’t—not a
particle. You know that when you stop to think a minute. What good
did it do to massa_cree_ all them settlers at New Ulm? What good will
it do to murder me and a hundred others? Not a bit. A thousand others
would take our places. So I might just as well stay, and we might
just as well keep good friends. Killin’ is out o’ fashion; don’t do
any good.”

There was a twitching about the stern mouth of the Indian chief. He
understood all too well the irresistible logic of the pioneer. He
kept his martial attitude, but his broad chest heaved painfully,
and his eyes grew dim. At last he said, “Good-by. Cattleman right;
Drifting Crane wrong. Shake hands. Good-by.” He turned and strode
away.

“This is all wrong,” muttered the settler. “There’s land enough for
us all, or ought to be. I don’t understand—Well, I’ll leave it to
Uncle Sam, anyway.” He ended with a sigh.

THE STORY OF HOWLING WOLF

Within two weeks after Captain Cook took charge of the Snake River
Agency his native policemen reported that fifteen of his people had
crossed the reservation line on their way to the Wind River Country.

“Where have they gone?”

“They gone to see it—their Ghost Dance Saviour,” explained Claude,
the agency interpreter.

“Who have gone?”

Claude rapidly ran over the names, and ended with “Howling Wolf.”

“Howling Wolf? Who is he? He isn’t on the rolls. I don’t know
anything about him.”

“He head man of Lizard Creek Camp.”

“Why isn’t he on the rolls?”

“He don’t get it—no rations.”

“Why not?”

“He is angry.”

“Angry? What about?”

Out of a good deal of talk the agent secured this story. Seven years
before, a brother of Howling Wolf, a peaceful old man, was sitting
on a hilltop (near the road) wrapped in evening meditation. His back
was toward a white man’s cabin not far away and he was looking at the
sunset. His robe was drawn closely round him, and his heart was at
peace with all the world, for he was thinking that the way is short
between him and the Shadow Land.

A couple of cowboys came out of the door of the cabin and one pointed
at the meditating man with derisive gestures. The other drew his
revolver and said, “See me knock the hat off the old fool.”

As he fired the old man sprang to his feet with a convulsive leap,
the blood streaming over his face. Numbed by the shock and blinded
with his own blood, he ran frenziedly and without design toward the
miscreant who shot him, and so on over the hill toward Howling Wolf’s
camp.

Springing to their horses the two ruffians galloped away with
desperate haste.

It was well they did so, for an hour later nothing remained of the
ranch but a heap of smoking embers. A hundred angry red men had swept
back over the hill—swift to avenge the madness of old Medicine Crow.

The old man was not killed, he lived for more than a year after the
wound, but he was never quite himself and when he died Howling Wolf
made a solemn declaration of war against the white cattlemen and
could not be convinced that the cowboys meant merely to frighten and
not to kill his brother. He lived in the hope of some time meeting
those men. No one had seen them but David Big Nose, who had been to
the white settlement that day, had met the fugitives, and was able
to describe them very well and every word of his description burned
itself into Howling Wolf’s memory. Thereafter on all his excursions
among the whites his eyes were ever seeking, his ears ever listening.
He never for an instant lost hope of revenge.

He withdrew from all friendly association with the whites. He was
sullen, difficult to deal with and in the end became a powerful
influence in checking the progress of the Shi-an-nay along the white
man’s road. The agent took little pains to help him clear away his
doubts and hates, and so it was that Claude, the interpreter, ended
by saying, “and so Howling Wolf no send children to school—no take it
rations, and never comes to agency—never.”

Captain Cook sat down and wrote a telegram to the agent of the
Sho-sho-nee, saying, “Fifteen of my people are gone without leave to
visit the Messiah. If they come into your reservation arrest them and
send them back at once.”

Some days later the Wind River agent replied: “Eleven of your Indians
came in here—I’ve sent them home. Four went round me to the west.
Probably they have gone into the Twin Lake Country, where the Messiah
is said to be.”

Some weeks later Big Bear, the policeman, came in with the second
announcement, “Howling Wolf come.”

“You tell Howling Wolf I want to see him,” said Cook. “Tell him I
want to talk with him, say to him I am his friend and that I want to
talk things over.”

Two days later, as he sat at his desk in his inner office, the
captain heard the door open and close, and when he looked up, a tall,
handsome but very sullen red man was looking down upon him.

“How!” called Cook, pleasantly, extending his hand.

The visitor remained as motionless as a bronze statue of hate, his
arms folded, his figure menacing. His eyes seemed to search the soul
of the man before him.

“How—_how_!” called Cook again. “Are you deaf? What’s the matter with
you? How!”

At this the chief seized the agent’s hand and began shaking it
violently, viciously. It was his crippled arm and Cook was soon tired
of this horseplay.

“That’ll do, stop it! Stop it, I say. Stop it or by the Lord I’ll
smash your face,” he cried, seizing a heavy glass inkstand. He was
about to strike his tormentor, when the red man dropped his hand.

Angry and short of breath the agent stepped to the door.

“Claude, come in here. Who is this man? What’s the matter with him?”

“That Howling Wolf,” replied the interpreter, with evident fear.

Cook was enlightened. He turned with a beaming smile. “Howling Wolf,
how de do? I’m glad to see you.” And then to Claude: “You tell him
my arm is sick and he mustn’t be so hearty with his greetings. Tell
him I want to have a long talk with him right off—but I’ve got some
papers to sign and I can’t do it now. Tell him to come to-morrow
morning.”

They shook hands again, ceremoniously this time, and Howling Wolf
withdrew in dignified reserve.

After he went away Cook informed himself thoroughly concerning the
former agent’s treatment of Howling Wolf and was ready next morning
for a conference.

As he walked into the yard about nine o’clock the agent found fifteen
or twenty young men of Howling Wolf’s faction lounging about the
door of the office. They were come to see that their leader was not
abused—at least such was Cook’s inference.

He was irritated but did not show it. “Go out of the yard!” he said
quietly. “I don’t want you here. Claude will tell you all you want to
know.” He insisted and, though they scowled sullenly, they obeyed,
for he laid his open palm on the breast of the tallest of them and
pushed him to the gate. “Come, go out—you’ve no business here.”

Claude was shaking with fear, but regained composure as the young men
withdrew.

As they faced Howling Wolf in the inner office, Cook said, “Well now,
Wolf, I want you tell me just what is the matter? I am your friend
and the friend of all your people. I am a soldier and a soldier does
his duty. My duty is to see that you get your rations and that no one
harms you. Now what is the trouble?”

Howling Wolf mused a while and then began to recount his grievances
one by one. His story was almost exactly as it had been reported by
others.

[Illustration: An Indian Trapper

_This Indian trapper depicted by Remington may be a Cree, or
perhaps a Blackfoot, whom one was apt to run across in the
Selkirk Mountains, or elsewhere on the plains of the British
Territory, or well up north in the Rockies, toward the outbreak
of the Civil War._

_Illustration from_
SOME AMERICAN RIDERS
_by_ Colonel Theodore Ayrault Dodge, U.S.A.

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _May, 1891_]

[Illustration: A Questionable Companionship

_In frontier days when the white man and the Indian met on a
lonely trail it was natural for them to watch each other with
suspicion as they rode side by side. To both the companionship
seemed questionable, until finally some words of the red man
convinced the white man that his companion was trustworthy. After
that there were a sharing of food or water or tobacco and an
admixture of comfort to the companionship._

_Illustration from_
A QUESTIONABLE COMPANIONSHIP

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _August 9, 1890_]

The other agent had sworn at him and once had kicked at him—“for
which I will kill him”—he added with quiet menace. “He has tried
to steal away my children to teach them white man’s ways. I don’t
want them to learn white man’s ways. White man lie, and steal and
quarrel. Then the agent cut off my rations which are a part of our
treaty and I was hungry. For all this I am angry at white men.”

When he had finished the agent said, “You’re all wrong, Howling Wolf.
Some white men are bad, but many are good and want to do the Indian
good. I am one of those who are set aside by the Great Father to
see that your rights are secured. You may depend on me. Go ask Red
Beard, Wolf Voice, or White Calf, they will tell you the kind of man
I am. I’m going to be your friend whether you are my friend or not.
I want you to come and see me. I want you to draw your rations and
be friends with me. Will you do it? I want you to think about this
to-night and come and see me again.”

For fully five minutes Howling Wolf sat thinking deeply with his eyes
on the floor. His lips twitched occasionally and his broad breast
heaved with profound emotion. It was hard to trust the white man
even when he smiled, for his tongue had ever been forked like the
rattlesnake and his hand exceedingly cunning. His deeds also were
mysterious. Out of the east he came and monstrous things followed
him—canoes that belched flame and thunder, iron horses that drew
huge wagons, with a noise like a whirlwind. They brought plows that
tore the sod, machines that swept away the grass. Their skill was
diabolical. They all said, “dam Injun,” and in those words displayed
their hearts. They desolated, uprooted and transformed. They made
the red men seem like children and weak women by their necromancy.
Was there no end to their coming? Was there no clear sky behind this
storm? What mighty power pushed them forward?

And yet they brought good things. They brought sugar and flour and
strange fruits. They knew how to make pleasant drinks and to raise
many grains. They were not all bad. They were like a rainstorm which
does much harm and great good also. Besides, here was this smiling
man, his agent, waiting to hear what he had to say.

At last he was able to look up, and though he did not smile, his face
was no longer sullen. He rose and extended his hand. “I will do as
you say. I will go home and think. I will come to see you again and I
will tell you all my mind.”

When he came two days later he met the agent with a smile. “How! My
friend—How!” he said pleasantly.

The agent took him to his inner office where none might hear and made
the sign “Be seated.”

Howling Wolf sat down and began by saying, “I could not come
yesterday, for I had not yet finished thinking over your words. When
night came I did as you said. I lay alone in my tepee looking up at
a star just above and my thoughts were deep and calm. You are right,
Howling Wolf is wrong. Nobody ever explained these things to me
before. All white men said, ‘Go here,’ ‘Do that,’ ‘Don’t go there,’
‘Don’t do that,’—they never explained and I did not understand their
reasons for doing so. No white man ever shook hands with me like a
friend. They all said, ‘Dam Injun’—all Shi-an-nay know those words.
You are not so. You are a just man—everybody tells me so. I am glad
of this. It makes my heart warm and well. I have taken on hope for my
people once more. I had a heart of hate toward all the white race—now
all that is gone. It is buried deep under the ground. I want to be
friends with all the world and I want you to make me a paper—will you
do it?”

“Certainly,” replied the agent. “What shall it be?”

The old man rose and with deep solemnity dictated these words to be
mysteriously recorded in the white man’s wonderful tablet:

“Say this: I am Howling Wolf. Long I hated the white man. Now my
heart is good and I want to make friends with all white men. I want
to work with a plow and live in a house like the white man. These are
my words. Howling Wolf.”

To this the old man put his sign: and as he folded the paper and put
it away in his pouch, he said, “This shall be a sign to all men. This
paper I will show to all Shi-an-nay and to all the white men. It will
tell them that my heart is made good.”

And he went out with the glow of good cheer upon his face.

Now Howling Wolf was a chief. He had never lifted a heavy burden in
his life—though others of the Shi-an-nay came often to the Agency
farmer for work. They enjoyed freighting and whenever there were
hides to go to the distant railway or goods to be fetched, the agent
employed them and, though their ponies were small and shifty, they
managed, nevertheless, to do creditable work with them. They cut wood
and made hay and mended bridges cunningly and well. Howling Wolf had
kept away from all this work. He did not believe in it.

Two days after his talk with the agent the clerk was amazed to see
Howling Wolf drive down to the warehouse to secure a load of hides.
He had no wagon of his own, but he had hired one of his son-in-law,
Painted Feather, and was prepared to do his share. In the glow of his
new peace he wished to do more than his share. He helped everybody to
load and waited till the last, willing to take what was left.

The agent, hearing of this zeal of his convert, came down to see him
and smilingly asked, “Why work so hard, Howling Wolf?”

“I will tell you,” said Howling Wolf. “In my evil days I took no part
in making the fences and laying the bridges—now I want to catch up.
Therefore I must work twice as hard as anyone else.”

“Howling Wolf, you do me honor,” said the agent. “I shake your hand.
You are now safely on the white man’s road.”

To this Howling Wolf only said, “My heart is very good to-day. I am
happy and I go to see the white man’s big camp. I shall keep my eyes
open and learn many good things.”

The teams laden with their skins had just passed the big red jaws of
Bitterwood Cañon when a party of cowboys overtook them.

“Hello there,” yelled one big fellow. “Where you going with those
hides?”

Howling Wolf heard the curses, but his heart was soft with newborn
love for his enemies and he smilingly greeted his foes. “How! how!”

“See the old seed grin. Let’s shoot him up a few and see him hustle.”

“Oh come along, let ’em alone, Bill,” said one of the other men.

“That’s old Howling Wolf,” put in the third man. “Better let him be.
He’s a fighter.”

“Are you old Howling Wolf?” asked Bill, riding alongside.

Howling Wolf nodded and smiled again—though he understood only his
name.

“Fighter, are you?” queried the cowboy, “Eat men up—hey?”

“How, how!” repeated the old man as pleasantly as he was able, though
his eyes were growing stern.

“I’d like to hand him out a package just for luck. He’s too
good-natured. What say?”

“Oh, come along Bill,” urged his companions. As they rode by the next
wagon, wherein sat a younger man, Bill called out, “Get out o’ the
road!”

“Go to hell!” replied the driver, Harry Turtle, a Carlisle student.
“You are a big fool.”

Bill drew his revolver and spurred his horse against Harry’s off pony
and bawled, “I’d cut your hide into strips for a cent!”

Harry rose in his wagon and uttered a cry of warning which stopped
every team, and his eyes flamed in hot anger. “You go!” he said,
“or we will kill you.” The cowboys drew off, Brindle Bill belching
imprecations, but his companions were genuinely alarmed and rode
between him and the wagons and in this way prevented an outbreak.
Howling Wolf reproved young Turtle and said: “Do not make any reply
to them. We must be careful not to anger the white men.”

They reached the railway safely and, having unloaded their freight,
went into camp about a half mile from the town on the river flat
beneath some cottonwood trees.

To every white man that spoke to him Howling Wolf replied pleasantly
and was very happy to think he was serving the agent and also earning
some money. The citizens were generally contemptuous of him, and some
of them refused his extended hand, but he did not lay that up against
them. It had been long since he had seen a white man’s town and he
was vastly interested in everything. He was amazed at the stores of
blankets and saddles and calico which he saw. He looked at the gayly
painted wagons with envy, for he had no wagon of his own and he saw
that to travel on the white man’s road a wagon was necessary. He
looked at harnesses also with covetous eyes. Every least thing had
value to him, the pictures on the fences, on the peach cans, on the
tobacco boxes, the pumps, the horse troughs and fountains—nothing
escaped his eager eyes. He was like a boy again.

He was standing before a shop window lost in the attempt to
understand the use of all the marvelous things he saw there, when a
saloon door opened and a party of loud-talking white men came out.
He turned his head quickly and perceived the three cowboys who had
passed him on the road. They recognized him also and their leader
swaggered up to him, made reckless with drink, and began to abuse him.

“So you’re Howling Wolf, are ye? Big chief. Drink blood. Why I’d
break you in two pieces for a leatherette. I’m Brindle Bill, you
understand, I’d a killed you on the road only——”

Howling Wolf again understood only the curses, but he turned a calm
face upon his enemy and extended his hand. “How? How, white man?”

Bill spat into his hand.

Quick as a flash Howling Wolf slapped the ruffian’s face. “Coyote!”
he cried in his own tongue.

The cowboy jerked his revolver from its holster, but Howling Wolf
leaped behind a signpost and the bullet, going wild, glanced from an
iron rod and entered the knee of a man who stood in the doorway of
the saloon. With a scream of terror he fell flat on the walk as if
killed.

Instantly the peaceful street became a place of savage outcry.

“Kill him! Kill the red devil!” shouted a dozen who knew nothing
of what had happened, except that a man was shot and an Indian was
present.

Like a bear at bay, Howling Wolf faced his hereditary enemies. “I am
peaceful. I have done nothing,” he called, jerking a paper from his
pocket. “See, this is true, read it!”

The paper saved his life, for all were curious to see what this long
official envelope contained. It occurred to one of the men in the
circle to investigate.

“Hold on, boys! Wait a minute! This may be a courier. Be quiet now
till I see.”

He took the envelope and opened the paper while the crowd waited.
“Read it Lannon.”

Lannon read in a loud voice: “_I am Howling Wolf. Long I hated the
white man. Now my heart is good._”

A burst of derisive laughter interrupted the reader.

“Oh, is it!”

“Kill the old fool for luck!”

“Lynch him.”

But, though they laughed at it, the letter cooled the excitement of
the crowd, and when the sheriff came he had no trouble in arresting
Howling Wolf, who went willingly, for he feared for his life in the
face of the crowd in the street—which grew greater each moment.

He recoiled sharply as they came to the door of the jail. He knew
what that meant. “I will not go!” he said. “Why do you put me in
there? I have done nothing.”

The sheriff, ready to make capital for himself in the eyes of the mob
which had followed him, put his revolver to his captive’s head and
said brutally:

“Git in there or I’ll blow your head off.”

Wolf understood the man’s action, and, fearing the crowd which
followed, submitted to be pushed into the cell and was locked in. He
still held in his hand the document which had been contemptuously
thrust back upon him, and now sat half-stunned by the sudden fury of
the white men toward him. That the three cowboys should make trouble
did not surprise him—but that all the white men should run toward him
with angry faces and armed fists appalled and embittered him. Perhaps
there were only a few friendly white men after all. Perhaps the agent
was mistaken and the Shi-an-nay must war to the death with these
infuriated cattlemen.

“I did wrong to come here,” he thought. “I should have remained deep
in my own country among the rocks and the coyotes. I have put myself
into the hands of my deadly enemies. I shall die here alone, because
I have been a child and have listened to sweet words.”

Meanwhile grossly distorted accounts of the affair passed from saloon
to barber shop and at last it took this shape: “A gang of drunken
reds had struck Hank Kelly for a drink and when he refused one of
them shot him in the stomach. All escaped but one, old Howling Wolf,
one of the worst old reprobates that ever lived. He ought to be
lynched and we’ll do it yet.”

Bill the cowboy was a hero. He swaggered about saying, “I had him in
a hole. I winged him so’t sheriff had him easy.”

Ultimately he grew too drunk to throw any light on the subject at all
and his companions took him and fled the town, leaving Howling Wolf
to bear the weight of the investigation.

Harry Turtle went to the sheriff and said abruptly: “I want see
Howling Wolf.”

“You can’t see him,” replied the sheriff.

“Why can’t I see him?”

“Because I say so. Get out o’ here.... The whole tribe of ye ought to
be wiped out. Git—or I’ll put you where the dogs can eat ye.”

Turtle went away with a face dark with anger. He said to his
companions, “I must go back to the agent at once to tell him what has
happened. You better all keep together with me so if the cowboys try
to kill us we can defend ourselves. Come, let us go.”

They went out into the darkness and traveled all night very hard, and
when morning came they were out of danger.

When Turtle entered the agent’s office late next day he showed little
sign of what he had been through.

“Hello, Harry, I thought you went to town?”

“I did. I got back. Heap trouble come.”

“What’s matter?”

“Cowboy fight Howling Wolf—Howling Wolf fight, too. White man get
killed. Howling Wolf in calaboose. I come quick to tell you.”

Cook grew grave. “Is that so, where are the other men?”

“Outside.”

“Bring ’em in, Claude,” he said to his interpreter. “You talk with
these people and find out what it is all about.”

In the end he ordered his team and with Claude drove away to town,
a long, hard, dusty road. He reached the hotel that night too late
to call on the sheriff and was forced to wait till morning. The
little rag of a daily paper had used the shooting as a text for its
well-worn discourse. “Sweep these marauding fiends out of the State
or off the face of the earth,” it said editorially. “Get them out of
the path of civilization. Scenes of disorder like that of yesterday
are sure to be repeated so long as these red pets of the Government
are allowed to cumber the earth. The State ought to slaughter them
like wolves.”

Cook read this with a flush of hot blood in his face. He was quite
familiar with such articles, but he went to bed that night feeling
more keenly than ever in his life the difficult position he was
called upon to fill. To race hatred these people had added greed for
the Shi-an-nay lands. In this editorial was vented the savage hate of
thousands of white men. There could be no doubt of it—and were it not
for a fear of the general government the terms of its hatred would
have been carried out long ago.

In the early morning he took Claude and went to the jail.

The sheriff met him suavely. “Oh—certainly captain—you can see him,”
he said, but his tone was insulting.

When the agent and his interpreter entered his cell Howling Wolf
looked up with a low cry of pleasure. He took Cook’s hand in both of
his and said slowly:

“My friend, take me away from here. I cannot bear to be locked up. I
have done nothing. When I showed my paper the cattlemen laughed. When
I reached my hand in friendship they spat upon it. This made my heart
very bitter but I did not fight.”

When he had secured Wolf’s story in detail, the Major said, “Do not
worry, Wolf, I will see that you are released.”

To the sheriff he said: “What are you holding this man for?”

“For shooting with intent to kill.”

“But he didn’t shoot. He had no weapon. It is absurd.”

“How do _you_ know he didn’t?”

“Because all his companions say so; he says so.”

“Oh! You’d take his word would you?”

“Yes in a thing of that kind. Did you find a gun on him?”

“No—but—”

“What chance did he have for concealing it? Were you there when the
shooting took place?”

“No—but credible witnesses——”

“As a matter of fact the saloon keeper was struck by a bullet aimed
at Howling Wolf by a cowboy. Where is that cowboy? Why has he not
been arrested?”

“I don’t believe it. You’ll take——”

“It’s not your business to believe or disbelieve. Did you have a
warrant to arrest Wolf?” asked the captain sternly.

“No matter whether I did or not,” replied the sheriff insolently,
“he’s here and you can’t take him away. You can protect your thieves
and murderers in the reservation, but when they come in here and
go howling around you’ll find the case different.” In this tone he
blustered.

The captain was firm. “I believe Wolf to be entirely innocent and
I’ll see justice done.” He called Claude again and said, “Tell
Howling Wolf to be quiet—tell him not to be scared. He’ll have to
remain in jail till I can get a release. I’m going to see the judge
now. Tell him I’m his friend and I won’t let these people harm him.”

The visit to the judge was still more disheartening. He, too, was
suave and patient, but it was plain he intended to do nothing to
help the agent. “It may be that a mistake has occurred, but if so
the trial will clear your man. As it is the Indian is arrested in a
street brawl in which a man is shot. The Indian is arrested, I may
add, in due course of law and must stand trial.”

“Very well, we’ll go to trial—but meanwhile release my man on parole.
I’ll answer for him.”

The judge had been expecting this, but professed to ponder. “I don’t
think that would be wise. We’ve had great difficulty in apprehending
offenders. We might find this man hard to reapprehend. I appreciate
your desire to——”

“Judge Bray, you are mistaken,” replied Cook with heat, for he
understood the covert insult. “You have never failed of getting
your man but once, and then, as you know, it was the fault of
your sheriff. Where could this man go? I know every man on my
reservation. He could not hide out on the hills, and he would
be a marked man on any other reservation. Besides all these
considerations—I know Howling Wolf. I am peculiarly anxious to have
him released till his trial. He dreads confinement—he feels his
arrest as an injustice and it will embitter him. More than this I
have pledged my word to him to secure his release.”

The judge was obdurate. “The citizens are incensed at the frequent
depredations of your charges,” he said, “and they will not submit
longer to any laxity. I cannot help you.”

The agent rose grimly. “Very well, I’ll see justice done this man
if I bring the whole power of the department to bear on you. I will
enlist the aid of every lover of justice in the country. Howling Wolf
has been abused. So far from shooting he came in here as my messenger
unarmed and peaceful. Your drunken citizens assaulted him. I do not
wonder that my people say you have the hearts of coyotes.”

As Cook drove away out of the squalid town he felt as he had several
times before—the cruel, leering, racial hate of the border man, to
whom the red man is big game. He had a feeling that, among all these
thousands of American citizens, not one had the heart to stand out
and say, “I’ll help you secure justice.”

His heat made him momentarily unjust, for there were many worthy
souls, even in this village, who would have joined him could they
have been made intimately informed of the case. At the moment he felt
the helpless dismay of the red man when enmeshed by the laws of the
whites.

But he was not a man to yield a just position without a struggle. As
he rode he planned a campaign which should secure justice for Howling
Wolf. His meeting with the half-frenzied wife of the captive only
added new vigor to his resolution. With face haggard with suffering
the poor woman cried out to him, “Where is he—my husband?”

He gave her such comfort as he could and drove on mentally writing
letters, which should make the townsmen writhe with shame of their
inhumanity.

Court did not sit for many weeks, but Howling Wolf knew nothing of
that. He lived in daily hope of being released. He fed his heart
on the words of his friend the agent. He brooded over his wrongs
like a wounded wolf in his den, till his heart became bitter in his
bosom. The glow of his new found love of the white man had died
out—smothered by the cold gloom of his prison. He remembered only one
white face with pleasure—that of his agent. All others were grinning
or hateful or menacing.

He would have gone mad but for the visits of his wife and children
who came to see him and were allowed to approach the bars of his cell
so that he might lay his hands on the head of his little son. These
brief visits comforted him—for the sake of his wife and children he
lived.

In a week or two the people of Big Snake had quite forgotten Howling
Wolf. If any word recalled him to their minds they merely said, “Do
him good to feel the inside of a stone wall. It’ll take the fight out
of him. He’ll be good Injun once he gets out. He’s in luck to escape
being strung up.”

Now the town possessed a baseball team that had defeated every other
club in the State, excepting one. St. Helen’s had proved a Waterloo
to Big Snake on the Fourth of July and so its citizens fairly ached
for a chance to “do St. Helen’s up,” and win back some of the money
they had lost.

One morning about two weeks after his imprisonment Howling Wolf’s
keen ears caught the sound of far-off drums and he wondered if the
soldiers were coming at last to release him. His heart leaped with
joy and he sprang to his feet vigorous, alert, and so listened long.
He could hear plainly the voice of the bugle and he fancied he could
detect the marching of columned feet. His friend, the agent, was
coming to punish his captors.

He was not afraid of the soldier chiefs. They fought honorably. They
did not shut their enemies up in cells and take their arms away. They
made war in the open air and on the hills. A shout of joy was about
to break from his lips when the jailer entered the corridor much
excited. He talked as he came, “I’ll take the redskin along—anyhow.”

He made a great many signs to his captive, but Howling Wolf only
understood one or two of them. “Come with me,” and “I’ll kill you.”

He drew his blanket round him and thought. “I will go. I will at
least escape these walls. If I die I will die under the sky where the
sun can see me.”

He quietly followed the sheriff outside, but when he saw the
handcuffs he rebelled and shook his head.

The sheriff made bungling signs again and said, “All right—but if you
try to run away I’ll bore a hole in ye big as a haystack—that’s all.
I won’t stand any funny business.”

Howling Wolf comprehended nothing of all this save the motion
toward the gun, which he took to mean that he was to be killed. The
excitement of his captor, the mystery of all he did, his threatening
gestures were convincing. But Howling Wolf was a chief. He had never
flinched in battle and as he felt the wind of the wide sky on his
face he lifted his head and said in his heart:

“If I am to die, I am ready; but I will die fighting.”

The sheriff motioned him to get into his buggy and he obeyed—for the
hand of the sheriff was on his revolver—and they rode through the
town, which was almost deserted. Far up the street Howling Wolf could
hear the noise of the drum and his heart swelled big with a sense of
coming trouble. Was he being led out to be tortured? Perhaps he would
be permitted to fight his way to death? “No matter—I am ready.”

A man at the door of the drug store called jovially:

“Where are you going, Mr. Sheriff?”

“Out to see the ball game. I happened to have only this one prisoner
so thought I’d take him along. Blowed if I’m going to miss the game
for a greasy buck-Injun.”

“Look out he don’t give you the slip.”

The sheriff winked meaningly. “There’ll be a right lively fox hunt
if he does. The boys would like nothing better than to rope an Injun
to-day. It would draw better than a bullfight.”

They both laughed at this notion and Howling Wolf seized upon the
menace in the sheriff’s voice though his words were elusive. As they
neared the grand stand the noise of the great crowd reached across
the quiet fields and Howling Wolf saw hundreds of people streaming
along the road before him. His limbs grew tense. It was plain that
his captor was driving directly toward this vast throng of savage
white people.

He looked round him. On either side were rows of growing corn and
beyond the field on the right was the grove of trees which marked the
course of the river. As he remembered this his final resolution came.
“If I am to die I will die now,” and he sprang from his seat to the
ground and dived beneath the wire fence. He heard the sheriff’s gun
crack twice and thrice, but he rose unhurt and with a wild exultation
in his heart ran straight toward the river. Again the sheriff fired,
his big revolver sounding loud in the windless air.

Then, as if his shooting were a signal, a squad of cowboys rose out
of a gully just before the fugitive, and with wild whoopings swept
toward him. They came with lariats swinging high above their heads,
and Howling Wolf, knowing well their pitiless ferocity, turned and
ran straight toward the sheriff, who stood loading his gun on the
inside of the fence. As he ran Howling Wolf could see great ranks of
yelling people rushing over the field. He ran now to escape being
dragged to death, hoping the sheriff might shoot him through the
heart as he came near.

[Illustration: The Arrest of the Scout

_Suspected of having kidnaped an Indian girl and murdered her
mother, this man was traced to a tiswin camp, where he was
found carousing with other drinkers. Though a member of their
own corps, his brother scouts, after disarming and binding
him, brought him back to the post, where he was lodged in the
guard-house._

_Illustration from_
MASSAI’S CROOKED TRAIL
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _January, 1898_]

[Illustration: An Indian Duel

_The Indian on the pinto pony is armed with a big buffalo-lance,
while his opponent wields a skin-knife. As depicted by the artist
the buffalo-lance is being driven clean through his antagonist’s
shoulder._

_Illustration from_
SUN-DOWN LEFLARE’S WARM SPOT
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _September, 1898_]

The officer shot twice at long range but missed, and, as the panting
red man ran straight toward him the sheriff fell to the earth
and crawled away, leaving Howling Wolf to face a squad of twenty
infuriated cowboys and a thousand citizens just behind on foot. With
the light of hell on their faces they shot down the defenseless man
and then alighted, and, with remorseless hate, crushed his face
beneath their feet as if he were a rattlesnake. They stabbed his
dead body and shot it full of bullets. They fought for a chance to
kick him. They lost all resemblance to men. Wolves fighting over
the flesh of their own kind could not have been more heartlessly
malevolent—more appalling in their ferocity.

In the clamor of their breathless cursing and cries of hate a strong
clear voice made itself heard—a vibrant manly voice:

“STOP, _in the name o’ Christ_!” And through the wolfish mass a tall
young man in the garb of a Catholic priest forced his way. His big,
broad face was set with resolution and his brow gleamed white in the
midst of the tumbling mass of bronzed weather-beaten border men.

“_Stand back!_ Are you fiends of hell? Where is your shame? A
thousand to one! Is this your American chivalry? Oh, you cowards!”

He stood above the fallen man like a lion over the body of his mate.
His voice quivered with the sense of his horror and indignation.

“God’s curse on ye if you touch this man again.” The crowd was silent
now and the priest went on: “I have seen the beasts of the African
jungles at war and I know the habits of the serpents of Nicaragua—I
know your American bears and wolves, but I have never seen any
savagery like this.”

Every word he spoke could be heard by the mob; every man who listened
looked aside. They were helpless under the lash of the young priest’s
scorn. “You are the brave boys of whom we read,” he said, turning to
the cowboys. “You are the Knights of the plains——” Then his righteous
wrath flamed forth again. “Knights of the plains! The graveyard
jackals turn sweet in your presence. Brave men are ye to rope and
drag a defenseless man—and you!” He turned to the slinking sheriff.
“You are of my parish—I know you. The malediction of the church hangs
over _you_ for this day’s work.” He paused for breath; then added:
“Take up the body of this man. He is dead but his blood will yet make
this town a stench in the nostrils of the world. You cannot do these
things to-day and not be condemned of all Christian peoples.”

With a contemptuous wave of his hand he dismissed the mob. “Go home!
Go back to your wives and children and boast of your great deed.
Leave the dead with me.”

The crowd slunk away, leaving the sheriff, the priest, and a doctor,
who volunteered his services, to examine the bleeding flesh that had
once been a tall and powerful red chieftain.

“The man is alive!” said the doctor with a tone of awe. “Life is not
extinct. Bring me some water.”

“Save him—for the love of Christ!” exclaimed the priest as he dropped
on his knees beside the torn and trampled red man. “It would be a
miracle, a blessed miracle, if he should live. It is impossible!”

“His heart is beating—and I think it grows stronger,” repeated the
doctor as he fell to work with deft energy.

“What is this?” asked the priest as he picked up a bloody and
crumpled paper. He opened it and, as he finished reading it, he
raised his eyes and prayed silently with a sort of breathless
intensity, while the tears ran down his cheeks:

“Lord Jesus, grant me humbleness and patience with these people. Let
my heart not harden with hate of this injustice.”

Then, looking at the poor bruised body of Howling Wolf, he said:

“O God, the pity of it! The pathos of it! His heart was good toward
all men and they crushed him to earth!”

They took Howling Wolf up, the priest received him in his house and
cared for him and he lived—but so battered, so misshapen that his own
wife did not know him.

The cloud of his hate and despair never lifted. He spoke no word to
any white man save to the good priest and to his friend, the agent,
and when he died neither of them knew of it. No white man knows where
his body was hidden away.

THE SILENT EATERS

THE BEGINNINGS OF POWER

I was born a soldier.
I have lived thus long.
In despite of all, I have lived thus long.
_——Sioux War Song._

One day in 1854, while the Uncapappas, a branch of my father’s
people, were camped in pursuit of buffalo on a tributary of the
Platte River, a half-breed scout came into the circle from the
south, bearing a strange message. He said: “The great war chief of
the whites is coming with beads and cloth and many good things.
He desires all the red men to meet him in a council of peace. He
is sorry that we are at war. Therefore, he is inviting all your
chieftains to his lodge to receive presents and to smoke.”

Up to this time the Uncapappas had never made talk with the soldiers,
and many, like myself, had never seen a white man. Our home lay to
the east and north of the Black Hills, far away from contact with the
settlers. Of them we had heard, but only remotely. Many of our own
men had never seen a French trapper. Our lives still went on as they
had been going since the earliest time.

We followed the buffalo wherever they went within the limits of the
hunting grounds which we claimed. On the east were our cousins, the
Yanktonaise and Minneconjous. To the north of the Cannonball lived
the Rees and Mandans; to the northwest, across the Powder River
lurked the Crows, our ever-ready enemies. On the headwaters of the
Arkansaw the Utes, a powerful mountain people, dwelt. The Comanches
and many other unknown folk held the country far, far to the south,
while to the east lay a land more mysterious than any other, for it
was said that both white men and red men claimed it and warred for
the mastery of it. Of the rest of the world most of us knew nothing;
all was dark as a cave inhabited by bats and serpents.

Therefore, when the messenger had made his plea the chiefs called a
great council to ponder this new and important matter. At this time
the four head men, the civic chiefs, of my people, were The Four
Horns, The Red Horn, The Running Antelope and The Loud-Voiced Hawk.
These men had full power to call a convention and all the people came
together obediently and some of the boys, like myself, crept near to
listen.

It was in early summer. The grass was new and sweet; the buffalo were
fat, the horses swift, and each day was a feast, with much dancing,
and we lads raced horses when the old men would permit. Not one of
all our tribe had care as a bedfellow at this time. Even the aged
smiled like children.

In those days the plains were black with buffalo and the valleys
speckled with red deer and elk, and no lodge had fear of hunger or
frost. In winter we occupied tepees of thick warm fur with the edges
fully banked with snow and we were not often cold. We had plenty of
buckskin to wear and no one went unsatisfied. You would look long
to find a people as happy as we were, because we lived as the Great
Spirit had taught us to do, with no thought of change.

Nevertheless, our wise men had a foreboding of coming trouble, and
when The Hawk, who was a very old man, rose in the council to speak,
his face was deeply troubled. Once he had been ready of speech, but
his tongue now trembled with age and his shoulders weighed heavy upon
his lungs, for he coughed twice before he could begin.

“My friends, listen to me. I am an old man. I shall not be able to
meet in council again. The rime of many winters has stiffened my
lips, but I am glad this matter has come up now. My heart is full of
things to tell you. My children, I have had a dream. Last night I
went forth on the hill to pray and as I prayed I grew weary and fell
asleep, and I saw a great council such as that the Graybeard now asks
us to attend. I beheld much food and many blankets given away, and
then a great fight began. A cloud of thick smoke arose. There were
angry confusion and slaying and wailing in the midst of the smoke, so
that my limbs seemed rooted to the ground in my fear. Now I know this
dream was intended for a warning. Beware of those who come bringing
gifts. They seek to betray you.” With uplifted hand he faced all
the people and called again, very loud, “Beware of those who bring
presents, for they will work sorrow among you.”

Then he sank back exhausted and all the chiefs were silent, but The
Hawk’s wife began to sing a sad song, and as she sang, one by one the
other chiefs rose and said: “The Hawk is wise. We will not go to meet
this man. We will not take his presents. He comes like a Comanche
disguised as a wolf. We will be as cunning as he. Why should he offer
presents unless he wishes to gain an advantage of us?”

At last a young warrior, a grave man of gentle and serious face,
stood in his place and said: “My father, I am a young man. I have
seen only twenty-two winters and perhaps you will not listen to me,
but I intend to speak, nevertheless. I have always listened when
my elders have spoken, and especially have I opened my ears when
strangers from the East came to our lodges. Your decision is wise. It
is well to have nothing to do with these deceitful ones. Listen now
to my request. I desire to be the chief soldier in this matter. If
you wish to oppose the givers of gifts and the policy which goes with
their refusal, place the matter in my hands and I will see that your
desires are carried out.”

The firm, courageous bearing of this youth pleased the elders, and
after deliberation they said: “It is well. We will make you our
executive in this matter. You shall be Chief Soldier of Treaties.”

In this way was my chief _Ta-Tank-io-Tanka_, The Sitting Bull, made
what you would call “Secretary of War” over seven hundred lodges
of my people. He had already attained rank as a valiant but not
reckless warrior. The Rees knew him, and so did the Crows. He came
of good family, though his father was only a minor chief. His uncle
was Four Horns, and his grandfather, The Jumping Bull, was an active
and powerful man whose influence undoubtedly was of use to the young
chief. His name had never been borne by any other man of his tribe.
At fourteen he had counted _coup_ on a Crow. He had been wounded in
the foot while dashing upon an enemy, and he still walked with a
slight limp. He was active, unassuming, and capable of many things.

But his fame as a peacemaker had already far outrun his renown as a
warrior. He had been made a chief by the Ogallallahs because of his
firm sense of justice. Only a year before this time a band of the
young warriors of his own tribe had stolen from their cousins a herd
of horses while the two tribes were camped side by side, and The
Sitting Bull, having heard of this, went to the young men and said:

“We do not make reprisals upon our friends. We only take from our
enemies,” and thereupon had led the horses back to their owners.

In return for this good deed the Ogallallahs had made him a chief
among them, though he took no part in their councils.

He was a natural leader and a persuasive orator. A chief among my
people, you know, is a peacemaker, and The Sitting Bull was always
gentle of voice. If he saw two men squabbling he parted them and
said: “Do not make war among yourselves. What is the matter? Tell me
your dispute.” Sometimes he would say: “Here is a horse for each of
you. Go and wrangle no more.” When he was very successful in the hunt
he always went about the camp, and wherever a sick man or an aged
woman lived, there he left a haunch of venison or some buffalo meat.
This made him many friends. He did not desire riches for himself, but
for his tribe.

Therefore nearly all the tribesmen were glad when he was made treaty
chief and given the charge of all such matters. He was at once what
the white people would call Secretary of State and of War.

Immediately after his election he called the treaty messenger into
his lodge and said: “Return to those that sent you and say this:
‘The Uncapappas have no need of your food or clothing. The hills are
clouded with buffalo, the cherries are ripening in the thickets.
When we desire any of the white man’s goods we will buy them. Go in
peace.’”

In this way the white men first heard of The Sitting Bull.

Yes, in those wondrous days my people were many and powerful. The
allied tribes of Sioux (as you white men call them) held all the
land from Big Stone Lake westward to the Yellowstone River and south
to the Platte—that is to say, all of what you call South Dakota,
part of Wyoming, and half of Nebraska. We often went as far as the
Rocky Mountains in our search for food, for the buffalo were always
shifting ground. As the phantom lakes of the plain mysteriously
appear and disappear, so they came and went.

Where the bison were, there plenty was; we had no fear. But they
roamed widely. For these reasons my people required much territory,
and, though the wild cattle were many, we were sometimes obliged
to enter the lands of our enemies to make our killing, and these
expeditions were the causes of our wars with the Crows on the west
and with the Comanches on the south. However, these wars were not
long or bloody. For the most part we lived quietly, peacefully, with
only games to keep our sinews tense.

In the expeditions which followed The Sitting Bull’s promotion he
became the executive head. He was chief of police by virtue of his
office, and his was the hand which commanded tranquillity and order
in the camp. Whenever a messenger entered the circle the sentinels
brought him directly to the chief’s lodge and there waited orders. No
one thought of stepping between The Sitting Bull and his duties, for,
though so quiet, he could be very stern.

He laid aside all weapons—for this is the custom among the
chiefs—and carried only his embroidered pipe-bag and his fan, nothing
more. His face was always calm and his voice gentle. He seemed to
have no thought of self, but spoke always of the welfare of his
tribe. When a question came to him for decision he said: “This is
good for my people. We will do it.” Or, “This is bad for my people.
We will refuse.” He raised himself by building upon the welfare of
his race.

It was for this reason he refused again to meet General Harney in
1855 at Fort Pierre. He knew something then of the floods of white
men pouring into Iowa and Minnesota. He had his spies out and was
aware of every boat that came up the Missouri. He already possessed
a well-defined policy. To every trader he said: “Yes, I am glad to
see you. My people have skins to sell and tobacco and ammunition to
buy. This exchange is good. Come and trade.” But to the messenger of
the white men’s government he said: “I do not want your presents. My
young men earn their goods by hunting. We are not in need of treaty
makers.”

So it was that his fame spread among the border men and he came to
be called a fierce warrior, ever ready to kill, when the truth is he
protected those who came to his camp; even the spies of Washington
had reason to thank The Sitting Bull for his clemency.

The years passed pleasantly and my tribe had little foreboding of
danger. Our game remained plentiful and, though the rumors of the
white man’s coming thickened, the people paid little heed to them,
though the chiefs counciled upon it gravely. Then one day came the
news that the Dakotas, our cousins, were at war with the whites. Soon
after this, word came that they had been driven out of their land
into our territory. Then it was that the Uncapappas first began to
know the power of the invaders. I was but a lad, but I remember well
the incredulous words of my father and mother when the story of the
battles first were told at our fireside. The head men were uneasy and
The Sitting Bull seemed especially gloomy and troubled.

In council he said: “Our brothers have been wrong. They should not
make war upon the white man. He has many things that we need—guns and
cloth and knives. We should be friendly with him. I do not make war
on him, though I fear his presents and stop my ears to his promises.
I forecast that we shall be pushed out.”

The news came to us also at this time that the white men were
fighting among themselves far to the south, but we never met anyone
who had seen this with his own eyes. We had no clear conception of
what lay to the east of us. We only knew that the Chippewas lived
there and many whites who were friendly with them, but no one of all
our wise old men could tell us more.

Once I heard the chief say: “I do not understand why the white man
leaves his own land to invade ours. It must be a sad country with
little game, and if he came here only to hunt or trade we would make
him welcome—but I fear he comes to steal our hunting grounds away. If
he is in need and comes peaceably, let him share our buffalo. There
is enough to feed all the world.”

Meanwhile the four head chiefs were growing old and lethargic, and
so, naturally, step by step, The Sitting Bull came to be the head of
all our band. He drew toward him all those who believed in living
the simple life of our ancestors far away from all enemies. With
songs and dances and feasts we marked the seasons, living peacefully
for the most part, except now and then when a small party was sent
out against the Crows or the Mandans, till in the 110th mark of
my father’s winter count—that is in 1869—the whites established a
trading post at the Grand River and put some soldiers in it and sent
out couriers to all the Sioux tribes to assemble there for a council.
The time had come (as it afterward appeared) when the settlers wanted
to inhabit our lands.

This, I think, was the first time the chief clearly understood
the attitude of the government toward him. Another day marks the
beginning of the decline of my people.

I remember well the coming of that messenger. I was awakened by the
sound of a horse’s feet, and, looking out of the tepee, I saw a small
man on a big horse—bigger than any I had ever seen before. Warriors
were surrounding him, asking, “Who are you?”

“Take me to The Sitting Bull,” he said, and just then the chief
looked from his lodge and said, “Bring him to me.”

He was brought and set before The Sitting Bull, and they looked at
each other for a time in silence. I was peering in under the side of
the lodge and could not see the chief’s face, but the stranger smiled
and said: “Are The Sitting Bull’s eyes getting dim that he does not
know his old playmate?”

“The Badger,” replied the chief. Then he smiled and they shook hands.
“You are changed, my friend; you were but a boy when we played at
hunting in The Cave Hills.”

“That is true,” replied the man, who was a French half-breed. “I do
not blame you for looking at me with blind eyes. I would not have
known you. I have a message for you.”

“Bring food for our brother,” commanded the chief, and after The
Badger had eaten the chief said, “Now tell me whence you come and why
are you here?”

“That is a long tale,” said The Badger. “It is a story you must think
about.”

And so for three days The Badger sat before the chief and they
talked. And each night the camp muttered gravely, discussing the same
question. The chief’s face grew sterner each day. He smoked long and
there were times when his eyes rested on the ground in a silence of
deep thought while The Badger told of the mighty white man—of his
wonderful deeds, of his armies, of his iron horses, of all these
things which we afterward saw for ourselves. He went farther. He told
us of the white man’s government which was lodged in a great village
made of wood and stone. He said the white men were more numerous than
the buffalo and that their horses were plenty as prairie dogs. “You
do well, my friend, not to go to war against these people. They are
all-conquering. What can you do against magicians who create guns and
knives and powder?”

“I have no hate of them,” replied the chief. “All I ask is to be let
alone.”

“Listen, my friend. This is what the white man is doing. A great
chief, whose name is Sheridan, followed by many warriors, is killing
or subduing all the red people to the south. He has broken the
Comanches; the Kiowas and Pawnees—all bend the neck to him. Ferocious
leaders have been sent out from Washington with orders to gather all
your race into certain small lands and there teach them the white
man’s way. Whether they wish to do so or not does not matter. They
must go or be blown to pieces by his guns. My friend, that is what
they mean to do with you. They want you to come to the mouth of Grand
River and to the Standing Rock, there to give up your hunting and
learn the white man’s way. The great war chief of the whites has said
it.”

The chief’s eyes flamed. “And if I refuse?”

“Then he will send a long line of his horsemen to fetch you.”

The chief grimly smiled. “Hoh! Well, go back and tell them to come.
The Sitting Bull has got along very well in the ways of his fathers
thus far and in those ways he will continue. The land is wide to the
west and game is plenty.”

But The Badger then said: “My brother, you know me well. We can speak
plainly. The white chief sent me, I say that now. He asked me to
come, and I did so. I came as a friend in order that you might not be
deceived. I tell you the truth—the white man is moving westward, like
a feeding herd of buffalo, slow but sure. His heart is bitter toward
us and we must keep silence before him. He wants all the land east of
the Missouri and south of the Black Hills. He demands that you give
it up.”

My chief was sitting in his soldiers’ lodge; few were there. My
father was looking in at the door and I, a lad, was beside him. I saw
the veins swell out in the chief’s neck as he rose and spoke: “My
friend, out there” (he swept his hand to the west) “is our land, a
big open space covered with game. Go back to your friends, the white
men, and say that The Sitting Bull is Uncapappa and free to do as he
wills. He chooses to live as his fathers lived. As the Great Spirit
made him, so he is, and shall remain.”

POLICY AND COUNCIL

Nevertheless The Badger’s talk had enlightened my chief. He pondered
deeply over his words and came at last fairly to understand the white
man’s demands. He lived by planting; the red man by hunting. The
palefaces said: “The red man has too much land. We will take part of
it for ourselves. In return we will teach him how to plant and make
bread and clothing.” But they did not stop there. They said if the
red man does not wish to be a planter and wear our clothing we will
send out soldiers with guns and make him do our will.

The chief’s first duty was to reject these terms, and this he did;
but a second messenger came bringing tobacco and round disks of
bread. The chief ground the tobacco under his heel and his soldiers
spun the bread down the hill into the river. The emissary stood by
and saw this merry game and was wise enough to remain silent.

Once a courier who would not cease talking when commanded by the
chief was whipped out of the village. So it came to be that this
great camp on the Little Missouri was called “The Hostile Camp of
Sitting Bull.”

You have heard those who now deride my chief and say that he was no
warrior, that he was a coward, a man of no account; but they are
ignorant fools who say this. Go read in the books of the agent at
Standing Rock; there you will find records of the respect and fear in
which the agents of Washington held my chief in those days. You may
read there of seven messengers who were sent out to tell “Sitting
Bull and his irreconcilables they must come in and disarm”—and if you
read on you will learn how these spies came straggling back without
daring to utter one word of the government’s commands to my chief.

They lied about him, the cowardly whelps, and said he threatened
them. In truth, they sneaked into his presence and said nothing. In
this way the agent got a false impression of the chief, and reported
that he was at war with the whites, which was not true.

The Sitting Bull was now both Secretary of War and commander-in-chief
of all those who believed in the ways of the fathers. He drew men to
him by the boldness and gentleness of his words. His camp was the
refuge of those who declined to obey the agents of the white man’s
government. The circle of his followers each year widened and his
fame spread far among the white men who hated him for the lands he
held.

But while my chief was thus holding hard to the ancestral customs,
like a rock in a rushing stream, our cousins, the Yanktonaise and the
Ogallallahs, were slowly yielding to the power of Washington. Like
the Wyandottes, the Miamis and the Illini, they were retiring before
the wonder-working plowmen.

In the autumn of the year 1869 the agent again sent out a call for
us to come and join another peace council. Washington wanted to buy
some more of our land. Of course The Sitting Bull refused, and gave
commands that no one leave his camp, except such messengers as he
sent to check the vote for a treaty. “I have made a vow and I will
never treat with you,” he said.

In spite of all this a minority of the Sioux nation, weak, cowardly
souls, pieced out with half-breeds and rank outsiders, (like the
Santees who had no claim to be counted), made a treaty wherein they
basely ceded away, without our consent, a large strip of our land in
Dakota, and fixed upon certain small tracts which were to be held
perpetually as reservations for all the allied tribes of Sioux. The
Uncapappas were both sad and furious, but what could they do?

The establishment of the agency at Grand River followed this, and
many of the Yanktonaise moved in and began to accept the white man’s
food and clothing in payment for their loss of freedom.

I do not blame these men now. They were afraid, they were overawed by
the white men, but they had no power to make such a treaty binding on
us, and my chief, being very sad and very angry, said: “Fools! They
have sold us to our enemies in a day of fear.”

Our world began, at that moment, to fade away, for as the fort and
agencies grew in power along the Missouri, as they put forth their
will against my people, two great parties were formed. There were
many who said: “The white man is the world conqueror; we must follow
his trail,” but those who said, “We will die as we have lived—red
men, free and without fear,” came naturally to the lodge of my chief
and gladly submitted to his leadership. Go read in the records of the
War Department, whether this is true or false. You do not need a red
man’s accusation to prove the perfidy of Congress.

My chief’s policy remained as before. “Do not make war on the whites,
but keep our territory clear of the Crows and Mandans.”

He had surrounded himself with a band of trusted warriors whom
he used as a general uses the members of his staff. They were
his far-reaching eyes and ears. They brought him news of distant
expeditions. They kept order in the camp and protected him from the
jealousy of subordinate chiefs—for you must know there had grown
up in the hearts of lesser men a secret hate of our leader. This
bodyguard of the chief was called “The Silent Eaters,” because they
met in private feasts and talked quietly without songs or dancing,
whereas all the others in the tribe danced and made merry. With these
“Silent Eaters” the chief freely discussed all the great problems
which arose.

My father was one of these and the chief loved him. To him The
Sitting Bull spoke plainly. “Why should we go to a reservation and
plow the hard ground,” he said, “when the buffalo are waiting for us
in the wild lands? We owe the white man nothing. We can take care of
ourselves. We buy our guns and ammunition; we pay well for them. We
are on the earth which the Great Spirit gave to us in the beginning.
Its fruit is ours, its wood and pasturage are ours. Let the white men
keep to their own. Why do they trouble us? Do they think the Great
Spirit a fool, that he creates people without reason?”

He knew all that went on at the agency. He heard that leaders in
opposition to his ways, the ways of our fathers, were rising among
the renegades who preferred to camp in idleness beside the white
man’s storehouse. He knew that they were denouncing him, but he did
not retaliate upon them. “I do not shed blood out of choice, but of
necessity,” he said. “I ask only leave to live as my father lived.
The white man is cunning in the making of weapons, but we are the
better hunters. We will trade our skins for knives and powder. So far
all is well.”

But you know how it is, the white men would not keep to their own.
They came into our lands, and when our young warriors drove them out
all white men cursed The Sitting Bull. This the chief did not seek;
it was forced upon him.

I will tell you how this came about.

In 1873 the government, being moved by those who seek gold, sent a
commission to meet with my chief, saying, “We desire to buy the Black
Hills.”

“I do not care to sell,” he replied, and they went away chagrined.
Soon after this our scouts came upon a regiment of cavalry spying
round the hills. They came from the west, and Black Wolf, the leader
of the scouts, asked, “What are you doing here?”

The captain laughed and mocked him and said, “We ride because our
horses are fat and need exercise.”

These words, when repeated to my chief, disturbed him deeply. “We
must watch these men. They are spies of those who wish to steal the
Black Hills as the plowmen have already taken the land east of the
Missouri. We can not afford to move again. It is necessary to make a
stand.”

Then General Custer—“Long Hair”—was sent on an expedition into the
hills and the whole tribe became very anxious; even those who had
accepted the agent’s goods and lived slothfully at the Standing Rock
began to take alarm. They plainly felt at last the white man pushing,
pushing from the east.

Those who went away to see came back reporting that the settlers were
thick beyond numbering on the prairies and that all the forests were
being destroyed by them. They were plowing above the graves of our
sires, whose bones were being flung to the wolves. Steamboats hooted
along the rivers and iron horses ran athwart the most immemorial
trails. Immigrants were already lining the great muddy river with
forts and villages, and some were looking greedily at the Black
Hills, in which the soldiers had reported gold.

My people considered Custer’s expedition an unlawful incursion
on their lands, just as, far to the south, so our friends the
Ogallallahs reported, other white men without treaty were moving
westward, building railways and driving the buffalo before them. It
was most alarming.

The Sitting Bull listened to these tales uneasily, hoping his
messengers were misled. He feared and hated the more fiercely all
messengers who came thereafter, bringing gifts, and the commission
which entered his camp in 1875 found him very dark of face and very
curt of speech. Never was he less free of tongue.

They said, “We come to buy the hills.”

He replied, “I do not care to sell.”

“We will pay well for the loan of the peaks—the high places where the
gold is.”

“I cannot lend; the hills belong to my people,” he said.

“We are your friends. You had better sell, for if you don’t the white
men will take the hills without pay. They are coming in a flood.
Nothing can stop them; their eyes are fixed. You are fighting a
losing battle.”

“I will not sell,” he answered, and turned on his heel, and they too
went away without success.

To his “Silent Eaters” he said that night: “So long as the buffalo
do not leave us we are safe. It cannot be that the Great Spirit will
permit the white men to rob us of both our lands and our means of
life. He made us what we are, and so long as we follow our ancient
ways we are good in his sight.”

Nevertheless, his friends saw that he was greatly troubled. The white
hunters were then slaughtering the buffalo for the robes. They were
killing merely for the pleasure of killing. The herds were melting
away like clouds in the sky, their bones covered the plain, and my
chief began to fear that the commissioner had told the truth. He
began to doubt the continuance of his race.

III

THE BATTLE OF THE BIG HORN

In the spring of 1876, as your count runs, news came to us that the
troops were fighting our brethren, and soon afterward some Cheyennes
came to our camp and warned the chief, “The soldiers of Washington
are marching to fight you. They intend to force you to go to the
reservation.”

The Sitting Bull was deeply moved by this news. “Why do they do this?
I am not at war with them. They are not good to eat. I kill only
game—the beasts that we need for food. I am always for peace. You who
know me will bear witness that I take most joy in being peacemaker. I
mediate gladly. Now I will make a sign. To show them that we do not
care to fight I will move camp. Let us go deep into the West where
the soil is too hard for the plow, far from the white man, and there
live in peace. It is a land for hunters; those who plant the earth
will never come to dispossess us.”

After a long discussion his plan was decided upon. It was a sorrowful
day for us when we were commanded to leave our native hills and go
into a strange land, far from the graves of our forefathers. Songs of
piercing sadness rang through the lodges when the camp police went
about ordering the departure, and some of the chieftains wished to
stay and fight.

“We are surrendering our land to the enemy,” they said. “We are
throwing part of our people to the wolf in order to preserve the
rest.”

“The land is wide and empty to the west,” urged the chief.
“Washington will now be satisfied. He has eaten hugely of our hunting
ground; his greed will now be appeased. He will not follow us into
the mysterious sunset, because his plow is useless there.”

Our camp at this time was in the Cave Hills between the Grand River
and the headwaters of the Moreau, and in a great procession we set
forth to the west, moving steadily till we reached the Powder River
Valley. There we met three hundred lodges of the Cheyennes under the
command of Crazy Horse, American Horse, and Two Moon.

To us American Horse said: “We are ready to fight. General Crook is
at war upon us, but we have beaten him once and we can do it again.
Now we will go with you and camp with you and battle when the time
comes. Our fortunes shall be yours. Whatever happens, we will share
it with you.”

“There will be no need to war,” said my chieftain, solemnly. “We
have given up our land, we are going far into the west beyond even
the Crow country where the buffalo are. Our enemy will not follow us
there.”

Crazy Horse shook his head. “He will come, this white man. He trails
us wherever we go. He has no more pity than the wolf. He has made a
vow to sweep us from the earth.”

[Illustration: Cheyenne Scouts Patrolling the Big Timber of the North
Canadian, Oklahoma

_Illustration from_
CHEYENNE SCOUTS IN OKLAHOMA

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _April 6, 1889_]

[Illustration: Indians Reconnoitering from a Mountain-top

_The keen eye of the Indian is able to distinguish objects
even in such an extensive view as this appears to be. To the
white man, however, the Western landscape—red, yellow, blue,
in a prismatic way, shaded by cloud forms and ending among
them—appears as something unreal._

_Illustration from_
SUN-DOWN’S HIGHER SELF
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _November, 1898_]

Our camp was very large and my chief was in the fullness of his
command. Some of the Ogallallahs had joined us before and with the
Cheyennes we were nearly fifteen hundred lodges. We made no effort at
concealing our trail. We moved in a body, and where we went we left a
broad and dusty road. We trailed leisurely up the Yellowstone to the
mouth of the Rosebud and up the Rosebud to the head of a small creek
which emptied into Greasy Grass Creek (a stream which the whites call
the Little Big Horn) at a point where there was plenty of wood and
good grazing.

The chief as he looked down upon this valley said: “It is good.
We will camp here,” and to this they all agreed. It was indeed a
beautiful place. I was but a lad, but I remember that beautiful
scene, finer than anything in all our own lands. Hunting parties were
at once sent out to find the buffalo, and some of the chief’s “Silent
Eaters” mounted the hills to spy backward on our trail.

The hunters reported the country clear of foes and buffalo near, and
as the spies brought no news of invaders the people threw off all
care. With feasts and dances they began to celebrate their escape
from the oppressor. We were beginning the world anew in this glorious
country.

One day in midsummer—I remember it now with beating heart—just in
the midst of our preparation for a dance, the cry arose: “_The white
soldiers—they are coming!_ Get your horses!”

I remember clearly the very instant. I was sitting in my father’s
lodge, painting my face for the dance, when this sound arose. The
shouting came from the camp of The Gall, whose lodges stood at the
extreme south end of the circle. From where I stood I could see
nothing, but as I ran up the west bank to find my horse I detected a
long line of white soldiers riding swiftly down the valley from the
south. They came like a moving wall and the sun glittered on their
guns as they reloaded them. Before them the women and children were
fleeing like willow leaves before a November wind.

My heart was beating so hard I could scarcely speak. I was but a boy
and had never seen a white soldier, yet now I must fight. All around
me were hundreds of other young men and boys roping, bridling, and
mounting the plunging ponies.

As we came sweeping back my father passed us, leading the white
horse of the chief, and as we came near the headquarters tent the
chief came out wearing a war-bonnet and carrying his saddle. This he
flung on his horse, and when he was mounted my father and his guard
surrounded him and they rode away. My father took my horse and I saw
neither him nor the chief till night. I heard that he tried to check
the battle, but the young men of Chief Gall’s camp had routed the
enemy’s column before he reached there and the soldiers were spurring
their horses into the river and dashing up the hills in mad effort to
get away.

The camp was a mighty whirlpool of confusion. The women were taking
down the lodges, weeping and singing, the old men and boys were
roping the horses together, and the ground was covered with a litter
of blankets, saddles, pouches, and other things which escaped notice
or seemed unimportant, and all the time we could hear the rapid
cracking of the guns and it seemed as if we were all to be killed. No
one knew how many soldiers there were. All seemed lost, our shining,
peaceful world about to be shattered and destroyed.

I ran to catch another horse, and when I was mounted and once more in
sight of the valley it was almost deserted. The women and children
were all gathered in throngs on the west bank, straining their eyes
toward the cloud of smoke which marked the retreat of soldiers to the
southeast, singing songs of prayer and exaltation.

Suddenly a wild cry arose, and looking where an old woman pointed, I
saw on the bare crest of the hill to the east a fluttering flag. A
moment later four horsemen appeared, then four more, and so in column
of fours they streamed into view, a long line of them.

“Go tell the warriors,” screamed my mother to me, and, lashing my
pony, I started down the slope diagonally toward a body of our
soldiers who were returning from pursuit of the other soldiers.

They were warned by some one nearer to them than I. I saw them turn
and spur their horses in a wild race along the river bank. I had
no weapon, but I kept on till I joined the rear rank. There were
hundreds in this charge.

You have heard that my people ambushed Custer. This is a lie. The
place where he stood to view our camp was a hill as bare as your
hand. He saw us, knew how many we were, and rode to meet us. It was
an open attack on our part. Chief Gall led his band up a steep ravine
and swept round behind the troopers, each man clinging to the far
side of his horse and shooting beneath his neck.

You have heard it said that we outnumbered Custer ten to one. This,
too, is false. We had less than twelve hundred warriors, counting
old and young. We had old-fashioned guns—many of our men had only
clubs or arrows or lances. Many were boys like myself, with not
even a club. We were taken unawares, not they. They had the new
magazine rifles and six-shot revolvers. They were all experienced
warriors, while we were not; indeed most of our men had never been in
battle before and they had no notion of discipline. Each man fought
alone, without direction. We were a disorderly mass of excited men.
Everybody gave orders; no one was leader. That is the way of my
people. We have no commander-in-chief. We fight in bands. Chief Gall
led one charge, the daughter of Old Horse led another, American Horse
led a third, and so it proceeded as a mob goes to war.

I could not see much of what followed, for a great cloud of dust and
smoke covered the hill. Nobody had any clear idea of the battle. It
was very hot and we took no notice of time, but it must have been
about half past ten when the fight began. It did not last very long.

Once as I dashed near I caught a glimpse of the white soldiers,
some kneeling, some standing, with their terrible guns ever ready,
_crack_—_crack_—_crack_, while our warriors circled around them,
dashing close in order to fire and retreating to reload. It seemed
that some of the soldiers ran out of ammunition early, for they sat
holding their guns without firing.

The fire was slackening as I rode down to the river to drink, and
when I returned all was still and the smoke was slowly drifting
away. Once or twice a band of young braves dashed in close to the
last group of tangled bodies, and when no weapon flashed back they
dismounted to peer about, looking for Long Hair.

We did not know then that General Custer had cut his hair short, and
we all took the body of a man with long black hair to be the chief.
I now see that we were mistaken. He was a scout. Some of the men
stripped the bodies of the white men of their clothes, while others
moved about, counting the dead. There were not many red men killed.
Our manner of fighting saved us from heavy loss. You have heard that
our soldiers mangled the dead. This is not true. Some crazy old women
and a few renegades did so, but our chiefs did not countenance this.
You call this a “massacre,” but to us it was a battle, honorable to
us as to the bluecoats.

The chief’s “Silent Eaters” rode forth among the old men and women
and commanded them to camp again. This they did, but in a different
place, farther down the river, near where the Crow agency now stands.

The chief was very sorrowful, for he realized the weight of this
battle. Foolish ones rode about exulting, but he rebuked them. “This
is all bad. The Great Father at Washington will now be very angry,
for we have killed his soldiers. The war chief will come against us
with greater fury than ever. We cannot remain here.”

I was told that he did not visit the field of the dead. I do not know
the truth of this, but he sat in his lodge, pondering, while Gall
and his men held Reno prisoner on the hill. It was only a matter of
wearing them out and then the whole army would be defeated, so the
foolish ones said.

All the chiefs met in council at sunset, and The Sitting Bull said:
“We cannot afford to make war on the white soldiers. They are too
many and too brave. My heart is heavy with this day’s work. It is our
first battle with the bluecoats and I now look to see all their war
chiefs assemble against us. We must leave this place. There is no
refuge for us here. We must go farther into the unknown world to the
west. In ancient days our people migrated and now our turn has come.”

There was little sleep that night. All through the long hours the
wail of the grief-stricken ones went on, and over the field of the
dead the “war women” ran frenzied with grief, mutilating the bodies
of their enemies. It was a night to make a boy grow old. My father
said: “All hope of ever seeing our ancient home is gone. Henceforth
we must dwell in the lands of our enemies.” And his face filled one
with despair. I wept with my mother.

Early next day the mass of our warriors swept out against Reno,
and he, too, would have perished like Custer but that the chief’s
ever-watchful spies from a distant butte caught and flashed forward
these terrifying signs.

“_More soldiers are coming up the river—a mighty host in steamboats._”

Then the chief sent forth his camp soldiers among the lodges with
this news and with orders to get ready to move instantly. Couriers
rushed away to the hills to recall those who were besieging Reno. The
women and old men again hurriedly packed the lodges, whilst we lads
gathered up the ponies, and at last, following the old chiefs and The
Sitting Bull, we streamed away up the river toward the mountains,
leaving the field to our enemy’s scouts, but on every hill stood a
“Silent Eater,” and through them we had knowledge of each movement of
those who rescued Reno and buried the dead.

We camped that night in the hills far toward some great shining,
snowy peaks, the like of which we had never seen.

The troops which were under command of General Terry did not stay
long. They did not even look about very closely. They were afraid
they might find us, I think. They hurriedly buried the dead and
retreated quickly down the Big Horn to the Yellowstone, followed by
our scouts, who reported every movement to The Sitting Bull.

This retreat of Terry made many of our leaders bold, and some of
them, like The Gall, wished to pursue and strike again, but my chief
opposed that. It is true he gave orders to return to the mouth of
what is now Reno Creek, but he did this because in our haste we had
left many ropes and saddles and other things lying scattered on the
grass, and we needed them. This was the third day after the battle
and no enemy was in sight.

On this night the chiefs counciled again and The Sitting Bull advised
flight. “Let us set our breasts to the west wind and not look back,”
he said. “The white man fills the East. Toward the setting sun are
the buffalo. Let us make friends with all our red brethren and go
among them, and live in peace.”

But the old men were timid. They said: “We do not know the land to
the west; it is all very strange to us. It is said to be filled with
evil creatures. The mountains reach to the sky. The people are strong
as bears and will destroy us. Let us remain among the Crows whom we
know. Let us make treaty with them.”

To this the chief at last agreed, and gave orders to be ready to
march early the next morning. “When a man’s heart beats with fear it
is a good thing to keep moving,” he said to my father.

Thus began a retreat which is strange to tell of, for we retraced our
trail over the low divide back into the valley of the Rosebud, and so
down the Yellowstone to the Missouri, ready to enter upon our exile.
It was all new territory to most of us. Our food was gone, and when
our hunters brought news of buffalo ahead we rushed forward joyously,
keeping to the north, and so entered the land of the Crows.

Meanwhile the white soldiers had also retreated. They didn’t know
where we were. Perhaps they were afraid we would suddenly strike
them on the flank. Anyhow, they withdrew and filled the East (as I
afterward learned) with lies about us and our chiefs. They said the
chief had four thousand warriors, that he was accompanied by a white
soldier, and many other foolish things.

Our people rejoiced now, and at The Sitting Bull’s advice our band
broke up into small parties, the better to hunt and prepare meat
for winter. It was easier to provide food when divided into small
groups, and so my chief’s great “army,” as the white men called it,
scattered, to meet again later.

It must have been in October that we came together, and in the great
council which followed, the chief announced that the white soldiers
were coming again and that it was necessary to push on to the north.
This was on the Milk River, and there you may say the last stand of
the Sioux took place—for it was in this council that the hearts of
the Ogallallahs, our allies, weakened. One by one their orators rose
and said: “We are tired of running and fighting. We do not like this
cold northland. We do not care to go farther. The new white-soldier
chief is building a fort at Tongue River. He has many soldiers and
demands our surrender. He has offered to receive us kindly.”

My chief rose and with voice of scorn said: “Very well. If your
hearts are water, if you desire to become white men, go!” And they
rose and slipped away hastily and we saw them no more.

Then the Cheyennes said: “We, too, have decided to return to our own
land. We dread the desolate north.”

Then my chief was very sad, for the Cheyennes are mighty warriors.
“Very well, my brothers,” he replied. “You came of your own accord
and we will not keep you. We desire your friendship. Go in peace.”

So they left us. We were now less than half of our former strength,
but we faced the north winds with brave hearts—even the women sang to
cheer our way.

We were near the Missouri when Miles, the white chief, suddenly threw
himself in our way and demanded a council.

A battle would have been very unequal at this time, for our warriors
were few and our women and children many; therefore, The Sitting Bull
and five chiefs went forth to meet Miles and his aides.

Perhaps you have read the white man’s side of this. I will tell you
of the red man’s part, for my father rode beside our chief at this
time.

Colonel Miles had over four hundred men and a cannon. His men were
all armed perfectly, while we had less than a thousand men and boys,
and many of even the men had no guns at all. We were burdened with
the women and children, too.

Six white men met The Sitting Bull and his five braves. My father was
one of these men and he told me what took place.

The chief rode forward slowly, and as he neared the white chief he
greeted him quietly, then lifted his hands to the sky in a prayer
to the Great Spirit. “Pity me, teach me. Give me wise words,” he
whispered.

“Which of you is The Sitting Bull?” asked Colonel Miles.

“I am,” replied the chief.

“I am glad to meet you. You are a good warrior and a great leader.”

To this my chief abruptly replied: “Why do you remain in my country?
Why do you build a camp here?”

Thereupon Miles sternly answered: “We are under orders to bring you
in. I do not wish to make war on you, but you must submit and come
under the rule of the department at Washington.”

The Sitting Bull made reply quietly, but with emphasis: “This country
belongs to the red man and not to the white man. I do not care to
make war on you. My people are weary of fighting and fleeing.”

“Why do you not come in and live quietly on your reservation at the
Standing Rock?”

“Because I am a red man and not an agency beggar. The bluecoats
drove us west of the Missouri, they robbed us of the Black Hills,
they have forced us to take this land from the Crows, but we wish
to live at peace. You have no right to come here. You must withdraw
all your troops and take all settlers with you. There never lived a
paleface who loved a redskin, and no Lakota ever loves a paleface.
Our interests are directly opposed. Only in trade can we meet in
peace. I am Uncapappa and I desire to live the ways of my fathers
in the valleys which the Great Spirit gave to my people. I have not
declared war against Washington, but I will fight when you push me
to the wall. I do not like to be at strife. It is not pleasant to be
always fleeing before your guns. This western world is wide; it is
lonely of human life. Why do you not leave it to us? All my days I
have lived far from your people. All that I got of you I have paid
for. My band owes you nothing. Go back to the sunrise and we will
live as the Great Spirit ordained that we should do.”

General Miles was much moved, but said: “I want you to go with me to
meet the Great Father’s representatives and talk with them.”

“No,” my chief replied. “I am afraid to do that, now that we have
had a battle with your soldiers. We went far away and your warriors
followed us. They fell upon us while we were unprepared. They shot
our women and children and they burned our tepees. Then we fought, as
all brave men should, and we killed many. I did not desire this, but
so it came about. Do not blame me.”

The white chief was silent for a time, then he said: “If you do not
give up your arms and come upon the reservation I will follow you and
destroy you.”

At this my chief broke forth: “My friend, we had better quit talking
while we are good-natured.” Then lifting his arm in a powerful
gesture, he uttered a great vow: “So long as there is a prairie dog
for my children, or a handful of grass for my horses, The Sitting
Bull will remain Uncapappa and a freeman.” And he turned his horse
about and returned to our lines.

During this time our spies had discovered the guns which Miles had
pointed at the chief, and knew that the soldiers were ready to shoot
our envoys down.

When the chief was told this he said: “No matter. We have held up our
hands to the Great Spirit; we must not fire the first shot.”

He was anxious for peace, for, while he was still the leader of many
men, he knew something of the power of the War Department and he
feared it. All that night he sat in council with the chiefs, who were
gloomy and disheartened. Next morning, hearing that General Miles
was coming toward his camp, The Sitting Bull sent out a white flag
and asked for another talk. This Colonel Miles granted and they met
again. My chief said:

“We have counseled on the matter and we have decided on these terms.
We ask the abandonment of this our country by your soldiers. We ask
that all settlements be withdrawn from our land, except trading
posts, and our country restored to us as it was before the white
settlers came. My people say this through me.”

To this Miles harshly replied: “If you do not immediately surrender
and come under the rule of the reservations, I will attack you and
pursue you till you are utterly destroyed. I give you fifteen minutes
to decide. At the end of that time I open fire.”

Then the heart of my chief took flame. Shaking his hand at the
soldiers, he whirled his horse, and came rushing back, shouting:
“Make ready! The white soldiers are about to shoot!”

Under his orders I and other lads rushed to the front and began to
fire the grass, thus making a deep smoke between us and the enemy.
While the women hurriedly packed the tepees the men caught their
horses. All was confusion and outcry. But our warriors held the enemy
in check so that we got our camp out of harm’s way. We were afraid of
the big gun; we had little fear of the horsemen and their carbines.

For two days Miles pushed us and we gave way. The white historians
are always ungenerous, if not utterly false. They do not give my
people credit. Consider our disadvantages. Our women and children
were with us and must be protected. It required many of the young
men to take care of our ponies and the camp stuff. We were forced
to live on game and game was scared away, while the white soldiers
had rations and the best of horses. The country was not a good one
for us. Hour by hour Miles pushed us, and in spite of all the skill
of our chiefs, we lost most of our ponies and a great deal of our
food and clothing, and our people became deeply disheartened. The
rapid-fire gun of the white soldiers terrified us—and though the
earth grew blacker and darker, we fled northward.

At last, on the third day, decisive council took place among the
chiefs. The Sitting Bull and The Gall said, “We will not surrender!”
But many of the lesser ones cried out: “What is the use? The white
man is too strong. The country grows more barren, the game has fled.
Let us make peace. Let us meet Miles again.”

But my chief indignantly refused. “Are we coyotes?” he said. “Shall
we slink into a hole and whine? You Yanktonaise and Minneconjous
have eaten too much white man’s bread. It has taken the heart out of
you. Do you wish to be the sport of our enemies? Then go back to the
agencies and grow fat on the scrap they will throw to you. As for me,
I am Uncapappa, I will not submit. I owe the white race nothing but
hatred. I do not seek war with Miles, but if he pursues me I will
fight. My heart is hot that you are so cowardly. I will not take part
in this peace talk. I have spoken.”

Once again he rose, and spoke with the most terrible intensity,
struggling to maintain his supremacy over his sullen and disheartened
allies, but all in vain. He saw at last that his union of forces had
been a failure, and, drawing his “Silent Eaters” around him, he sent
criers through the camp calling on all those who wished to follow him
to break camp.

It was a solemn day for my race, a bitter moment for my chief. He
saw his bond of union crumbling away, becoming sand where he thought
it steel. When Crazy Horse and the Cheyennes fell behind he could
not complain, for they were but friends who had formed a temporary
alliance, but the desertion of the Yanktonaise was a different
matter. They were of his blood and were leaving us, not to fight, but
to surrender. They were deserting us and all that we stood for. And
my chief’s heart was very sore as he saw them ride away. Less than
two hundred lodges went with The Sitting Bull; the others surrendered.

It took heroic courage to set face to the north at that time of the
year. The land was entirely unknown even to our guides, and the
winter was upon us. It was treeless, barren, and hard as iron. As the
snows fell our sufferings began. I have read the white historians’
account of this. I have read in Miles’s book his boasting words of
the heroism of the white troops as they marched in pursuit of us in
the cold and snow, but he does not draw attention to the fact that
my chief and his people traversed the same road in the same weather,
with scanty blankets and no rations at all. According to his own
report his troops outnumbered us, man, woman, and child, and yet he
did not reach, much less capture, a man of us.

Our side of all this warfare has never been told. You have all the
newspapers, all the historians. Your officers dare not report the
true number of the slain, and they always report the red men to be
present in vast number. It would make the world smile to know the
truth. You glorify yourselves at our cost, and we have thus far had
no one to dispute you. I am only a poor “Injun,” after all, and no
one will read what I write, but I say the white soldiers could never
defeat an equal number of my people on the same terms.

[Illustration: The Brave Cheyennes Were Running Through the Frosted
Hills

_This is Dull Knife’s band of Northern Cheyennes, known as the
Spartans of the plains. And deservedly were they called a Spartan
band, for, relentlessly pursued by cavalry troops for over ten
days, these gallant warriors fought to their last nerve, making
their last stand only when nature itself was exhausted._

_Illustration from_
A SERGEANT OF THE ORPHAN TROOP
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _August, 1897_]

[Illustration: Campaigning in Winter

_A body of United States cavalry in winter rig in pursuit of a
band of Minneconjous Sioux, who had left their agency and were
making for the camp of the hostiles in the Bad Lands._

_Illustration from_
A SERGEANT OF THE ORPHAN TROOP
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _August, 1897_]

Our moccasins grew thin with our hurrying. We were always cold and
hungry. No wood could be found. We burned our lodge poles. Our horses
weakened and died and we had no meat. The buffalo had fled, there
were no antelope, and the wind always stung—yet we struggled on,
cold, hungry, hearing the wails of our children and the cries of our
women, pushing for a distant valley where our scouts had located game.

At last the enemy dropped behind and we went into camp near the mouth
of the Milk River on the Big Muddy, and soon were warm and fed again,
but our hearts were sore for the unburied dead that lay scattered
behind us in the snow. Do you wonder that our hate of you was very
great?

There we remained till spring. The soldiers had been relentless in
pursuit until the winter shut down; after that they, too, went into
camp and we lived in peace, recuperating from our appalling march.
And day by day The Sitting Bull sat in council with his “Silent
Eaters.”

Our immediate necessities were met, but the chief’s heart was
burdened with thought of the future. All our allies had fallen away.
The Cheyennes and Ogallallahs were bravely fighting for their land in
the south, but the Yanktonaise and Minneconjous, our own blood, with
small, cold hearts, were sitting, self-imprisoned, in the white man’s
war camp.

You must not forget that we had no knowledge of geography such as
you have. We knew only evil of the land that lay to the north and
west of us. We were like people lost in the night. Every hill was
strange, every river unexplored. On every hand the universe ended in
obscurity, like the lighted circle of a campfire. A little of the
earth we knew; all the rest was darkness and terror.

We could not understand the government’s motives. Your war chief’s
persistency and his skill scared us. We were without ammunition, we
could neither make powder nor caps for our rifles, and our numbers
were few. Miles had the wealth of Washington at his back. This you
must remember when you read of wars upon us. Where we went our women
and children were obliged to go, and this hampered our movements.
What would Miles have done with five hundred women and children to
transport and guard?

All these things made further warfare a hopeless thing for us, for we
were dependent upon our enemy for ammunition and guns, without which
the feeding of our people was impossible. To crown all our troubles,
the buffalo were growing very wild and were retreating to the south.

Up to this time we had only temporary scarcity of food, but now, when
we could not follow the buffalo in their migrations, my chief began
to see that they might fail us at the very time we most needed them.
“Surely the Great Spirit has turned his face from us,” he said, as
his scouts returned to say the buffalo were leaving the valley.

If you were to talk for a day, using your strongest words, you could
not set forth the meaning of the buffalo to my people at this time.
They were our bread and our meat. They furnished us roof and bed.
They lent us clothing for our bodies. The chase kept us powerful,
continent, and active. Our games, our dances, our songs of worship,
and many of our legends had to do with these great cattle. They were
as much a part of our world as the hills and the trees, and to our
minds they were as persistent and ever-recurring as the grass.

To say “The buffalo will fail” was like saying “The sun will rise no
more.” Our world was shaken to its base when a red man began even to
dream of this. We spoke of it with whispered words.

“To go farther north is to say farewell to the buffalo,” the chief
said to my father—and in this line you may read the despair of the
greatest leader my tribe has produced. To go north was to face
ever-deepening cold in a gameless, waterless, treeless land; to go
south was to walk into the white chief’s snare.

One day as the old men sat in council a stranger, a friendly
half-breed from the north, rose and said:

“My friends, I have listened to your stories of hard fighting and
running, and it seems to me you are like a lot of foxes whose dens
have been shut tight with stones. The hunters are abroad and you
have no place of refuge. Now to the north, in my country, there is a
mysterious line on the ground. It is so fine you cannot see it; it is
finer than a spider’s web at dusk; but it is magical. On one side of
it the soldiers wear red coats and have a woman chief. On the other
they wear blue coats and obey Washington. Open your ears now—listen!
No blue soldier dares to cross that line. This is strange, but it
is true. My friends, why do you not cross this wonder-working mark?
There are still buffalo up there and other game. There is a trader
not three days’ ride from here, one who buys skins and meat. There
you can fill your powder cans and purchase guns. Come with me. I will
show the way.”

As he drew this alluring picture loud shouts of approval rang out.
“Let us go!” they said one by one. “We are tired of being hunted like
coyotes.”

The chief smoked in silence for a long time, and then he rose and
his voice was very sad as he chanted: “I was born in the valley of
the Big Muddy River. I love my native land, I dread to leave it, but
the pale soldiers have pushed us out and we are wanderers. I have
listened to our friend. I should like to believe him, but I cannot.
White people are all alike. They are all forked and wear trousers.
They will treat us the same no matter what color of coats they wear.
If any of you wish to go I will not hinder. As for me, I am not yet
weak in the knees, I can still run, and I can still fight when need
comes. I have spoken.”

Part of the people took the advice of the Cree and went across the
line, but The Sitting Bull remained in the valley of the Missouri
till the spring sun took away the snow.

DARK DAYS OF WINTER

I shall never forget that dreadful winter. It seems now like one
continuous whirling storm of snow filled with wailing. We were cold
and hungry all the time, and the white soldiers were ever on our
trail. Many died and the cries of women never ceased. It was as if
the Great Spirit had forgotten us.

The chief, satisfied at last that the Cree had told the truth and
despairing of the future, turned his little band to the north, and
in the early spring crossed the line near the head of Frenchman’s
Creek and camped close to the hill they call Wood Mountain, where the
redcoats had a station and a small store. No one would have known
this small, ragged, sorrowful band as “the army of The Sitting Bull.”

My father was a great man—as great in his way as his chieftain—but
he was what you call a philosopher. He spoke little, but he thought
much, and one day soon after this he called me to him and said: “My
son, you have seen how the white man puts words on bits of paper. It
is now needful that some one of us do the same. We are far from our
home and kindred. You must learn to put signs on paper like the white
man in order that we may send word to those we have left behind. I
have been talking with a black-robe (a priest) and to-morrow you go
with him to learn the white man’s wonderful sign language.”

My heart froze within me to hear this, and had I dared I would have
fled out upon the prairie; but I sat still, saying no word, and my
father, seeing my tears, tried to comfort me. “Be not afraid, my son.
I will visit you every day.”

“Why can’t I come home each night?” I asked.

“Because the black-robe says you will learn faster if you live with
him. You must travel this road quickly, for we sorely need your help.”

He took me to Father Julian and I began to read.

We lived here peacefully for two years. The Cree had told us the
truth. General Miles dared not cross the line, but he chased my
people whenever they ventured over it. At Wolf Point, on the
Missouri, was a trader who spoke our language (he had an Indian wife)
and with him my chief often talked. He had spies also at Fort Peck,
which was an agency for the Assiniboines, and so knew where the
soldiers were at all times.

I had a friend, a Cree, who could read the papers, and from them I
learned what the white people said of us. Through him I heard that
many people sympathized with The Sitting Bull and declared that it
was right to defend one’s native land.

These words pleased the chief, but it made two of his head men
bitter. They grew jealous because their names were not spoken by the
white man, and they would have overthrown my chief if they dared, but
now the “Silent Eaters” came to his aid. With them to guard him, the
chief could treat the jealous ones with contempt. Wherever he went my
father and others of his bodyguard went with him, so that no traitor
could kill him and sell his head to the white people.

The redcoats liked my chieftain well. He was always just and
peaceful. If a reckless young man did a wrong thing against the
settlers The Sitting Bull punished him and said: “A righteous man
does not strike the hand which saves him from the wolf. No one can
steal from these our friends and not be punished.”

Once when he went to visit the trader at Wolf Point I went with him,
and was present at a long talk which they held. The trader gave us
a tent and some food and at night when we had eaten he came and sat
down to smoke.

“Sitting Bull,” he began, “I cannot understand you. I cannot see as
you do. We white people look ahead, we ask ourselves what is going to
happen in the future; but you seem to go on blindly. My friend, what
do you intend to do?”

The chief considered this carefully, but said nothing.

The trader went on: “The buffalo will soon be gone—you can see that.
The cold is killing them and the guns of the white hunters crack,
crack all the time. What will you do when they are gone?”

The chief broke forth passionately: “I did not leave the Black Hills
of my own will; the soldiers pushed me out. I loved my home, but
the paleface came and with his coming all the old things began to
change. I kept out of his way, I did not seek war with him, but he
never slept till he drove me among the redcoats. The redcoats do not
say much to us, but what they speak is fair and straight. So long as
a gopher remains on the plains I will stay and I will fight. All my
life I have been a man of peace, but now my back is to the rock; I
shall run no more. I am not afraid to die and all my warriors are of
my mind.”

The trader replied: “Your people are poor and suffering. The Canadian
government cannot help you. Our Great Father is rich. He will take
care of you and your people. Why don’t you do as the Yanktonaise
did—go to a reservation and settle down.”

“Because I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be
a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in
your heart certain wishes and plans, in my heart he put other and
different desires. Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary
for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor, but we are free. No white
man controls our footsteps. If we must die we will die defending our
rights. In that we are all agreed. This you may say to the Great
Father for me.”

The trader waited till the chief’s emotion passed away, and then he
said: “Look you, my friend, all white men are not your enemies. There
are many who are on your side.”

“I cannot trust them. A few months ago some men came professing
friendship; they offered me land and a house, but I fear all those
who come bearing gifts. I will trade; I will not take gifts. I do not
make war; I only defend my women and children as you would do.”

The trader rose. “Very well. I have said all I care to say on that
head, but I shall be glad to see you at any time and I wish to trade
with you.”

“Will you trade guns?”

“No, I can’t do that.”

“If we kill game we must have guns.”

“I know that, but I fear the soldiers as well as you, chief. They
tell me not to sell you guns, and I must obey.”

The Sitting Bull rose and took from his side his embroidered tobacco
pouch.

“You are of good heart and I will trade with you.” He handed the
pouch to the trader, for this is an emblem of respect among my
people, and they shook hands and parted. If all men had been like
this man, we would not now be an outcast race.

All that autumn while I studied the white man’s books my people
camped not far away and traded at Wolf Point. It was well they did,
for the winter set in hard. The cold became deadly and they had
few robes. They were forced to sell all they had to buy food and
ammunition. It is a terrible thing to be hungry in a land of iron. Do
you wonder that we despaired?

Just when the winter was deep with snow a messenger came to warn us
that a great military expedition was on its way to catch The Sitting
Bull and his people. The chief immediately gave orders to pack, and
with stern face again led the way to the north across the Great
Divide. The white soldiers had plenty of blankets and food. They
followed us hard. The storms were incessant. The snow, swept to and
fro by the never-resting wind, blinded the eyes of the scouts and
path finders.

Oh, that terrible march! In the gullies the horses floundered and
fell to rise no more. There was no tree to shelter a tepee, no fuel
for our fire. Women froze their arms and breasts, and little children
died of cold and hunger. The camp grew each day more silent. The dogs
were killed for food, and each night the lodge poles were cut down to
make kindling, till each tepee became like a child’s toy. The guides
lost their way in the storm and the whole camp wandered desperately
in a great circle. My words cannot picture to you the despair and
suffering of that march.

When at last they came into the old camp at Wood Mountain they were
bleeding, ragged, and hollow eyed with hunger. The Sitting Bull
looked like an old man. The commander hardly recognized him, so worn
and broken was he, and I, who remembered him as the proud leader of
two thousand lodges of people, was made sorrowful and bitter by the
change in his face.

That winter was the coldest known to my people. They sat huddled over
their camp fires in the storms, while hunters ranged desperately for
game. The redcoats helped us as much as they could, and strangers far
away, hearing of our need, sent a little food and some clothing, but,
in spite of all, many of our old people died.

Hunting parties rode forth desperately to the south, and some of them
never returned. The buffalo were few and very, very distant, and our
scouts from the Yellowstone reported whole herds already frozen.
Myriads were starving because of the deep snow. “By spring none will
remain,” they said. “Surely the Great Spirit has turned his face away
from his red sons.”

The sufferings of the children broke the proud hearts of the chiefs.
One by one they began to complain. Some of them reproached The
Sitting Bull and there were those who would have delivered his head
to the white men, but were prevented by the “Silent Eaters,” who were
ever watchful.

Many now said: “Let us go back. The buffalo are gone. We are helpless
and our children starve while our brethren at the Standing Rock have
plenty and are warm. We are tired of fighting and fleeing. The Great
Spirit is angry with us. He has withdrawn his favor and we must do as
Washington wishes. We must eat his food and do his work. He is all
powerful. It is useless to hold out longer.”

To all this the chief made no reply, but brooded darkly, talking only
in the soldier’s lodge. His mind was busy with the problems of life
and death which the winter wind sang into his ears.

From my warm home with the priest, from the comfort and security
which I was just beginning to comprehend and enjoy, I went now and
again into the camp, and the pity of it was almost more than I could
bear. No one talked, no one sang, no one smiled. It was like some
dreadful dream of the night.

What could I do? I had nothing. I ate, but I could not carry food to
my chief. I had warm clothing, but I could not lend it to my father.
Though hardly more than a boy, my heart was big as that of a man. I
began to understand a little of the mighty spread of the white man’s
net, and yet I dared not tell the chief my secret thought.

How can I make you understand? Can you not see that we were facing
the end of our world? My chief was confronting captivity and insult
and punishment. His bright world of danger and freedom and boundless
activity was narrowing to a grave, and only the instinctive love of
life kept him and his “Silent Eaters” from self-destruction. In all
the history of the world there has been no darker day for a race than
this when midwinter fell upon us in that strange land of the north.

THE CHIEF SURRENDERS HIMSELF

The first days of spring were worse than the winter. Rain and sleet
followed each other, and the few remaining buffalo seemed to sink
into the ground, so swiftly they disappeared. White people read in
papers of wars and elections and the price of wheat; our news came by
brave runners, and their tales were ever of the same dole.

“What of the buffalo? Where are the buffalo? Are the buffalo
starving?” The answers always were the same. “The buffalo are gone.
We are lost!”

The report of our desperate condition went out over the world and
sympathetic people came to urge us to surrender. One messenger, a
priest, a friend of General Sherman, the great war chief, came, and
The Sitting Bull called a council to sit with him, and some Canadian
officers also were there.

After they had all finished speaking, The Sitting Bull replied: “I am
ready to make a peace. But as for going to Standing Rock, that is a
question I must consider a long time. I am no fool. I know that the
man who kills me will be rewarded and I do not intend to be taken
prisoner. I have long understood the power of the whites. I am like a
fly in a mountain stream when compared with this wonderful and cruel
race. I do not care to have my head sold to make some man-coyote
rich. Now this is my answer: I will make a peace. I will keep my
people in order but I will not go to the Standing Rock. My children
can go if they think best.”

The council broke up at this point, but in private the chief said
to a friend: “The Gall is going back, so is The Polar Bear and many
others. I shall soon be alone. Black Moon, Running Crane, all are
deserting me, but I shall remain; I will not return to die foolishly
for the white man’s pleasure.”

All took place as he foresaw. Chief Gall went south and surrendered.
So did Red Fish and The Crane. Only a few remained, among them my
father and Slohan.

The chief was pleased to know I was getting skilled in the white
man’s magic. “I need an interpreter, one I can trust,” he said to me.
“Go on in the road you have taken.”

One day as he sat smoking in his tepee I heard him singing in a low
voice the “Song of the Chieftains,” but he had changed it to a sad
ending:

“I was born a soldier—
I have lived thus long.
Ah, I have lived to spend my days in poverty.”

It broke my heart to look upon him sitting there. I had seen him
when he was the master spirit of the whole Sioux nation—a proud and
confident chief. Now he hovered above his fire, singing a death song,
surrounded by a little circle of ragged lodges. Yet I could not
blame his followers. They surrendered, not to the white man, but to
the great forces of hunger and cold.

If you ask what defeated The Sitting Bull, I will answer, “The
passing of the buffalo.” If you ask what caused him to surrender his
body to the whites, I will say his tender heart. You hear officers
boast of conquering Sitting Bull, but the one who brought him to the
post was his daughter. The love of the parent for the child is strong
in my race; it is terrible. Sitting Bull was a chief, stern and
resolved, but he was a father also.

One day a letter came to the British officer from a friend of my
chieftain, who said, “Tell The Sitting Bull that the white men have
put his daughter in irons.”

This daughter, his best-beloved child, had left the camp, lured away
by her lover, and the chief did not know where she was. His heart
was bleeding for her, and now when he heard this letter read his
indignation was very great. “Is it so?” he cried out. “Do they make
war on a poor weak girl? I will go to her. I will kill her captors. I
will die beside her.”

That night he called the remnant of his band together and said, “My
children, you know that the white men have tried often to get me to
go south to act their pleasure, but I have always refused. Now they
have taken my daughter, a weak girl with no power to defend herself.
They have put irons on her feet and on her hands. At last I must
go south. I must follow her. I wish to find her and to kill those
who have abused her. I do not want you to go with me. I go alone to
suffer whatsoever comes to me.”

Then his people all said, “No, we will go with you.”

He replied: “Friends, you have stayed too long with me. If you wish
to go I cannot refuse, but the road is dark and dangerous; whereto it
leads I cannot tell.”

We made ready at once to go with him, and though our hearts were
filled with fear, we were also glad. “We’re going home,” the women
sang. For the last time he gave orders to break camp in Canadian
territory, and led the way across the invisible wonderful line into
the land of the bluecoats.

His following was very small now. Only his wives and sons and a few
of the more loyal of the “Silent Eaters” remained. Many of even this
bodyguard had gone away, but those who remained were doubly faithful,
and on them he relied to resent any indignity. “If we are assaulted
let us die fighting, as becomes warriors,” he said, and all the men
responded firmly, “Aye, that will we.”

Do you think it an easy thing to set your face toward the land of
your deadly foes, with only a handful of warriors to stand between
you and torture? Yet this is what my chieftain did. He knew the hate
and the fear in which the white man held him, for I could now read to
him and report to him what was said. He was aware of the price on his
head and that many men were eager to put him in chains; yet he went.

“I shall go to the white soldiers,” he said. “_They_ will know about
my daughter. They are warriors, and warriors respect a chieftain.”

Small as his escort was, the commander at Fort Buford respected it.
He received The Sitting Bull like a chief, and said, “I have orders
to take you as military prisoner to Fort Yates.”

“I know the road home,” my chief haughtily replied. Then he handed
his gun to me and added, in a milder tone: “I do not come in anger
toward the white soldiers. I am very sad. My daughter went this road.
Her I am seeking. I will fight no more. I do not love war. I never
was the aggressor. I fought only to defend my women and children.
Now all my people wish to return to their native land. Therefore I
submit.” My heart ached to hear him say this, but it was true.

The colonel was very courteous. “You shall be treated as one soldier
treats another,” he said. “In two days a boat will come to take you
back to your people at Standing Rock. It is easy to ride on a boat
and you will have plenty to eat and I will send a guard to see that
you are not harmed by anyone.”

Thereupon he showed us where to camp and issued rations to us, and,
as we were all hungry, his kindness touched our hearts.

On the second day he came to see the chief again: “The boat has come
to carry you to Standing Rock. I hope you will go quietly and take
your place among your people who are living on their ancient hunting
grounds near the Grand River.”

“I do not wish to be shut up in a corral,” replied The Sitting
Bull. “It is bad for the young men to be fed by the agent. It makes
them lazy and drunken. All the agency Indians I have ever seen were
worthless. They are neither red warriors nor white farmers. They are
neither wolf nor dog. But my followers are weary of being hungry
and cold. They wish to see their brothers and their old home on the
Missouri, therefore I bow my head.”

Soon after this we went aboard the ship and began to move down the
river.

Some of us hardly slept at all, so deeply excited were we by the
wonder of the boat, but the chief sat in silence, smoking, speaking
only to remark on some change in the landscape or to point out some
settler’s cabin or a herd of cattle. “Our world—the Indian’s world—is
almost gone,” he muttered. But no one knew as well as I how deeply we
were penetrating the white man’s civilization.

We all became excited as the boat neared Bismarck, for there stood a
large village of white people and men and women came rushing out to
see us. They laughed and shouted insulting words to the chief, and
some of them called out, “Kill ’em!” The soldiers who guarded us kept
them back and we went on unharmed, but I could see that the sight of
this throng of palefaces had again made my chief very bitter.

I shall never forget the strange pain at my heart as we neared the
high bluff which hides Fort Yates. I did not know how near we were
till the old men pointed out the landmarks and began to sing a sad
song:

“We are returning, my brothers—
We are coming to see you,
But we come as captives.”

At last we came in sight of the fort, where a great crowd of people
stood waiting to see us. It seemed as if all the Sioux tribes were
there, all my chief’s friends and all his enemies. Some laughed, some
sang, some shouted to us. All on board were crazy with joy, but the
chief did not change countenance; only by a quiver of his lips could
his feelings be read. We saw The Gall and The Running Antelope and
The Crow’s Mane and many more of our friends. There were tears on the
cheeks of these stern warriors and their hands were outstretched to
greet us.

But the chief and my father were taken from the boat under military
guard and no one was allowed to come near them. My mother and
sister put up our tepee surrounded by the soldiers. Only a few were
permitted to come in and see us.

The chief inquired anxiously for his daughter. One day she came, and
when she passed into her father’s lodge her face was hidden in her
hands, her form shook with weakness. I could not hear what the chief
said to her, for his voice was low and gentle, but when I saw her
next she was smiling. He had forgiven her and was made happy by her
promise to stay with him.

He was greatly chagrined to find himself held a prisoner in the
face of all his people, and yet this care of his person—this fear
of him on the white man’s part—made some of his subordinates still
more jealous of his eminence. They were forgotten, while many
strangers came from afar and gave my chief many silver pieces for
his photograph. His fame was greater than even I could realize, and
chiefs who had no reason to hate him began to speak against him. “Why
should the white people send him presents?” they asked, and began to
belittle his position in the tribe.

[Illustration: Indians as Soldiers

_To the Indian, it was the soldier—the man in blue uniform—not
the civil agents sent out from Washington to dole out bad and
insufficient rations to a conquered race, that represented
courage, justice, and truth. Consequently the Indians took great
pride in being soldiers, and experience has shown that they make
not only the most efficient but also the most faithful of scouts
and the best possible material for light, irregular cavalrymen._

_Illustrations from_
INDIANS AS IRREGULAR CAVALRY
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _December 27, 1890_]

[Illustration: An Indian Dream

_Illustration from_
HOW ORDER No. 6 WENT THROUGH
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _May, 1898_]

I do not think my chief counseled evil during this time, but it could
not be said that he was submissive. He merely waited in his tepee
the action of his captors. The news that he got of the condition
of the reservation was not such as to encourage him and the roar
of his falling world was still in his ears. He was not yet in full
understanding of the purpose of Washington. “I do not know whether I
am to live or die,” he said to my father. “Whatsoever my fate, I am
happier, now that I have seen my child.”

After some three weeks of this confinement we were startled by an
order to break camp and get on board the boat again. “You are to go
to Fort Randall as military prisoners,” the agent explained to me.
“Tell them these are my orders.”

When I told the chief he was greatly troubled and, calling his
“Silent Eaters” about him, he said: “This may mean that they are
going to take us into the mysterious East to kill us in sport, or to
starve us in prison, far from our kind. Now listen, be ready! Our
reservation ends at Fort Randall. If they attempt to carry us beyond
that point let each man snatch a soldier’s gun and fight. Let no one
cease battle till the last man of us is killed. I am old and broken,
but I am still a chief. I will not suffer insult and I will not be
chained like a wolf for the white man’s sport.”

All agreed to this plan, and as the boat neared the fort the chief
gave the word, and we were scattered, tense with resolution, ready to
begin our death struggle should the vessel pass beyond the line. No
one faltered. Nearer and nearer we floated, and all were expecting
the signal when the boat signaled to the shore and stopped. The
soldiers never knew how close they came to death on that day.

Again we went into camp under guard, well cared for by the soldiers.
The officers all treated The Sitting Bull with marked respect and
during the day the colonel himself came to sit and smoke and talk
with us.

Of him the chief abruptly asked, “Am I to be kept here all my life?”

“No. After a while you are to be sent back north. As soon as you are
prepared to sign a peace and after the anger of the whites dies out.
I do not hate you. Come and talk to me whenever you feel lonesome, I
will do all I can to make your stay pleasant.”

To this The Sitting Bull replied: “Your kindness makes my heart warm.
It gives me courage to tread the new paths that lie before me. I am
very sad and distrustful, for I am like a man who enters a land for
the first time. It is not easy for me to sit down as a prisoner and
dream out the future. It is all dark to me. You are my friend. You
are wise and your words have helped me. If we could have the aid of
men like you, the new road would be less fearsome to our feet.”

The young officers came and asked us many questions about our ways of
camping, our methods of fighting, and so on, and the chief was always
ready to talk. Sometimes I pretended not to understand English in
order that I might the better know what was being said, and often I
heard white people tell ridiculous things.

“Is _that_ The Sitting Bull? Why, he looks like an old woman. He
can’t be a warrior.” Others remarked, “What a sad face he has!” and
this was true, for he had grown old swiftly. He brooded much and
there were days when he spake no word to any one, not even to my
father.

These were days of enlightenment to me, as well as to my chief, but
they brought no sign of hope. My father was a kind man, naturally
cheerful and buoyant, and his eyes were quick to see all that the
white man did. He comprehended as well as my chief the overwhelming
power of the white man, but he was less tenacious of the past. “It
is gone,” he repeated to me privately. “The world of our fathers is
swallowed up. Go you, my son, and learn of the white man the secret
power that enables him to make carts and powder and rifles. How can
we fight him when we must trade with him to win his wonder-working
arms and ammunition?”

And so when one of the officers, Lieutenant Davies, saw me holding
a scrap of paper and asked me if I could read, I told him I could.
Thereafter he gave me books and helped me to understand them. We
called him “Blackbird,” because his mustaches were dark and shaped
like the wings of a bird. I came to love this man, for he was the
best paleface I ever knew. He did not condemn us because we were
red. He did not boast and he was a soldier. He talked much with The
Sitting Bull, and his speech did more to change my chief’s mind than
that of any other man.

“Submit to all that the White Father demands,” he advised, “for so
it is ordered in the world. It is not a question of right, or of the
will of the Great Spirit,” he went on; “it is merely a question of
cannon and food.” There was something appalling in the way in which
he said these things. He did not believe in any Great Spirit. I could
not understand his religion, but his mind was large and his heart
gracious.

“Knowledge is power,” he said to me. “Study, acquire wisdom, the
white man’s wisdom, then you will be able to defend the rights of
your people,” and his words sank deep into my heart.

For two years we lived here under his influence, until one day the
order came for us to go back up the river, and with glad hearts we
obeyed.

It was in the spring and there was joy in our blood, for these years
of close captivity had made the promise of life on the reservation
seem almost like freedom. We went back laughing for joy, and when we
again came in sight of the hill above the Standing Rock my father
lifted his hands in prayer and the women sang a song of joy. As soon
as we were released my chief called his old guard about him, and said:

“My sons, my mind has changed. We are now entering upon a new life.
The white man’s trail is broad and dusty before us. The buffalo are
entirely gone and we must depend on the fruit of the earth. You
observe that The Eagle Killer, The Fire Heart and many of our people
have oxen and wagons. If they did not come into possession of these
things by shooting them out of the sky, I think we shall be able to
acquire similar goods for ourselves. The white people have promised
that so long as grass grows and water runs we shall be unmolested
here. Let us live in peace with our neighbors.”

The Sitting Bull was chief because he could do many things, and,
though he was now a captive with his people, his power and influence
remained. His “Silent Eaters” gathered round him and to them his
words were law. The agent also, for a time, treated him with
consideration, and was very friendly. They spoke often together.

We were at once given oxen and carts and located near the agency,
where we lived for a year, but the chief longed to return to the
Grand River, his native valley, and finally the agent gave his
consent, and we moved to the river flat, just where the Rock Creek
comes in. Here he built a little log cabin and settled down to live
like a white man, but I could see that his heart was ever soaring to
the hills of the West and his thoughts were busy with the past. Truly
it was strange to see Gall and Crane and Slohan sitting in a small
cabin, talking of the brave, free days of old.

IN CAPTIVITY

Of what took place on the reservation during the next four years I
know but little directly, for I went away to Washington to study with
Lieutenant Davies, who was assigned to duty in the War Department,
and I did not return to the Standing Rock for many years. I heard now
and then from my father, who wrote through my friend Louie Primeau.
He told me that the chief was living quietly at Rock Creek, but that
he was opposing every attempt of the white man to buy our lands.

My father complained also of the decreasing rations and said: “The
agent’s memory is short; he has forgotten that these rations are in
payment for land. He calls them gifts.” My mother sent word that my
little sister had died and that many were sick of lung diseases. “We
are very cold and hungry in the winter,” she said, and my heart bled
with remorse, for I was warm and well fed.

I would have returned at once had not my friend Davies told me to
stay on and learn all I could. “Go to the top,” he said. “Do not halt
in the middle of the trail. You will need to be very wise to help
your people.”

He was a philosopher. He had no hate of any race. He looked upon each
people as the product of its conditions, and he often said, “The
plains Indian was a perfect adaptation of organism to environment
till the whites disturbed him.”

His speech and his thought are in all that I write. He taught me
to put down my words simply and without rhetoric. He gave me books
to read that were both right and honest, and in all things he was
truthful. “Your life can never be happy,” he said. “You will always
be a red man in the clothing of the whites, but you will find a
pleasure in defending your people. Your race needs both historian and
defender. Your whole life should be one of teaching your people how
to live and how to avoid pain. I am not educating you to be happy.
There can be no shirking your duty. On the contrary, I believe your
only way to secure a moment’s peace of mind after you return to your
tribe is to help them bear their burdens.”

He warned me of the change which had come to me, as to them. “Your
boyish imagination idealized your people and the life they led. You
saw them under heroic conditions. They are now poor and despairing
and you will be shocked at their appearance and position under the
agent, but do not let this dismay you. The race is there beneath its
rags and dirt, a wonderful race.”

I shall never forget those long talks we had in his study, high up in
his little house, for he was not rich. Sometimes I could not sleep
for the disturbing new thoughts which he gave me. Often he nullified
all the teaching of the schools by some quiet remark.

“I counsel you to be a Sioux, my boy,” he repeated to me one night
after I had been singing some of our songs for a group of his
friends. “You can never be a Caucasian. There are dusky corners in
your thought. The songs you sang to-night made your heart leap with
memories of the chase. A race is the product of conditions, the
result of a million years of struggle. I do not expect a red man to
become a white man. Those who do, know nothing of the human organism.
On the surface I can make some change; but deep down your emotions,
your superstitions are red and always must be; that is not a thing to
be ashamed of.”

I am giving this glimpse into my school days in order that my
understanding of my chief and my race may appear plain. It is due to
my good friend Davies, the noblest white I ever knew. I want everyone
to know how much I owe to him.

It was strange to me and very irritating to find what false ideas
of us and of our chief the Washington people held. When it became
known that I was a Sioux and had been with The Sitting Bull, many
were eager to question me about him, but I refused to do more than
say: “We fought for our lands as Washington fought for his. Now you
confine my chief as if he were a wolf. But he is a wise and gentle
man, a philosopher, therefore he has laid his hands to the plow. His
feet are in the white man’s road.”

This story is not of me, else I could tell you how beautiful some of
the white women came to seem to me, and one small girl, fair as a
spring flower, ensnared my heart and kept me like an eagle bound to
my perch—only I did not struggle against the golden cord that bound
me. It was all very strange to me, for I still loved a girl of my own
race, who sent me presents of moccasins and who wrote through Louis
to say she was waiting for me. It was strange, I say—for my heart
clung to Anita, also, she was so fair and slender and sweet. She was
associated with all the luxury and mystery of the white man’s life.
She called to me in new ways—ways that scared me—while Oma spoke to
something deeper in me—something akin to the wide skies, the brown
hills, the west wind, and the smell of the lodge fire.

How it would have ended I don’t know, had not my friend Davies been
sent again into the West. His going ended my stay in the East.
Without him I was afraid to remain among the white people.

“The time has come for you to return, Iapi,” he said to me. “The
white men are moving to force a treaty upon the Sioux, and now is
your time to help them.”

It was very hard to say good-by to my friend, and harder yet to my
Anita, who loved me, but who told me she could not go with me, though
she wished to do so. “I cannot leave my poor mother, who is sick and
poor,” she said.

I was not very wise, but I knew that I had no place, not even a
lodge, in which to keep her, and so I said: “I will go on before you
and prepare a place for you, and then sometime you will come and you
will help me to teach my people how to live?”

To this she gave me promise and I went away very sad, for it seemed a
long way from Standing Rock to Washington, and especially to a poor
Sioux who knew of no way to earn money.

Some friends joined with my friend, the white soldier chief, to buy
some clothes for me, and a few presents for my father and mother, and
so, with a heart so big I thought it would burst within me, I took
the cars for the West.

I sat without moving for hours—all night long—while the terrible
engine of the white man’s fashioning sped into the darkness. At dawn
I looked out anxiously to see if the land were familiar, but it
was not. Only on the third day did it begin to awaken echoes in my
brain. My command of English words will not permit me to express the
wild thrill of my heart as I looked out of my window and saw again
the wide-lying plains of Dakota, marked by the feet of the vanished
buffalo. I was getting home!

Five years is a long time when it involves such mental changes as
had come to me. It seemed that half a lifetime had passed since I
sorrowfully took the steamer to go down the river to learn the white
man’s language. I was a wild-eyed, long-haired lad then. Now I was
returning, clipped and clothed like a white man, yet in my heart a
Sioux.

There were changes in the country, but not so great as I had
expected. Even the white man makes but little mark on these arid
levels. The cabins were grayer, the fields a little larger, that was
all. After dispossessing my people and destroying the buffalo, the
white settlers had discovered that it was a grim country for their
uses. Their towns seemed small and poor and sad.

My heart came into my throat as I crossed the Cannonball and entered
upon Sioux land and saw the yellowed tepees of our cousins, the
Yanktonaise, scattered irregularly along the river. This was still
the land of my fathers; this much we had retained of all the bright
world which had been ours in the olden, splendid days!

It was in June and the grass was still green. Herds of ponies were
feeding on the swells, and one of the horses I drove lifted his head
and neighed; he, too, remembered the old freedom. The sky blazed with
light and the hills quivered as if in ecstasy of living. The region
was at its best, delusively beautiful. I knew its moods. I knew how
desolate and pitiless those swells could be in midwinter, how dry and
hot of breath in July.

As we topped the hill I met a man driving a small team to a heavy
wagon. He wore a wide hat which lay on his shoulders, and big smoked
goggles hid his eyes. As he came opposite I perceived that he was a
Sioux, and I called to him in my native tongue.

“Wait, my friend. Where are you going so fast?”

He turned his big glasses on me and said:

“First of all, who are you that speak Lakota so badly?”

“I am Iapi, the son of Shato.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed, with a smile. “In that case you are getting back
from school? I know you, for I am Red Thunder!”

Red Thunder! I was silent with astonishment. A picture of him as
I saw him in 1876 rose in my mind. Tall and lithe he was then,
with keen, fierce eyes, the leader of the war faction among the
Yanktonaise, a wonderful horseman, reckless and graceful. Now here he
sat in a white man’s wagon, bent in the shoulders and clad in badly
fitting agency clothing. My heart was sick as I said:

“Friend, you are changed since the council on the Powder River. I did
not know you.”

He took off his glasses and put aside his hat; his smile also passed
away. He looked away to the west:

“My son, that is long ago and Red Thunder’s blood is no longer made
from buffalo meat. His muscles are weak. He prefers to sit in his
wagon and drive his ponies. The Great Spirit has forgotten his red
children and the White Father is in command over us. I do the best
I can. The old trails are closed; only one remains—the one made by
Washington.”

I drove on, my exultation utterly gone. If Red Thunder was of this
bitter mood, how would I find the Uncapappas who had been the
conservatives of the tribe?

I passed close by some of the cabins and they disheartened me, they
were so small and dirty. I was glad to see that some of them still
retained the sweat lodge. Each home consisted of a shack and two or
three tepees of canvas, and women were cooking beneath bowers made of
cottonwood as of old. Their motions, and the smell of smoke, awoke
such memories in me that I could hardly keep from both shouting and
weeping.

The farther I went the more painful became the impression made upon
me by these captives. They were like poor white farmers, ragged,
dirty, and bent. The clothes they wore were shoddy gray and deeply
repulsive to me. Their robes of buffalo, their leggins of buckskin,
their beaded pouches—all the things I remembered with pride—had been
worn out (or sold). Even the proud warriors of my tribe were reduced
to the condition of those who are at once prisoners and beggars. My
heart was like lead as I reached the agency.

It hurt me to do so, but I reported at once to the agent and asked
leave to visit my father and mother.

“They are expecting you,” he said. “You’ll find them camped just
beyond the graveyard.”

I am glad that I saw my father and mother first in their tepee. My
mother was cooking beneath a little shed of canvas. I called to her,
and when she looked at me, without knowing me, something moved deep
down in my heart. How brown and old and wrinkled she looked! Then I
said, “Don’t you know me, mother!”

Then her voice rose as she came hurrying to me, calling: “My son! My
son has returned.”

She took my hand, not daring to put her arms around me, for I looked,
she said, exactly like the white man, but I pressed her hands, and
then, while she sang a little song of joy, my father came out of his
lodge and came slowly toward me.

I will not dwell on this meeting. I inquired at once concerning our
chief. “He is still living in the same place near Rock Creek, and
wishes to see you at once,” said my father. “The white men are trying
to get our land again and the chief wants to have a talk about it
with you.”

“Let us go down and see him to-night,” I replied, and for this reason
we broke camp and started away across the plains.

It was a strange thing to me to help my father harness a team to a
wagon. He whom I had seen a hundred times riding foremost in the
chase, whom I had watched at break of day leading a band of scouts up
the steep side of a sculptured butte, or with gun in hand guarding
The Sitting Bull as he slept, was now a teamster, and I, clothed
in the white man’s garments, was sad and ashamed. I could not but
perceive that we were both more admirable as red warriors than as
imitation Saxon farmers. That is my red blood, you see.

But my father was proud of me and of my power to converse with
the agent. “My son,” he said, “our hearts are big because you are
back with us. Now this is your duty. You must listen to all that
the commissioners say and tell us minutely so that we may not be
deceived. We hear that a big council sent out the papers which
Washington wishes us to put our mark on, but The Sitting Bull and
most of our head men are agreed that we will never do so. Once
before, three years ago, they tried to get us to sell, but when the
white men grew angry and said, ‘If you don’t do this we will take
your lands anyway!’ The Sitting Bull rose and said, ‘You are crazy,’
and with a motion of his hand broke up the council and we all went
away. Now the traitorous whites are coming again and we need you to
listen and tell us what they say.”

I knew of the council he spoke of—General Logan was the man who had
threatened them—but I had not heard that the chief had dismissed the
sitting. It showed me that The Sitting Bull was still chief. This I
remarked.

“Yes,” said my father, “he is head man of all the Sioux even yet, but
the agent has set his hand against him. He gives favor to The Grass
and The Gall and The Gray Eagle, who are all jealous and anxious to
be set above The Sitting Bull. The agent has become bitter toward our
chief because he will not do as he says, and because our father works
always for the good of his people. He does nothing for himself alone,
like many others.”

As we came to the top of the hill and looked into the valley my
father pointed at a small two-room log cabin and said, “There he
lives, The Sitting Bull.”

The chief was in a big tepee which stood near the house, and as we
entered we found him entertaining Slohan and Katolan. He was seated
in the center, cutting tobacco, while his guests ate from a dish
of bread and meat. As I stood in the presence of these my honored
leaders my heart swelled with longing for the good old time. Here was
the dignity and the courtesy of the days of the buffalo. The chief
was partly in white man’s dress, but his hair was worn as of old and
his gestures were those of a gentle host. His dignity, as well as the
gravity of all the men, impressed me deeply.

He did not at first recognize me, but greeted my father, who, turning
to me, said, “This is my son, returned from Washington.”

Then the chief smiled, and cried out: “Ho, my son! I am glad to see
you. I have heard you were coming. You look so like a white man my
eyes were blinded. You must tell me all you have done and all you
have heard.”

I shook hands with each of the old men and took a seat near the
chief, to whom I said: “Is all well with you? Does the agent treat
you fairly?”

His face darkened, but he filled his pipe before he replied. “The
agent is no longer my friend. He orders me about as if I were a dog.
He refuses me permission to leave the reservation and checks me in
every way. I think he means to break me, but he will never set his
foot on my neck.”

I was eager to understand the situation, and I listened carefully
while the others talked of the many injustices under which they
suffered. The chief urged me to write to Washington to have things
changed.

I agreed to do so, but promised nothing more, for I well knew such
letters might work harm to those I loved. I foresaw also that my
position in my tribe was to be most difficult.

“We are ready to live the new life,” declared the chief, “but we
cannot farm the soil as the agent wishes. Go look at our fields. Each
year they are burned white by the sun. The leaves of the corn are
even now rolled together. The wheat is beginning to dry up. There is
no hay and our rations are being cut down.”

[Illustration: Burning the Range

_Taught by experience that burning the grass insures its better
growth, we are here shown Indians in the act of burning their
range. In a day or two after the fire sweet, succulent grasses
spring up again, and then the hard-worked Indian ponies revel for
a short season on the tender herbage._

_Illustration from_
BURNING THE RANGE

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S WEEKLY, _September 17, 1887_]

[Illustration: An Old-Time Northern Plains Indian

_In order to claim a scalp, the warrior must give the dead man
the coup. In the illustration the Indian is in the act of doing
this. In olden times the coup was a stab with a weapon, but in
later times the Indians were provided with coup sticks. Whoever
first strikes the victim with the coup can rightfully claim the
scalp._

_Illustration from_
SOME AMERICAN RIDERS
_by_ Colonel Theodore Ayrault Dodge, U.S.A.

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _May, 1891_]

I could see that he had no heart in his farming. The life was too
hard and too bitter. He was indeed like a chained eagle who sits and
dreams of the wide landscape over which he once floated in freedom.
He had thrown his influence in the right scale, but he was critical
and outspoken upon all debatable questions, and this had come to
anger the agent, who was eager to push all the people into what he
called “self-supporting ways.” This the chief did not oppose, though
he could not live in the white man’s country. “It makes me both weary
and sorrowful,” he said.

It did not take me more than a day to see that I was between two
fires. My friends were all among those whom the agent called “The
irreconcilables,” and my chief was relying upon me to help them
defeat the treaty for their lands, at the same time that the agent
expected me to be a leader of the progressive party. It was not
easy to serve two masters, and I was forced to be in a sense double
tongued, which I did not like.

The agent was outspoken against my chief. “The old man is spoiled by
newspaper notoriety,” he said to me. “His power must be broken. He is
a great and dangerous reactionary force and he and all the old-time
chiefs must be stripped of their power and made of no account before
the tribe can advance. He must be taught that I am the master here
and that no redskin has any control.”

To this I made no reply, for I could not agree with him. A man who is
a chief by virtue of his native ability cannot be degraded and made
of no account. The Sitting Bull was a chief by force of character.
As of old he worked for the good of his people. If he saw a wrong
he went forthwith to the agent and asked to have it righted. This
angered the agent, for he considered the chief officious. He was
jealous of his position as “little father.” He was a good man, but
he was opinionated and curt and irascible. He gave no credit to my
chief. When the others made him spokesman of their council he would
not listen to him. “He is a disturber,” he said.

Now there are certain record books in the office in which copies of
all letters are kept, and when I found this out I took time to read
all that the agent had written of the chief. My position as issue
clerk permitted me the run of the office, and so when no one was
near I read. I wished to know what had taken place during the five
years of my absence.

At first the agent wrote well of the chief. In reply to inquiries
he said: “Sitting Bull is living here quietly and is getting
ahead nicely. He is quiet and inoffensive, though proud of his
fame as a chief.” A year later he wrote of him, “His influence is
nonprogressive, but believers in him are few, while many Indians are
his enemies.”

This I found to be true. Chief Gall and John Grass were both honored
at his expense. The Grass was a man of intelligence and virtue who
had early allied himself with the white man. He was a leader of those
who saw the hopelessness of remaining in the ways of the fathers, and
naturally the agent treated him with marked courtesy. In answer to a
letter asking the names of the chief men of the tribe he named John
Grass first, Mad Bear second, The Gall third—and ignored the chief
entirely.

The Gall, already jealous of the great fame of The Sitting Bull,
was easily won over to the side of the agent. He was a vigorous,
loud-voiced man, brave and manly, but not politic. He had not
entirely broken with his old chief, but he accepted position under
the agent and listened to dispraise of The Sitting Bull from the
agent’s point of view.

With all his gentleness of manner, the old fire was in The Sitting
Bull, for he said to me, when speaking of the attack of Shell Fish
on him: “I am here, old and beaten—a prisoner subject to the word
of a white master, but no man shall insult me. I will kill the man
who strikes me. What is death to me? I will die as I have lived, a
chief.” For the most part he was so quiet and unassuming that he was
overlooked. He never thrust himself forward; he dreamed in silence.

He had visited the white man’s world several times, but these visions
had not helped him; they had, indeed, thrown him into profound
despair. “What can we do in strife with these wonder-working
spirits?” he asked. “It is as foolish as trying to fly with the
eagles. The white man owns all the productive land. What can we
do farming on this hard soil? What are we beside these swarming
settlers? We are as grasshoppers before a rushing herd of buffalo.”

He did not care to look out of the car windows on these journeys. He
and his warriors sat in silence or sang the songs of the chase and
the victorious homecoming, trying to forget the world outside.

“Nothing astonished them and nothing interested them very much,” said
Louis to me in speaking of his trip to Washington. “The chief was at
a great disadvantage, but he seldom made a mistake. He was Lakota and
made no effort to be anything else.”

The chief at last said, in answer to all similar requests, “I do not
care to be on show.”

He was very subjective. He had always been a man of meditation and
prayer, and had scrupulously observed the ceremonials of his tribe.
Now when he saw no hope of regaining his old freedom he turned his
eyes inward and pondered. He was both philosopher and child. Nature
was mysterious, not in the ultimate as with the educated man, but
close beside him as with a boy. The moon, the clouds, the wind in the
grass, all these were to him things inexplicable, as, indeed, they
are to the greatest white men; only to my chief they came nearer some
way.

Often during these days I saw him sitting at sunset on his favorite
outlook—a hill above his cabin—a minute speck against the sky, deeply
meditating upon the will of the Great Spirit, and my heart was filled
with pain. I, too, mourned the world that was passing so swiftly and
surely.

VII

HE OPPOSED ALL TREATIES

During my absence the white settlers had swept across the ancient
home of the Dakotas and were already clamoring for the land on
which Sitting Bull dwelt, and he was deeply disturbed. He knew how
rapacious these plowmen were and he was afraid of them. To his mind
our home was pitifully small as it stood, and he urged me to look
into this threatened invasion at once.

I did so, and reported to him that a commission was already on its
way to see us and that they would soon issue a call for us.

Throwing off his lethargy, he became once more “the treaty chief.”
Calling a council of all the head men he said to them:

“It will be necessary to choose speakers to represent us at this
meeting. It is not wise that I should be one of these. Let us council
upon what we are to do, name our speakers, and be ready for the
commission when it comes.”

So they chose John Grass, Mad Bear, Chief Gall, and Big Head to
speak, and went a few days later to meet the commissioners.

My people asked for their own interpreter, Louis Primeau, whom they
trusted, and the council began with everybody in good humor. The
commissioners rose one after the other and made talk and gave out
many copies of the treaty. Then the council adjourned.

That night the head men all met at the lodge of the chief. I read the
treaty to him, and so did Louie. Again The Sitting Bull said: “The
pay is too small, and, besides, they have changed our boundaries.
Do not sign.” And so when we assembled the next day our speakers
declined to sign and the commissioners were much disappointed. They
argued long and loud, to no effect.

It was explained to us again that the Government proposed to set
aside five great reservations, one for the Ogallallahs, one for the
Brulés, one for the Crow Creek people, one for the Cheyenne River
people, and that the lines were fixed for the great Sioux nation at
the Standing Rock. The north boundary was the Cannonball River; on
the south, the Moreau; but to the west it extended only eighty miles.

Speaking to his head men, our chief said: “Who made that line on the
west? Was it a white man or an Indian? They say the lines of the old
treaties, whether fixed by the red man or the white man, must stand.
But I do not grant that treaty. It was stolen from us. We have paid
for all they have done for us, and more. They have never fulfilled a
treaty. See the pitiful small land that is left us. Do not sign. If
you sign we are lost.”

The commissioners, hitherto displeased, now became furious. They
accused The Sitting Bull of intimidating the people. They raged and
expostulated. They wheedled and threatened, but the chief shook his
head and said: “Do not sign. This man is talking for the white man’s
papers, and not for us. He uses many words, but he does not deceive
me. Do not listen to him.” And they laughed at the false speaker.

At last Gall, who sat beside the chief, spoke. “We are through. We
are entirely finished.”

Then The Sitting Bull rose and said: “We have spoken pleasantly and
have reached this point in good humor. Now we are going home,” and
made a sign and the council broke up in confusion.

The treaty was not signed and The Sitting Bull was made to bear
the blame of its defeat. As for me, I exulted in his firmness, his
self-control, and his simple dignity. He was still the chief man of
treaties.

But the white people did not give up. They never recede. The defeat
of the Democrats made a different Congress and a new attempt was at
once made to get a treaty. Profiting by the mistakes of the other
commissions, they did not come to the Standing Rock first (they
feared the opposition of The Sitting Bull); they went to the lower
reservations and secured all the Santees, all the “breeds,” and
members of other tribes, men whom my people did not recognize as
belonging to us. The news of this made my chief very angry. “The
white men have no sense of justice when they deal with us,” he said,
bitterly. “They are mad for our lands. They will do anything to steal
them away.”

When the commissioners appeared at the Standing Rock they were
triumphant through General Crook. Rations were short and the people
were hungry and General Crook took advantage of this. He was lavish
of beef issues during the treaty. On the third day he said, gruffly:
“You’d better take what we offer. Congress will open the reservation,
anyhow.”

Each night, as before, The Sitting Bull stood opposed to the treaty.
“It is all we have,” he said, despairingly. “Once we had a mighty
tract; now it is little. You have bought peace from the whites by
selling your lands; now when you have no more to sell what will you
do? I have never entertained a treaty from the whites. I am opposed
to this. I will not sign. Our lands are few and they are bad lands.
The white men have shut us up in a desert where nothing lives, yet it
is our last home. Will you break down the walls and let the white man
sweep us away? You say we will have a great deal of money in return.
How has it been in the past? How has the government fulfilled its
obligations? Congress cuts down our rations at will; what they owe
us does not matter. You have seen how difficult it is to raise food
here. We need every blanket’s breadth of our land if we are to live.
I am getting to be an old man; a few years and I will be with my
fathers; but before I go I want to see my children provided for. Let
the government pay us what they owe us in cattle and we will then be
able to live. I will not sign.”

That night John Grass gave way. The commission convinced him that
this treaty was the best that could be secured. A new council was
hastily called in order to get The Grass to sign, and my chief was
not informed of it till the hearing was nearly over.

As he came into the room he was both angry and despairing, and
demanded a chance to speak. “I have kept in the background so far,”
he said. “Now I wish to be heard——”

But they were afraid of him and refused to hear him. “We want no more
speaking. John Grass come forward and sign!”

Grass went forward. The Sitting Bull cried out in a piercing voice:
“_Do not sign!_ Let everybody follow me.”

At his command all his old guard rose and went away, but John Grass
took the pen and signed. He was the man of the hour; he represented a
compromise policy. He was willing to be the white man’s tool. And I,
sitting there as interpreter, powerless to aid my chief in his heroic
fight for the remnant of the empire that was ours, could only bow my
head in acknowledgment of the wisdom of the majority—for I knew the
insatiable white man better than John Grass. To have rejected the
treaty would have but delayed the end.

My chief went to his lodge, still the Uncapappa, still unsubdued,
representing all that was distinctive and admirable in the old life
of the chase; but he knew now that the white man possessed the earth.

“This is now the end,” he said, sorrowfully, to my father. “Nothing
remains to us but a home in the Land of the Spirits.”

VIII

THE RETURN OF THE SPIRITS

The year that followed the signing of this treaty was a dark one for
The Sitting Bull. Even those who had been most clearly acquiescent in
the white man’s way grew sad.

You must remember that my people, the Uncapappas, are the westernmost
branch of the great Sioux nation and had known but little of the
white man up to the time of their surrender in 1880. We knew nothing
of tilling the soil. We were essentially buffalo hunters and had
been for many generations. The Yanktonaise, the Minneconjous, had
far greater knowledge of the white man’s ways. In the days when they
occupied the whole of the upper Mississippi Valley we still kept our
western position, always among the buffalo and the elk. Our tepees
were still made of skins.

Can you not see that these horsemen of the plains—these wandering,
fearless, proud hunters—even under the best conditions would have
found it very hard to give up the roving life of the chase and settle
down to the planting of corn and squashes?

It is easy to clip the wings of eagles, but it is not of much avail
to beat them and give command that they instantly become geese. Under
every fostering condition it would have been difficult for Slohan and
Gall and Sitting Bull to become farm laborers.

I call upon you to be just to my great chief, for he honestly tried
to take on this new life. I assert that no man of his spirit and
training could have done more. He tried hard to be as good as his
word; for witness I call the agent himself who in those early days
said of him: “The Sitting Bull is living here peaceably and doing
well.” Even up to the month of November in 1888, the year of the
first commission, he praised him. It was afterward that the agent
changed his mind and began to abuse him. I will tell presently why
this was so.

You see the white people allowed us no time to change. We had been
many centuries forming habits which they insisted should be broken
instantly. They cut us off from our game. They ordered us to farm,
and this without knowing the character of our reservation. The soil
of this country is very hard and dry and the climate is severe. It
is high, upland prairie cut by a few thin, slow streams which lie in
deep gullies. The upland grows a short, dry grass, and there are many
years when it is dry as hay in early June. It is good for pasture,
but it makes very little hay for winter. It is a drought country; for
the most part the crops burn up under the fierce sun and the still
more savage wind. In winter it is a terrible place to live unless one
is sheltered by the cottonwood and willow groves on the river. It was
given us originally because they thought it useless to the plowmen.

On this stern land the white man set my people and said, in a
terrible voice, “Farm or die!” We tried, but year by year the trial
ended in failure. Wrong implements were given us, great plows which
our ponies could not draw, and bad seeds, and this outlay exhausted
our annuity and cut us off from cattle issues. Our friends among the
white people early began to see the folly of trying to force us to
till this iron soil, and urged the issue of cattle, but the giving
of useless things was thereupon taken as an excuse for not issuing
stock, and when at last they were sent—a few cows and sheep—too few
to be of any use, they were used as warrant to cut down our rations,
which (as the chief constantly asserted) were not a gratuity, but a
just payment.

They had never been enough even when they were honestly and fully
issued, and when the quality was bad or the issue cut down many of
them were actually hungry for three days in the week. You may read
in one of the great books of the government these words: “Suddenly
and almost without warning they were called upon to give up all
their ancient pursuits and without previous training settle down to
agriculture in a land largely unfitted for such uses. The freedom of
the chase was exchanged for the idleness of the camp. The boundless
range abandoned for the circumscribed reservation, and abundance of
plenty supplanted by limited and decreasing subsistence and supplies.
Under these circumstances it is not in human nature not to be
discontented and restless, even turbulent and violent.” So said the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

In spite of all these things I assert my people were patient. The
Sitting Bull was careful to do nothing which would harm his people,
and often he walked away in silence from the agent’s harsh accusation.

Hunger is hard to bear, but there were many other things to make life
very barren and difficult. Around us to north and east and west the
settlers were swarming. Our reservation seemed such a little thing in
comparison with our old range—like a little island in great water.
Every visit our head men made to the east or the west taught them the
gospel of despair. The flood of white men which had been checked by
the west bank of the Missouri now flowed by in great streams to the
west and curled round to the north. Everywhere unfriendly ranchers
set up their huts. They all wore guns, while we were forbidden to do
the like. They hated us as we hated them, but they had all the law on
their side.

Thus physically we were being submerged by the rising tide of an
alien race. In the same way our old customs and habits were sinking
beneath the white man’s civilization. One by one our songs were
dying. One by one our dances were being cut off by the government,
and our prayers and ceremonies, sweet and sacred to us, were already
discountenanced or positively forbidden. Our beautiful moccasins were
tabooed, our buckskin beaded shirts replaced by ragged coats. Our
women were foolish in the dress of cheap white women. We became a
tribe of ragamuffins like the poor men whom the newspapers make jokes
about and call “hoboes.”

Let me tell you farther. You cannot understand my people if you
consider the white man’s religion and the white man’s way of life the
only ones sanctioned by the Great Spirit.

My friends in Washington, the men with whom I studied, gave me this
thought. There is good in all religions and all races and I am trying
to write of the wrongs of my people from that point of view. The
Sitting Bull loved the old life, but he often said: “We were living
the life the Great Spirit outlined for us. We knew no other. If you
can show us that your manner of life is better, that it will make us
happier, then we will come to your way,” and for a time he thought
that perhaps the white man’s way of life was nearer to the Great
Spirit’s will; but when he was cold and hungry he felt the injustice
of this superior race, and doubted.

We all saw that as the years went on and the old joys slipped away
no new ones came to take their places, while want, a familiar foe,
remained close to every fireside. Our best thinkers perceived that
fine large houses and nice warm clothing were unattainable to vast
numbers of the white men, “how then can the simple red man hope to
win them?” They began to say: “We have given our freedom, our world,
our traditions, for a dark cabin, hard, cruel boots, the settler’s
contempt, and the soldier’s diseases.” “Our race is passing away.
The new conditions destroy us. If we cannot persist as Sioux, why
persist at all? There are enough white beggars in the world, why add
ourselves to the army of the poor?”

It was for this reason that the chief opposed the treaty subdividing
the reservation. “Our strength is in being a people. As individuals
the white man will spit on us.” When the treaty was about to be
executed a white man said to him: “What do you Indians think of it?”

He drew himself up and the old-time fire flamed in his eyes as he
said: “Indians! There are no Indians left but me.” But later he said,
sadly: “It is impossible for me to change. I cannot sign, but my
children may sign if they wish.”

Just at this time our cattle began to die of a strange disease and
our children were seized by a mysterious malady which the white
people call grippe, but for which we had no name. We were without
medicine to counteract these fevers, and the agency doctor could not
do much for us. Our children died in hundreds. This was terrible. It
seemed that all were to be swept away.

Bishop Hare and General Miles both saw and reported upon these
conditions, and I wrote to all my friends in agony of haste, but
the government was slow to act in our need, though it was ever in
haste to cut up our land and give it away. No one cared what became
of us. We had no votes, we could not help any man to office. All
promises were neglected, and to add to our misery it was said the
new administration would still further reduce our payments and the
rations which were our due. When this news came to us it seemed as if
the very earth on which we stood was sinking beneath our feet. The
old world of the buffalo, the free life of the past, became each day
more beautiful as the world about us, the prison in which we lived,
grew black with the clouds of despair.

In this moment of hopeless misery—this intolerable winter of tragic
dejection—there came to my people the rumor of something very
wonderful. A messenger to my chief said that far in the west, at the
base of a vast white mountain, a wondrous medicine man had descended
from a cloud to meet and save the red men. Just as Christ came long
ago to the Jews, so now the Great Spirit had sent a messenger to the
red people to bring back the old world of the buffalo and to repeople
its shining vistas with those who had died. So they said, “By faith
and purity we are to again prevail over that earth.”

It was a seed planted at the right time in the right soil. In the
night of his despair my chief listened to the message as to a sweet
story, not believing it, yet eager to hear more.

The herald of the new faith was a Brulé, who ended by saying: “The
Kicking Bear, one of our chiefs, is gone to search into the beginning
of this story. He it was who sent me to you. He wished me to acquaint
you with what he had heard.”

“When he returns,” replied the chief, “tell him I wish to talk with
him of this strange thing.”

A report of this man’s message spread among the people and many
believed it. We began to hear obscurely about a new dance which some
of the people at Rosebud and Pine Ridge had adopted—a ceremony to
test the faith of those who believed—a medicine dance to bring back
the past—and the people brooded upon the words of the Brulé, who said
that the world of the buffalo was to be restored to them and all the
old customs and joys brought back.

It was a magical thought. Their deep longing made it expand in their
minds like a wonderful flower, and they waited impatiently the coming
of the herald.

You must not forget that every little word my people knew of the
Christian religion prepared them for this miraculous change. The
white man’s religion was full of miracles like this. Did not Christ
raise men from the dead? Was he not born of a Virgin and did he not
change water into wine? The wise men of the Bible, we were told,
were able to make the sun stand still, and once the walls of a great
city crumbled before the magic blast of rams’ horns. Many times we
had heard the preachers, the wise men of the white men, say: “By
faith are mountains removed,” therefore our minds were prepared to
believe in the restoration of the world of the buffalo. Was it not
as easy for the Great Spirit as to make the water cover the highest
mountains? My friend the Blackbird used to say “Every race despises
the superstitions of others, but clings to its own.” I am Sioux, I
could not help being thrilled by this story.

My brain responded to every story the old man told. I saw again the
splendid reaches of the plain. I rode in the chase of the buffalo.
I heard the songs of rejoicing as the women hung the red meat up to
dry. I played again among the lodges. Yes, it was all very sweet to
dream about, but I said to the chief: “I have been among the white
people; I have studied their books. The world never turns backward.
We must go on like the rivers, on into the mystery.”

“We will see,” he answered. “I have often reproved you for saying,
‘Yes, yes,’ to all that the white man says. This may be all a lie.
The Kicking Bear has gone forth into the west to meet this wonder
worker. When he returns we will council upon his report. Till then we
will do nothing.”

But no power could prevent the spread of the story and its dream
among my people. They were quick to seize and build upon this slender
promise. Can you not understand our condition of mind? Imagine that
a great and powerful race had appeared from over the sea and had
driven your people from their ancestral lands, on and on, until at
last only a handful of you remained. Imagine this handful corralled
in a small, bleak valley cut off from all natural activities, its
religions tabooed, its dances and ceremonies forbidden, hungry, cold,
despairing. Could you then be logical and reasonable and completely
sane?

If my race had been a servile race, ready to play the baboon, quick
to imitate, then it would not have vanished, as it has, in war and
famine. We are freemen. We had always been unhampered by any alien
laws. We moved as we willed, led by the buffalo, directed by the
winds, cowering only before the snows. Therefore, we resented the
white man’s restrictions. We had the hearts of eagles in our cages,
and yet, having the eyes of eagles and the brains of men, we came
at last to see the utter futility of struggle. We lost all faith in
physical warfare and sat down to die. As a race we were resigned to
death, and in this night of our resignation the star of prophecy
rose. We turned toward the mystic powers for aid.

THE MESSAGE OF KICKING BEAR

One October day in 1890 a party of Brulé Sioux from the Cheyenne
River agency came riding down into the valley of the Grand River,
inquiring for The Sitting Bull. As they were passing my father’s
lodge he came out and stopped them.

“What do you want of The Sitting Bull?” he asked, with the authority
of one of the old-time “Silent Eaters.”

“We bring a message to him,” replied the head man. “I am Kicking
Bear. Take us to him without delay.”

The chief at this time lived with his younger wife in a two-room log
house (a cabin for his first wife stood near) and as the strangers
came to the door they were accosted by an old woman who was at work
about the fire under an open lodge. In answer to my father’s inquiry
for the chief she pointed toward a large tepee standing behind
the house, and, turning aside, my father lifted the door-flap and
entered. The chief was alone, smoking his pipe in grave meditation.

“Father,” said my sire, “here are some men from the Cheyenne River to
see you.”

“I am Kicking Bear,” said the visitor, “for whom you sent.”

[Illustration: An Indian Chief

_Illustration from_
A BUNCH OF BUCKSKINS
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published by_
R. H. RUSSELL, _1901_]

The chief greeted his visitors with gentle courtesy and motioned
them to their seats. “My friends, I am glad to see you. You are
hungry. Rest and eat. When you are filled and refreshed we will
talk.” Then calling to his wife to put food before the guests, he
smoked quietly while they ate. When they were satisfied and all were
composed and comfortable he said to Kicking Bear: “Now, my friend, my
ears are open.”

The visitor’s voice was full of excitement, but well under control at
first. He said:

“My friend, we all know you; your fame is wide. You are the head of
all our people. We know it. You have always been true to the ways
of the fathers. You fought long and well against the coming of the
whites. Therefore I come to you. This is the story: The first people
to know of the Messiah on earth were the Shoshones and the Arapahoes.
A year ago Good Thunder, the Ogallallah, hearing of this wonderful
story, took four of his friends and went to visit the place where the
wonder-working Son of the Great Spirit was said to be. He was gone
many days, but at last he sent word that he had found the Messiah,
that he was among those who eat fish, far toward the high white
mountains, and he asked that I come and bear witness. Thereupon I
also went—with much fear. After many days I found the place. It was
deep in a strange country—a desert country. Many people were camped
there. All tongues were spoken, yet all were at peace. It was said
that sixteen different tribes were present, and that they had all
come, as I had done, to know the truth. No one thought of war. All
strife was put away.”

The Sitting Bull listened with half-closed eyes, weighing every word.
It was plain, my father told me, that Kicking Bear was struggling to
control his emotion. One by one the chief’s family gathered around
the tepee to listen. It was a momentous hour.

“They put up robes in a circle to make a dancing place,” resumed the
messenger, “and we all gathered there about sundown. It was said that
the Messiah was ready to appear and teach us a new religion. Just
after dark some one said, ‘There is the Great Father.’ I looked and
saw him sitting on one side of the circle. I did not see him come. I
do not know how he got there. The light of the fire fell on him and
I saw him plainly. He was not so dark as a red man, but he was not
a white man. He was a good-looking person with a kind, wise face. He
was dressed in white and had no beard or mustache. One by one all
the chiefs drew near to greet him. I went with the others, but when
I came near I bowed my head; his eyes were so keen they blinded me.
Then he rose and began to sing, and those who had been there before,
began to dance in the new ceremony.

“When we stopped dancing for a little while he spoke, saying, ‘My
children, I am glad to have you here. I have a great deal to say
to you. I am the Son of the Great Spirit, sent to save you from
destruction.’ We were very still as he spoke; no one whispered; all
listened. He spoke all languages, so that we could understand. ‘I am
the Creator of this earth and everything you see about you. I am able
to go to the world of the dead, and I have seen all those you have
lost. I will teach you to visit the ghost world also; that is the
meaning of the dance. Once long ago I came to the white people, but
they misused me. They put nails in my feet. See the scars!’ And he
held up his hands and we saw the scars.”

The Sitting Bull gave a startled exclamation: “Hoh! You saw the
scars!”

“I saw them plainly,” the Kicking Bear solemnly replied, as words of
wonder ran round the tepee, “and all my friends saw them as plainly
as I. Then the Messiah said: ‘I found my white children bad and I
returned to the Great Spirit, my Father. I told them that after many
hundreds of years I would return. Now am I returned, but this time I
come to the red people.’

“‘I come to teach you a new religion and to make you happy. I am
to renew the earth, which is old and worn out. If you follow my
teaching, if you do as I bid you, I will bring to pass marvelous
things. This is the message of my Father the Creator. He has been
displeased with his children. He has turned his face away from the
red people for many years. If you had remained true to the ways of
the fathers these misfortunes would not have come upon you. You
would not now be shut up by the white man, you would be free and
happy as of old. But the heart of the Great Spirit is again soft
toward you and he bids me say, “If you will live according to the
ways of the Saviour whom I have sent among you I will again smile
upon you. I will cause the white man to disappear from the earth,
together with all the marks he has made with the plow and the ax.
I will cause the old world to come back. It will slide above the
present earth as one hand slides above the other; the white man and
all his works will be buried and the red man will be caught up in the
air and put down on this old earth as it returns, and he will find
the buffalo and the elk, the deer and the antelope, feeding as of
ancient days on the rich grass. The rifle will be no longer necessary
nor the white man’s food or clothing. All will be as it was in the
days of our fathers. No one will grow old, no one will be sick, no
one will die. All will be glad and happy once more.”’”

As he talked The Kicking Bear grew greatly excited. He rose and his
voice rang loud and clear. The women began to moan, but the Chief sat
still, very still; his time to speak had not yet come.

The Kicking Bear went on. “He commanded that we put all evil thoughts
aside. We must not fight or take from one another any good thing. We
must be friends with everyone—with the white man, too. Our hearts
must be clean and good.

“He also taught us the dance and new methods of purification, and
these he commanded me to carry to you.” In this way The Kicking Bear
ended, addressing the chief: “This is the message, father, and this
is the promise: _If all the red people unite, casting away all that
is of the white man, praying and purifying themselves, then will the
old world come back—the old happy world of the buffalo, and all the
dead ones of our race will return, a mighty host, driving the buffalo
before them._”

The chief sat in silence for a long time, and when he spoke his
voice was very quiet, with a sad cadence. “This would please me
well. But how do I know that it is not a lie? What proof is there
that all these good things will come to pass? The invader is strong.
I have given up war because I know it is foolish to fight against
him. I have seen his land to the east. I know that he has devoured
forests and made corn to grow where deep waters once rolled. He is
more numerous than the buffalo ever were. All the red men of all the
plains and hills cannot defeat him. It is hopeless to talk of driving
him back.”

“That is true,” replied The Kicking Bear, “but you have heard how the
white man’s Bible speaks of these things. In the olden time, they
say, when the people despaired of weapons and war they began to pray
to their Great Spirit, and he sent unseen powers to help them. They
tell of cities that fell at sound of a trumpet. We are to fight no
more with weapons. It is of no avail to use the ax. We must please
the Great Spirit; we must beseech him to turn his face upon us again
and our enemies will melt away.”

“But what proof is there of this? It is all a tale. It is as the
sound of a pleasant breeze in the trees.”

“The proof is in this,” earnestly replied The Kicking Bear. “In this
dance, men are able to leave the body and fly far away and look upon
the spirits of the dead, and to ride the old-time plains in pursuit
of the buffalo. I have myself seen this old world waiting to be
restored. Let us call a council. Let us dance and some of your own
people—perhaps The Sitting Bull himself—will be able to leave the
body and visit the wonderful world of the spirit and return to tell
the people of it! Let us dance; the proof will come.”

To this the chief made cautious reply: “We will not be hasty. Remain
with us and we will talk further of these things.”

To Slohan he said: “This man talks well. He claims to have been in
the west and to have seen the Messiah; yet we must be careful. We
will look minutely into the matter. We must not seem foolish.” Then
he turned again to the Brulé. “When is this good change to come to
us?”

“The Father said that if all his words are obeyed he will cause the
new earth to come with the springing grass.”

“Do you believe this story?” asked the chief, pointedly.

“Yes.”

“What causes your belief?”

The Kicking Bear became deeply moved; his voice trembled as he
replied: “Because since I touched his hand I have been out of the
body many times. I too have visited the spirit world, and I too have
seen the dead, and I have seen the buffalo and the shining new world,
more beautiful than the old. Since my return I often see the Saviour
in my sleep. I know that through him you and all your tribe can fly
to the spirit world and see your friends. Therefore have I come that
I may teach you the songs and the dances which bring the trance and
the vision.”

“You speak of the destruction of the white people. How is that to be
brought about?” asked the chief.

“All by great magic. War is useless. All who believe must wear an
eagle plume, and when the new earth comes sliding over the old, those
who wear the sacred feather will be caught up and saved, while the
white man and all those who reject the Father’s message will be swept
down and buried deep.” Then the messenger cried out with passion:
“_Father, they are all dancing—the Piutes, the Shoshones, the
Ogallallahs, the Cheyennes—all the people. Hear me! I bring a true
message! Listen, I implore!_”

He began to sing, and his companions joined him. The song they sang
was strange to my father, and very, very sad—as dolorous as the wind
in the bare branches of the elm tree. It was not a war song; it was
a mourning cry that made all hearts melt. As they sang, Kicking Bear
began to tremble, and then his right arm began to whirl about wildly
as if it were a club. Then he fell stiffly to the ground like a man
in a fit.

The Sitting Bull rose up quickly. “Hah! What is the meaning of this?”
he asked, looking about him warily.

“He has gone into a trance,” said one of the others. “He is even now
in the spirit world. Do not touch him.”

For a long time the messenger lay as if dead and no one dared disturb
him. My chief sat smoking, patiently waiting for Kicking Bear to
speak. At last he came to life again and sat up. “I have seen the
Father,” he said, with shining face, “and he has given me a sign. He
has made my left hand stronger than the strongest man. Come and see!”
He held out his hand and my father took it, but it scared him and he
flung it away from him. It made his muscles contract and his flesh
sting as if needles had been thrust into it. Then The Bear cried out:
“See! I am telling the truth. I have seen the Messiah. He has given
me an arm of power for a sign. He told me to return and teach The
Sitting Bull the new religion.” He laid hold of a heavy white cup.
“See the sign?” he cried, and ground the cup to pieces on his hand.

The Sitting Bull was deeply troubled. “We will talk of this
to-morrow,” and he went away profoundly stirred by what he had seen.

The next morning he called a council of his close friends, and at
last sent for Kicking Bear, and said: “Your story is sweet in our
ears. It may be true. I do not think so, but we will try. We have
come to the time when all weapons are useless. We are despairing and
weak. Guns are of no avail. The Great Spirit has certainly turned his
face away. It may be that prayer and song will cause him to smile
upon us again. _You may teach us the dance._”

THE DANCE BEGINS

So it was that in the prepared soil of my people’s minds this seed of
mystery fell. It was not a new religion; it was indeed very old. Many
other races had believed it; the time was come for the Sioux to take
it to themselves. In their despair they greedily seized upon it. In
their enforced idleness they welcomed it.

Swiftly the news flew, wildly exaggerated, of course. It was said
that the Messiah had sent a message direct to the chief, and that a
sign had been given to the courier which had convinced my father and
many others—though The Sitting Bull yet doubted.

Uncapappas are like any other folk. There are excitable ones and
doubting ones, those who believe easily and those who are disposed
to prove all things. Many old women with sons and daughters lately
passed to the spirit land laid hold upon this news with instant
belief. Winter was coming again; food was scarce; the children were
ailing; life was joyless and held no promise of happier things. So,
as among the white people, the bereaved were quick to embrace any
faith which promised reunion.

At last men of keener intelligence, like my father, considered it,
saying: “It may be true. The white man had a Saviour. Why should not
the Great Spirit send one to us? We can at least examine into this
man’s story. We can go and see the dance.”

Others, who had outgrown the faith of their fathers, and who had also
rejected the Christian religion, smiled and said, “It is foolish!”
Nevertheless, curious to see what was done, they loitered near to
look on and laugh.

Last of all were those who brooded bitterly upon the past—the chained
lions who had never accepted the white man’s dominion, who feared
nothing but captivity, and who sat ever in their tepees with their
blankets around them smoking, ruminating, reliving the brave, ancient
days. “We are prisoners,” they said. “We are not allowed to leave the
narrow bounds of our bleak reservation. We can neither hunt nor visit
our friends. What is the use of living? Why not die in battle? Is it
not better to be slain and pass at once to the spirit land than to
die of starvation and cold? We know the fate of the dead cannot be
worse than our lot here.”

In the light of memory the country of their youth was a land of
waving grass, resplendent skies, rippling streams, shining tepees,
laughter, song, and heroic deeds. In dreams they were once more
young scouts, selected for special duty. In dreams they rode again
over the boundless swelling plain, hunting the great black cattle of
the wild. They lay in wait for the beaver beside streams without a
name. They sat deep in pits, hearing the roaring rush of the swooping
eagle, and always when they woke to reality they found themselves
ragged beggars under the control of a white man, betrayed and
forgotten by their recreant allies.

What had they retained of all this mighty heritage? A minute patch
of barren ground and the blessed privilege of working like a
Chinaman or a negro. Of all the old-time adventurous, plentiful, and
peaceful life the white settlers had bereft them. Mile by mile the
invaders had eaten up the sod. The buffalo, the elk, the beaver had
disappeared before their guns. Stream after stream they had bridged
and in the valleys they had set their fences. The agent always talked
as though every red man who wished could have a large house and fruit
trees and pleasant things, but it was quite certain now that nothing
remained for these proud hunters of the bison but a practical slavery
to the settler; to clean the dung from the white man’s stables was
their fate.

With this view the “Silent Eaters” had most sympathy. In the days
immediately following their return from the north they had caught
some of the enthusiasm of their teachers. They, too, had hoped for
some of the good things of the white man’s civilization.

The Sitting Bull himself had been hopeful. He had spoken bravely
to them advising them to set their feet in the white man’s road;
but as the years passed one by one he had felt with ever-increasing
bitterness the checks and constraints of his warden. He had seen
sycophants and hypocrites exalted and his own wishes thwarted or
treated with contempt and his face had grown ever sadder and sterner.
When he looked into the future he saw the almost certain misery and
final extinction of his race, so inevitably he, too, had turned his
eyes inward to dream of the past. Having no hope of earthly things,
he was now, in spite of himself, allured by the stories of this
Saviour in the West. Certainly he could not forbid his people this
comfort.

He had, too, the natural pride of the leader. He considered himself
as he was, the head man of his tribe, and it hurt him to find himself
completely shorn of command. The agent now deliberately humiliated
him, ignoring his suggestions and misrepresenting him among the
white men. “These old chiefs must give way,” he said. “If we are to
civilize these Indians, all of the old tribal government must be torn
up.” And in this he had the support of many friends of my race.

One of the most serious differences existing at this time lay in The
Sitting Bull’s refusal to recognize the authority of the agent’s
native police. “I am still the head of my tribe,” he proudly said. “I
do not need your help in order to keep the peace.”

Then the agent very shrewdly appointed those who were jealous of the
chief to be the heads of his police force, and so made sure of them
in case of trouble. The chief was made to look and feel like a man
living by sufferance, while renegades whom he despised and recreants
whom he hated were put in power over him. Yet he was bearing all this
quietly; he had even submitted to personal abuse, rather than prove a
disturber.

This message from the Messiah came, therefore, just at a time
when the chief and his “Silent Eaters” were suffering their final
degradation at the hands of the agent. It was hard to die at this
time like outcast dogs, with no hope for their people. They could not
understand why they should be made the target of the agent’s malice.
They had the pride of leadership. It was honorable to be a chief.
The qualities which went to make a chieftain were not mean; they
were noble. Why should other and lower men be placed in contemptuous
authority over them?

And so these proud spirits shut their eyes to the future and longed,
as no white man can ever know, for the glorious days of the buffalo.

For three days The Kicking Bear instructed the few who believed,
preparing them for the dance. “You must cast aside everything that
the white man has brought to you,” he said. “The Messiah commands
that all metals be thrown away. Lay down all weapons, for this is a
dance of peace. It is needful that you dress as in the olden time
before the invader came. Let each one who dances and accepts the
word of the Father wear a white eagle plume, for this will be a sign
when the new earth comes. You will be caught up into the clouds by
reason of your faith, while all others will perish. You must purify
yourselves, also, by use of the sweat lodge, and after the dance you
must bathe in clear, cold water. During this time you must put away
all anger and harshness and speak kindly to all persons. Thus says
the Father.”

There was something lofty in all this and it moved men very deeply
and the chief listened intently to it all.

On the third night of his preaching I was present, for my father
had sent for me to come. After drawing from me a promise to tell no
white man, he described all that had happened. I was not at first
impressed. “It is foolish,” I said.

“Nevertheless you must come and see this man. He is a wonderful
magician. I do not understand him.”

The meeting took place in the chief’s tepee, which was large and
strong. As I entered I saw many men and women sitting just outside
the door in little groups, but only about fifteen people had been
invited to join the circle which I soon found was formed to rehearse
some of the ceremonial songs of the Messiah. A small, clear fire
glowed in the center of the lodge, and the chief’s strong face was
fixed in its place at the back of the lodge. On his right was The
Kicking Bear. On his left was a vacant place; this my father took. At
a sign from the chief I sat next my father.

[Illustration: A Fantasy from the Pony War Dance

_Among the many interesting features of the pageant given on
special occasions by the Blackfoot Indians on their reservation
in Canada, the most spectacular is the Pony War Dance, or the_
Departure for Battle. _In this scene about sixty young men
take part, riding horses as wild as themselves. The acting is
fierce—not like the conduct of a mimic battle on our stage—but
performed with the desperate zest of men who hope for distinction
in war._

_Illustration from_
CHARTERING A NATION
_by_ Julian Ralph

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _December, 1891_]

[Illustration: Chis-Chis-Chash Scout On the Flanks

_The Cheyenne, or—to use the name the Cheyennes apply to
themselves—the Chis-Chis-Chash, scouts belonged to the corps
from Pine Ridge organized on that reservation, and, with other
Cheyennes from Tongue River, rendered valuable service to Uncle
Sam during the Sioux outbreak of 1890 in South Dakota. In
December of that year these brave Indians had many a skirmish
with the savage Sioux, who, clothed in the ghost shirt, went
on the warpath, taking refuge in the Bad Lands—a region that
seemed made for stratagem and murder, with nothing to witness its
mysteries but the cold blue winter sky._

_Illustration from_
LIEUTENANT CASEY’S LAST SCOUT
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in
Pony Tracks_, Harper & Brothers, 1895]

Shortly after our entry the chief lit his pipe, and after offering
it to the Earth Spirits and to the Spirits Above, handed it to his
visitor. The Bear made the same offering, and after smoking passed
it on. So it went round the circle. When the chief had it in his
hands once more, The Kicking Bear and his five companions rose and,
stretching their hands to the west, stood still while The Bear prayed:

“O great spirit in the west
Our Father,
Take pity on us. We are poor and weak.
Send us good tidings.
Help us to see the good land.
Help us to see our loved ones.”

Then he began singing a song—a song of promise—and these were the
words:

“The Father says so,
He has promised surely
You shall see your dead once more.
They will come to life again.
You shall see your kindred
Of the spirit land.
This the Father saith
To his faithful ones.”

This song moved me, though I was a doubter. It was sung with great
vigor and earnestness. It was the opening song of the dance, The Bear
explained to us, and then all sat down, and one by one the visitors
took up and sang the songs they had learned. There were many of them
and they were based upon the same idea—that of a resurrection of the
dead, the renewal of the worn-out old earth and the return of the
buffalo.

As they sang my head was filled with many great but confused
thoughts. In that light, with those surroundings, any magic seemed
possible. It was thus that the disciples of Christ of Galilee came
together and talked of his message. I had listened often to the white
man’s religion, and yet the hymns of the martyrs could not move me as
did these songs. The past and the present fused together strangely in
my mind as the ancient shining winds blew and the old rejoicing days
came back.

You shall reset the tepees.
You shall eat pemmican once more.
You shall hang up the buffalo meat.
And there shall be plenty everywhere.
You shall live and not die in the old world which returns anew.
You shall chase the buffalo.
You shall gayly race on the bright prairie.

These were the promises of the songs, and as the visitors sang my
despairing people became like little children; their hearts melted,
they laughed and wept and shouted in time to the music. Some strange
power seemed to go with the motions of The Bear’s hands. We all
seemed to be looking upon the very scenes of which he sang, and my
throat closed with an emotion I could not control.

An old man, called Looking Eagle, suddenly rose and, stretching forth
his hands, cried out in a thrilling voice:

“I see it—the new land! I can see the buffalo feeding in myriads. It
is Spring and the grass is new. My father stands at the door of his
lodge. He calls with his hand. My mother is there. Ho! I come, my
father.”

Then he fell on the ground and The Kicking Bear and his friends
joined hands and, breaking into a song which made my own heart leap,
they began to dance in a circle about the fire:

“The whole world of the dead is returning.
Our nation is coming, is coming, is coming.
The eagle has brought us the message,
Bearing the word of the Father—
The word and the wish of the Father.
Over the glad new earth they are coming,
Our dead come driving the elk and the deer.
See them hurrying the herds of the bison.
This the Father has promised,
This the Father has given.”

One by one those sitting gave way and rose and joined the dance,
till only the chief, Slohan, and I remained seated. My father joined
them at the last, and outside the tepee the voices of women could
be heard catching and trying the song. It was agonizing to hear. It
strained every heart to bursting with longing and sadness.

Suddenly The Bear’s head began to rock violently from side to side;
it seemed as if it would wrench itself from its place. His eyes set
in a dreadful stare, his mouth fixed in a horrible gape. Then shaking
himself free, he fell close to the fire, face downward.

The others danced for a little while longer, then took seats and
waited for the return of the spirit of their priest. Looking Eagle
still slept.

The Sitting Bull sat in silence, smoking gravely, slowly, but his
hand trembled. It was plain that he, too, longed to believe in the
dance, but he could not. My own nerves were quivering with the
excitement and I waited with almost breathless eagerness for the
waking of the sleepers.

It was a long time—it seemed that it was nearly morning—when The Bear
began to stir again and to rub his eyes as if wakened from sleep.
He was very quiet and his voice was gentle as he said: “I have been
with the Father. He gave me another message to The Sitting Bull. This
it is: ‘_All the people to the South are dancing my dance. Will the
chief of all the Sioux walk behind his nation?_’”

Then the chief said, “When my son there,”—he touched my arm—“or one
of my trusted warriors can go to the spirit world and return to
tell me it is true, then I may believe. If this religion is true
all other deeds are worthless. Bring me proof. My ears are open, my
eyes are not yet dim. If these songs are true, then I shall weep no
more. If they are not true, then I wish to die. Let us hold a dance
to-morrow.” And with a sign he dismissed us, but he himself remained
alone with Looking Eagle, who still lay motionless where he had
fallen.

THE BREAKING OF THE PEACE PIPE

A knowledge of the dance spread like flame throughout all the Grand
River district, and young and old began to flock to The Sitting
Bull’s camp, eager to hear more, eager to experiment. “We also wish
to see our friends who have gone before us,” they said. “We wish to
hear what they say. Teach us the way of the trance.”

I felt the influence of their thought very strongly what time I sat
among them, but afterward, when I had returned to the agency, it
appeared but the rankest folly, and when others asked me about it I
always said: “It is but a foolish thing; do not value it.” But my
words did not check the wave of belief in it.

While no special pains were taken to conceal the fact from the white
people, it was several days before the agent had any knowledge of
Kicking Bear or his mission. This agent, let me say, was a good man,
but jealous of his authority, and when he learned that the chief had
himself invited The Kicking Bear into the reservation he was angry
and said, “I won’t have any of this nonsense here,” and calling Crow,
lieutenant of the police, he said: “Crow, go down to The Sitting
Bull’s house and tell him this Kicking Bear and Messiah business must
stop. Put Kicking Bear off the reservation at once!”

I was very much alarmed by the order, and waited anxiously to learn
what the chief would say. I feared his revolt.

The next day the Crow returned from Rock Creek like a man walking in
his sleep. He could give the agent no intelligible account of himself
or of what he had seen. “He is a wonder worker,” he repeated, “I
couldn’t put him away. When he took my hand I was weak as a child. I
saw the dance, and when he waved a feather I became dizzy, I fell to
the ground, and my eyes were turned inward.”

The agent stared at him as if he were crazy; then he turned to me and
said: “Iapi, I wish you’d go down and see what all this hocus-pocus
means. Take a couple of policemen with you and make sure that they
start this mischief maker on his way home. And tell The Sitting Bull
that I want to see him. Say to him the agent expects him to fire
Kicking Bear off the reservation.”

I did not tell him that I already knew what was being done. I felt
that if some one must carry such a message to the chief it was well
for me to do it, for he was in no mood to be reproved like a boy. I
took no policemen, but rode away alone with many misgivings.

No sooner had I passed the fort than I regretted my acceptance of the
mission. After all, I was Uncapappa and I honored my chief. Whenever
I entered the shadow of a tepee I was no longer alien; I fused with
my tribe. The gravity and order of my chieftain’s lodge were pleasant
to me, and the sound of the women’s songs melted my bones. I was not
white; I was red. Acquiring the language of the conquering race had
not changed my heart.

For all these reasons I saw that I was set forth on a dishonorable
mission. To speak the words of the agent were impossible to me. When
I met Circling Thunder, an old playmate of mine, and learned that
many were dancing, my face stiffened. I had hoped to be able to have
a word with the chief in private.

“Do you believe in it?” I asked.

My friend shook his head. “I don’t know. Many claim to have visited
the spirit world—and Looking Eagle brought back a handful of
pemmican, so they say. The buffalo were thick over there and the
people were very happy.”

“How do you know it was pemmican?”

“I tasted it.”

“Perhaps it was only beef.”

“It may be so,” he said, but his eyes were still dim with dream.

Many of those whom I met were in this state of doubt. They wished to
be convinced. It was so sweet to dream of the old-time world, and
yet they could not quite believe it. They stood too near the stern
reality of hunger and cold, and yet my people are a race of seers.
To them the dream has not yet lost its marvelous portent. In time of
trouble they go upon the hills and wait for the vision which shall
instruct and comfort them.

In my youth I had shared in these beliefs. I had had my days of
fasting and prayer; yes, I too had entered the sleep which reveals. I
had met and talked with birds and animals, and once I felt the hand
of my dead mother move in my hair. I had fasted until I could walk
among the painted tepees of the spirit world and I had gazed on the
black herds of buffalo.

My training among scholars had given me a new understanding of these
conditions, but I could not impart my knowledge to my people. My
wisdom was accounted alien and therefore to be distrusted. Of what
avail to argue with them when the frenzy was upon them?

It was brilliant October, very warm and hazy, and our cruel,
treacherous land was indolently beautiful. The sky was without
cloud—a whitish blue—and the plain, covered with tawny short grass
on the uplands, and with purple and golden garments of blue-joint in
the hollows, seemed to lift on every side like a gigantic bowl. My
horse’s hoofs drummed on the dry sod as I hurried forward.

This is an inexorable land—a land in which man should be free to
migrate like the larks or the buffalo. In the old days we never
thought of living on these high, wind-swept spaces. They were merely
our hunting grounds. Our winter camps were always beside the river,
behind the deep banks, in the shelter of the oaks and cottonwoods.
In those days the plain seemed less ferocious than now, when we are
forced to cross it in all kinds of weather, poorly clothed. In the
days of the buffalo we chose our time and place to migrate; now we
were fastened to one spot like chained coyotes.

As I came to the hill which overlooked the wooded flat I saw a
great many tepees set about the chief’s cabin, and I perceived also
that the dance was going on. Occasionally a cry reached me, pulsing
faintly through the hazy air. In some such way, perhaps, the white
fisher folk of Galilee drew together to greet the coming of their
Messiah. Was this Saviour of the west any more incredible than Christ?

So I mused as I rode slowly down the hill. What if it were all true?
The white man who claims to know all things believes in his Bible and
his Bible is full of miracles.

Soon I could hear the song. It was the sad song I had heard them sing
in the chief’s tepee. It was in most violent opposition to the sunlit
earth and the soft caressing wind, and reached my heart like the
wail of a mourning woman. Soon I was near enough to hear the wistful
words. It was all of entreaty:

“Our Father, we come.
We come to you weeping.
Take pity on us, O Father.
We are poor and weak,
Without you we can do nothing.
Help us, O Father.
Help us to see the old world,
The happy hunting ground of the buffalo,
The glorious land of our childhood.
Hear us, Great Spirit.”

They were dancing in a great circle, some sixty men and women, their
hands interlacing, their eyes on the ground. Each dancer wore a plain
buckskin shirt without ornament. No one carried a weapon of any kind.
They had deliberately gone far back of the white man, discarding
all things on which his desolating hand had been laid. On each head
(even of the women) waved an eagle plume, the sacred feather, and all
were painted with a red paint, which the Mato had brought with him—a
sacred paint he called it. Around them were many others, watching,
and here and there on the ground lay those who were entranced.

Just as I came up the song ended and Mato, who stood in the circle,
lifted a peculiar wand in his hand and cried out like a priest:
“Think hard only of that which you wish to see in your sleep, and it
will be given to you. The old shall be young and the sick shall be
made well. Put away all anger and hatred and turn your thoughts to
the Messiah in the west who listens to all his children.”

Then some one started another song and they began again to dance. I
looked for the chief, and saw him sitting in the shadow of a small
tree close to the circle of dancers. My father, Slohan, Circling
Hawk, and another whom I do not recall, sat with him. They were all
very grave and very intent. They hardly saw me and my task grew heavy
and hard.

I motioned to my father and he came out, and I said: “I am from the
agency. I am hungry and so is my horse.”

He sent a boy with my pony and took me to his tepee near by, and
there I ate some bread and meat in silence. When I had finished I
began: “Father, I have come to stop the dance and to put the priest
away.”

My father looked troubled. “Do you come from the agent?”

“Yes, he has heard of the dance and his orders are to stop it.”

“My son, all that is bad. It makes my heart sore. Do not speak to the
chief now. Wait till evening, when he is weary. The agent is wrong.
There is no harm in this dance. Has not the Messiah said, ‘_Do not
strike anyone_; leave all punishment to the Great Spirit?’ Go back
and tell the agent there is no harm in it.”

I did not listen well, for the song outside was wilder and sadder
each moment. They were dancing very fast now, and the ground, bare
and very dry, had been tramped into dust, fine as flour, and this
rose from under their feet like smoke, half concealing those on
the leeward side. All were singing a piteous song of entreaty. The
women’s voices especially pierced me with their note of agonized
appeal. It was a song to make me shudder—the voice of a dying people
crying out for life and pleading for the return of the happy past. I
could not understand how the white men could listen to it and not be
made gentle.

The chief gazed intently at the circle. He seemed waiting in rigid
expectancy, his face deeply lined and very sad. He looked like one
threescore and ten sitting so. It was plain that he did not yet
permit himself to believe in the message. He, too, felt the pain and
weariness of the world, but still he could not join in the song. His
mind was too clear and strong to be easily confused.

The interest was now very great. Waves of excitement seemed to
run over the circle and those who watched. Shouts mingled with the
singing. The principal song, which they repeated endlessly, was the
Messiah’s promise of eternal life:

“There the Father comes,
There the Father comes,
Speaking as he flies.
Calling, as he comes, this joyous word,
‘You shall live again,’ he calls,
‘_You shall live beyond the grave_,’
He is calling as he comes.”

Many did not sing; they only cried out for help, entreating to be
shown those who had died. “Oh, hear me! Great Spirit, let me see my
little one—my boy; let me hear his voice,” pleaded one woman, and her
voice shook me till my hair moved as if a spirit passed.

Some of the women’s faces were distorted with grief, and a kind
of nervous action which they could not control seized upon
them. One by one as they began to show this tension, Mato and
his helpers confronted them, waving before their eyes a feather
on a wand and uttering a hoarse chant, monotonous and rapid,
“Ha—ha—ha—ha—ha—_hah_!” until the frenzied one, convulsed and
dreaming, fell into the ring and lay stiff and stark in the dirt.

But the ring did not halt. The fall of each new convert seemed to add
new vigor to the song, for each hoped to be the next one smitten.
Suddenly Shato, dropping the hands of those dancing near him, flung
his hands to the sky with a gesture as if he would tear the sun from
its place. The hooked intensity of his fingers was terrible to see.
He remained fixed in that way, rigid as iron, yet standing on his
feet firm as an oak. No one touched him; on the contrary, all were
careful not to disturb those who were in trance. Another man stood
at bay, buffeting the dancers to keep them from trampling upon his
wife, who, being sick of some wasting disease, had joined the circle,
seeking health of the Great Spirit.

As I looked my heart contracted. It seemed that I was looking upon
the actual dissolution—the death pangs—of my race. My learning was
for the moment of no avail. I shook like a reed in the gust of this
primeval passion. Was it insanity or was it some inexplicable divine
force capable in very truth of uniting the quick and the dead in one
convulsive, rapturous coalition?

A thrill of momentary belief swept over me. Was it not better to
end it all, to die and go with all my people to the happy hunting
grounds! The white man’s world, what was it but a world of care and
grief?

The songs continued, but they grew quieter. Several of those who
called loudest now lay silent in the dust. Those who circled and
sang were keener of eye and calmer of feature. These were they who
reasoned, and to them the trance could not come. I began to see that
those who had taken on the dream were not the most intelligent but
the most emotional men and women of my tribe, those who were weakened
by the loss of dear ones.

The song was no longer a cry—it had beautiful words. It grew more
joyous:

“Do you see the world a-coming?
A new serener world is near.
The eagle brings the message to our tribe.
Thus the Father sayeth.
Covering all the plain they come,
The Buffalo and elk and deer.
The crow has brought the message to the tribe.
Thus the Father sayeth,
Thus he gives us cheer.”

At the end of this song, four times repeated, the dancers unclasped
hands and sat down on the earth. As they did this the chief arose
and, stepping into the circle, took a seat near Mato, who arose and,
lifting his hands to the west, again prayed silently for a moment,
then said:

“My friends, you see the words of the Messiah are true words. Many
are asleep. They will return soon and tell us of their good journey
to the spirit world. Ever since the Messiah talked to me I have
thought upon what he said and I see only good in it. It is a sweet
religion. The white man’s religion is not for us. Its words are
all strange. It deals with unknown animals and tells of far-off
countries. The names of the chiefs we do not understand, but this
new religion all can understand. It is filled with familiar words.
It is for us. Our Messiah has told us that all our dead are to come
back to the earth, and as the earth is too small for such a throng he
must remove the white man. He will also bring heaven down to make the
world wider, and then all the red men will be able to dwell together
in friendship. There will be no more war, only hunting and feasting
and games. This good world will come to us if we do as he commands.”

At this moment Chasing Hawk, who acted as usher, brought to the
circle a woman who had just wakened out of a trance. Her face was
shining with happiness, but her tongue was thick, she could barely
make herself heard. As she spoke the chief listened intently.

“What did you see?” asked Mato.

“I saw my little one,” she replied.

“Where was he? What was he doing?”

“He was playing in the grass, in a beautiful country. My grandmother
was near, cooking for him.”

Mato called her answers aloud to all who listened, and everyone
crowded near to hear the glories of the land from which her spirit
had returned. Cries of joy arose in swift echo of the priest’s
shouting, but the chief’s face remained gravely meditative.

When this woman was led away Eagle Holder, another dreamer, came into
the circle, one who needed no crier. He was a proud orator. Reaching
out his hand in a gesture of exultation, he cried:

“In my sleep I saw a vast eagle coming toward me. He came rushing;
the noise of his wings was like a storm, his eyes were red like the
moon at dusk. As he came near I caught him by the neck, and with a
rush he carried me away.” Cries of astonishment broke forth. “He
swept away with me high up and toward the east; the wind cried about
my ears and for a time I could see nothing; all was mist. At last
he began to circle and I looked away and I saw the new land of the
Messiah.” (“Hah! Hah!” called the people.) “It was a prairie country”
(the women began to sing) “with countless buffalo feeding” (“Ah!
Ah!”) “and lakes with great white birds sailing about. On the bank of
the lake was a circle of tepees and they were made of skins whitened
by clay, and they were very large and clean and new. A hunting party
was just riding forth; they were very happy and sang as they went.”

He paused abruptly, while the women wailed in rapture. At last he
continued: “Then the eagle entered a cloud and I saw no more. I woke
and found myself here on the ground.”

This story, magnificently told though it was, affected the hearers
less than the shining, ecstatic face of the mother who had seen her
spirit child. Her slow, dreamy utterance was more eloquent than the
vivid gestures and musical voice of Eagle Holder.

One by one others awoke and told of meeting friends and revisiting
old scenes. Some told of people they had never met in life, and
minutely described lodges they had never entered. These stories awoke
wild cries of amazement and joy. It was plain that many believed.
I had not seen my people so happy since I was a child, before the
battle of the Big Horn.

At last when all had spoken they arose and joined hands and began
singing once more; then the chief rose and left the circle, and I,
intercepting him, said: “Chief, I bring a message to you.” He made a
motion which means follow, and I accompanied him to his tepee, which
he loved because of its associations with old days, and to which he
went for meditation and council.

It would be wrong if I did not confess that I knew the chief
distrusted me, for he did. After I had taken my position under the
agent he was less free to speak his mind to me, and this was a grief
to me. My father saw us go and joined us, and I was glad of his
presence. His kind old face made it easier for me to begin.

The chief took his seat at the back of the lodge and said: “Speak. I
listen.”

“Sire,” I said, “the agent has heard bad things of this dance on
other reservations, and some days ago he sent policemen down here to
forbid it. He now hears it is still going on and he has sent me to
say that Mato, the messenger, must go away and the dance must stop.”

I could see the veins of his neck fill with hot blood as he listened,
and when I had finished he said: “Are we dogs to be silenced by
kicking! You say to the agent that the white men have beaten us and
left us naked of every good thing, but they shall not take away our
religion. I will not obey this command! I have said it!”

Here my father broke in, saying to me: “You yourself have told me
that you saw among the white people dreams like this. Why do they
seek to prevent us? You have read us the white man’s sacred Big Book,
and you say it is full of medicine dreams. Why should we not dream
also?”

I then replied: “_I_ do not come commanding these things. It is the
agent who says them. Do not blame me.”

The chief, who had regained his composure, interposed quietly: “My
son, you are right. We should not blame you, but the one who sent
you. Therefore I say take these words to the agent: ‘_I will not give
up the dance._’”

In the hope of persuading him, I asked: “Do you believe in the dance?”

“I do not know,” he replied. “I am watching, I am listening. It is
like the white man’s religion—very wonderful and very difficult to
believe. I wish to try it and see. The white men are very wise, yet
their preachers say that the sun stood still for Joshua, and Christ,
their great Medicine Man, healed the lame and raised the dead.”

“But that was long ago,” I hastened to say.

“If such wonders happened then they can happen now,” he answered.
Then he passionately broke forth: “I desire this new earth. My
people are in despair, their hearts are utterly gone. We need help.
My warriors will soon be like the Chinaman at the fort, fit only to
wash windowpanes. Our rations are being cut off. What is there to
look forward to? Nothing. I saw in the east many poor people. They
worked very hard and wore ragged clothes. All were not rich and
happy. Among the white men my people would be only other poor people,
ragged and hungry, creeping about, eating scraps of food like hungry
curs. I fear for them, therefore my ears are open to the words of
this new religion which assures me that the old world—the world of
my fathers—is to return. You say the agent is displeased. Is there
anything I can do which does not displease him? The white men have
their religion—they pray and sing. Why should not we sing if we have
heart to do so? Go ask him if he is afraid that the Messiah has come
of a truth, and that the white man is to be swept away.”

“He thinks it is a war dance,” I said. “He is afraid it will stir up
strife.”

“Go tell him what you have seen. Say to him that it is a peaceful
dance. There are no weapons here; there is no talk of fighting. It
is a magical prayer. Mato says those who lie out there are with the
spirits. You heard them tell what they saw. If these tales are true
and if we could all be as they, then would the white man’s world
indeed vanish like smoke and the pasture of the buffalo come again.
It is strange—that I know—but the white man’s religion is also very
hard to believe. The priest will tell you stories just as wonderful,
and the preacher, too. Their Messiah was born in a stable among
cattle; ours appears among the mountains. Their Christ rose from the
dead. So does ours. Their Christ came to the poor people, so they
say. Are we so despised of God that we cannot have our Messiah, too?
I do not say all this is true, I only wish to test it and see.”

I could see that his clear mind could not accept the new religion,
yet his heart desired it deeply. Once he had said: “I do not
understand your Christ and his teaching. I must have time to think;
I will not be pushed into it,” and as he had often reproved his
people for saying yes to everything the white man said, so now he
was equally cautious, only he was older, with a deeper longing to be
comforted.

My task was only half completed and I said: “Chief, the agent told me
to say to you, ‘Put Mato away.’ I beg you to come with me and meet
the agent and explain to him the meaning of the dance, and then maybe
he will not insist on this inhospitable thing.”

The chief’s face grew very stern. “The agent is a dog! He insults me.
I will not see him! If he wishes to talk with me let him come here. I
am waiting.”

My father made me a sign to go, and I went away. I could hear them
conversing in low voices, but I could not understand what they said.
At last my father called, and I went in again.

The chief looked less grim of lip and said to me, “Very well, Mato
will go to-night.”

“Good,” I said. “At ten o’clock to-night Bull Head and I will come to
take them across the river.”

My father and I went out and left him sitting alone.

When I returned at ten o’clock with Bull Head the chief’s lodge was
filled with people. The women were weeping and the men were sullen.
As I entered the tepee Mato was speaking. The chief sat smoking, with
his eyes fixed on the floor. The priest was saying:

“You see how it is! The red man can keep nothing from the white man,
who is jealous even of our religion. Washington would deprive us of
our dreams. The agent is a wolf. Nevertheless, I will go, for my
mission here is fulfilled. I have spoken the words of the Father; I
have taught you the ceremonials. Henceforth you can test for yourself
the truth of the _word_.” Then standing erect and in line the six
messengers of the Messiah lifted the palms of their hands toward the
west and prayed silently. A little later they began to sing this song:

“My children take this road,
My children go this way,
Says our Saviour.
It is a goodly road,
Says the Father;
It leads to joyous lands,
Says the Father.”

As they sang the people began to cry out, “Stay and tell us more,”
but Mato led the way out of the lodge.

As I stood at the door, ready to follow him, the chief stood upon his
feet, with a look on his face which silenced every one who saw it; it
was fierce, yet it was exalted. Holding his pipe in his outstretched
hands, his beloved pipe which he had carried since his first
chieftainship, he said: “Here break I my peace pipe. If this religion
is true then there is no more war. If it is not true, then I wish to
die as a warrior dies, fighting!” With a gesture he snapped the stem
in pieces. All the people cried out, and with a heart cold with fear
I went forth into the night.

My chief’s last war with the white invader had begun.

XII

THE CHIEF PROPOSES A TEST

Meanwhile the dance was going on not only among all the Sioux, but
among the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Shoshone peoples, and the settlers
of many states were greatly alarmed. They pretended to believe the
ceremonial was warlike. They knew nothing of the songs or prayers.
Cowboys, drunk and desiring a little amusement, raced into the
border towns shouting, “The Sioux are on the warpath!” and whole
settlements, frenzied with fear, fled to the east, crying loudly
for the government to send troops. “Stop this outbreak,” became the
demand.

All this pressure and excitement made our situation worse. Those who
believed said, “You see how it is, the white people are afraid of our
religion; they are seeking to prevent the coming of the new world”;
and those reckless ones who were willing to fight cried out: “Make
ready. Let us war!”

Letters and telegrams poured in upon the agent at the Standing Rock,
asking for a true statement of affairs. To all these he replied,
“There is no danger, these Indians are peaceful”; but he took
occasion in his answers to defame my chief.

In this he overshot his mark, for in calling The Sitting Bull a man
of no force, a liar, and a coward, he became unreasonable. To fear a
man so small and mean was childish. He also misstated the religion
of the dance. He sneered at my father and others as “Indians lately
developed into medicine men,” and ended by saying, “The Sitting Bull
is making rebellion among his people.” Forgetting all the favorable
reports he had many times made of my chief, he falsely said, “The
Sitting Bull has been a disturbing element ever since his return in
1883.”

What could such a man know of the despair into which my people had
fallen? He was hard, unimaginative, and jealous of his authority. He
was also a bigot and it is hard for anyone not a poet or philosopher
to be just to a people holding a different view of the world. Race
hatred and religious prejudices stand like walls between the red man
and the white. The Sioux cannot comprehend the priest and the priest
will not tolerate the Sioux. Our agent became angry, arrogant, and
unreasonable. He felt that his government was in question. His pride
was hurt.

For a few days after I reported the departure of Mato all was quiet
and the agent believed that the frenzy was over so far as his wards
were concerned. He was only anxious that The Sitting Bull and his
followers should not know how deeply their dances had stirred the
settlements. Nevertheless, the chief knew, and it helped him to
retain some faith in the magic he was testing. He did not refer to
the breaking of his peace pipe, but he declined to give up the dance.

To his friend, John Carignan, the teacher, he said: “The agent
complains that I feed my cattle to those who come to dance. What does
it matter? If the buffalo come back I will not need them. If the
new religion is a lie then I do not care to raise cattle. The Great
Spirit has sent me a message. He has said, ‘_If you wish to live
join the dance I have given_.’ Whether this message is true or not I
cannot yet tell. I am seeking proof.”

Against the bitter words of the agent I will put the words of John
Carignan, who kept the school near The Sitting Bull’s home. This man
speaks our language. “I knew the chief well,” he said, “and I saw no
evil in him. He was an Indian, but I can’t blame him for that.”

During this troublesome period my chief went often to see the teacher
of his children. Jack was the one white man with whom he could talk
freely, and together they argued upon the new religion. Jack liked
my chief and told me so one day as we were discussing the agent’s
attitude toward the dance. “Often the chief came to eat with my
family and he has always borne himself with dignity and honor. I have
always found him considerate and unassuming.”

“Our religion seems foolish to you, but so does yours to me,” my
chief said. “The Baptists and Methodists and Presbyterians and
Catholics all have a different God. Why cannot we have one of our
own? Why does the agent seek to take away our religion? My race is
dying. Our God will soon die with us. If this new religion is not
true, then what does it matter? I do not know what to believe. If I
could dream like others and visit the spirit land myself, then it
would be easy for me to believe, but the trance does not come to me.
It passes me by. I help others to see their dead, but I am not aided.”

“That is it precisely,” replied the teacher. “See the kind of men
who go into the trance. Your strong, clear-headed men do not believe.”

“That is true,” the chief admitted, “but I am hoping some of my head
men may yet enter the trance. Perhaps we do not know how to prepare
the way.”

By this he meant that they had not learned how to hypnotize, for that
is what the dance became. It was like a meeting of spiritualists
who sit for visions. It was like the revival meetings of the Free
Methodists or the old-time Shakers or Quakers. My friend Davies wrote
me a long letter wherein he said: “It is foolish, as you say, but
no more absurd to my mind than scores of other forms of religious
ecstasy. My advice is let it run; it will wear itself out. Movements
of this kind grow by opposition.”

All that he said was true, but, like the chief, I could not help
hoping something would happen, for when they sang their songs warmed
my heart and made my learning of little weight. The painted arrows,
the fluttering feathers, the symbolic figures—every little thing
had its appeal to me. When they raised their quivering palms in the
air and cried to the Messiah in the west, I could scarcely restrain
myself from joining in their supplication. This may seem strange, but
it is true and you will never comprehend this last despairing cry of
my race if I do not tell you the truth.

We believed in what we were. We had the pride of race. We were
fulfilling our destiny as hunters and freemen. Do you think that in
ten years you can make my proud people bow the neck to the scourge of
a white man’s daily hatred? Is the Great Spirit a bungler? Does he
draw a figure on the earth, only to wipe it away as a child writes
upon a slate?

“Why are we so thrust upon and degraded? It must be that we have
angered the Great Spirit. We must go back to the point wherein our
old trail is found,” so my father argued.

The line that divides the mysterious and the commonplace is very
slender, in the minds of my people. You do not realize that.
They take up a cartridge. How wonderful it is! How is it made? A
knife—what gives the point its gleam and its spring? The grass blade,
what causes it to thrust from the earth? The clouds, where do they
go—what are they? To the west of us is the Crow country; beyond that,
who knows? You must put yourself in the place of those who think in
this way before you judge them harshly. Many of these things I now
understand, but I do not know why men are born and why they die. I do
not know why the sun brings forth the grass.

My chief comprehended more than most men of his tribe, but to him the
world was just as mysterious as to me. It did him no good to study
the white man’s religions. They were so many and so contradictory
that he was confused. He had always been a prayerful man—and had kept
the Sun Dance, and all the ceremonials of the Uncapappas carefully.
He was a grave soul, doing nothing thoughtlessly. He always asked
the Great Spirit for guidance, yet he was never a medicine man, as
the white men say. He did not become so during this dance. He helped
to hypnotize the dancers, but so did others; that did not mean that
they were priests or medicine men—it only meant they had the power to
induce these trances.

It was a time of great bewilderment, of question and of doubt. No
one thought of the present; all were dreaming of the past, hoping to
bring the past. The future was black chaos unless the Great Spirit
should restore their world of the buffalo.

The dance went on with steadily growing excitement. The autumn
remained very mild and favorable to the ceremony, and yet there
were fewer people in it than the agent supposed. Those most active
continued to be the mourners. Those who had lost children crowded to
the dance, as white people go to spiritualistic seances, in the hope
of touching the hands of their babes and hearing the voices of their
daughters. They sincerely believed that they met their dead and they
deeply resented the brutal order of the agent who would keep them
from this sweet reunion.

It was deeply moving to look upon their happy faces as they stood
and called in piercing voices: “I saw my child—my little son. He was
playing with his small bow and arrows. I called him and he ran to me.
He was very happy with his grandfather. The sun was shining on the
flowers and no one was hungry. My boy clung to my hand. I did not
wish to come back. Oh, teach me the way to go again!”

I think the number of those who believed that the new world of the
buffalo was coming, that the white man would be swept away, were few,
but hundreds considered it possible to go to the spirit land and see
those who were dead, and they resented, as my chief, the interference
of the government. There was nothing worth while left in the world
but this, and they used bitter words when they were commanded to lay
this comforting faith aside. “Why should our spirit meetings be taken
from us?” they asked of me.

In spite of the wind, the dust, and the blazing October sun, a veil
of mysterious passion lay over the camp. The children were withdrawn
from school to participate in the worship. Nothing else was talked
of. During the day, as the old chiefs counciled, the women gathered
together and told their experiences. There were deceivers among
those who took part in this, and many who were self-deceived, but
for the most part they were in deadly earnestness; the exultation on
their faces could not be simulated. They moved in a cloud of joyous
memories, with no care, no thought of the Great Father’s commands.
They were borne above all other considerations but this—“How may we
bring back the vanished world of the fathers?”

Up at the agent’s office was an absolutely different world. There
hate and cynical coarseness ruled. To go from the dance to the agent
was a bitter experience for me. I was forced into deception. No
one dared to speak of the dance, except in terms of laughter or
disbelief. All the renegades in the pay of the government joined in
the jests and told ribald stories of the chief and of the ceremonies.
They could not understand what it meant. As for me, I said little,
but I foresaw trouble for my people and sorrow for myself.

The chief clerk hated me and all Indians. He was a most capable man,
but sour and sullen to everyone who did not appeal to him. He had no
children, no wife, and no faith. His voice was a snarl, his face a
chill wind. He never spoke to an Indian that he did not curse. The
agent was not so, but he was a zealot impatient of the old, eager
to make a record for himself and the post. Loyal to the white man’s
ideal, he was unsympathetic and harsh and materialistic in dealing
with the traditional prejudices of my race.

He sent for Jack, the teacher, and asked him to come up and talk with
him. “Tell me all about it,” he said, “What is the meaning of it?”

In reply Jack said, soberly: “They are very much in earnest about
this new religion of theirs, but they are peaceable. The Sitting Bull
talked with me a long time yesterday, and I found it a hard matter
to meet his arguments, which he bases on the miracles of the Bible.
The dancers are told to lay aside all that the white man has made and
fix their minds on what they wish to see most of all. They go into a
trance and lie for hours. When they wake they are very happy. They
come and tell me their dreams and some of them are very beautiful.
My advice is to let them alone. It is a craze like the old-fashioned
Methodist revival. It will die out as winter comes on.”

This testimony by a man who understood our language and was in daily
contact with The Sitting Bull band led the agent to pursue a calmer
course. He decided to wait the ebbing of the excitement.

Unfortunately, a long letter he had written to Washington about “the
Messiah craze” was given to the reporters, and the daily papers were
instantly filled with black headlines introducing foolish and false
accounts of what was taking place. Writers hurried to the Standing
Rock and wired alarming reports of what they heard, and all this
reacted unfavorably upon the dancers.

The agent then laid the burden of the blame upon my chief. “He is
a reactionary,” he said; “he is a disturber and has been from the
first. He has opposed every treaty and has insisted at all times
on being treated as a chief,” and in all his letters and talks he
continued to speak ill of him.

He sent word by me and by Jack, saying to The Sitting Bull: “Come to
the agency. I want to talk with you. Stop this foolish dance and come
here and camp for a while where I can talk with you. The white people
are alarmed and you must stop this dance.”

The chief, embittered by the agent’s attack upon him, refused to go
to the Standing Rock. “I am not a dog to be whistled at. I will not
go to the agent to be insulted and beaten,” and he called his old
guard of “Silent Eaters” around him. “The agent threatens to imprison
me and break up the dance. If he comes to fight he will find us
ready.”

Day by day the feeling between the agency and its police on the one
side, and the chief and the dancers on the other, got more alarming,
and the agent was obliged to send many telegrams to Washington and
the outside world to quiet the fears of the settlers, and at last he
decided to go down to Rock Creek and see for himself what was going
on. He should have done so before.

He asked me to go as interpreter, and this I did, but very
reluctantly, for it put me too much on his side.

He planned to come upon the scene of the dance suddenly, and many
were dancing as we rode up to the outer circle of lodges. The word
went about that the agent was come, but no one stopped dancing on
that account. They were too much in earnest to give heed to any
authority. Some of those to whom he called replied with words of
contempt, defying his command, and I, who knew the terrible power of
the President’s army, trembled as I saw the face of the agent blacken.

“What foolery!” he said to me. “This has got to stop! Go tell The
Sitting Bull to come to me.”

I made my way to where the chief sat, and told him what the agent had
demanded.

I could see that he associated me with the renegades who fawned upon
the agent, and he listened to what I said with cold, stern face. I
pleaded with him to do as he was commanded. I informed him of the
fury of fear which had fallen upon the settlers and I warned him that
the soldiers would come to put a stop to the dance.

To all this he made no reply other than to say: “Since the agent has
come to see me, tell him I will talk with him in the morning. I am
busy now. I cannot leave the dance.”

The agent was furious when I told him this, and as we drove off down
to the school muttered a threat, “I’ll make him suffer for this, the
insolent old dog.” We found Carignan, the teacher, almost alone at
the school. The Sitting Bull had said: “If this religion is true,
then it is more important than your books,” and had told his people
to withdraw their children from their studies. “If the white man’s
world is coming to an end, of what use is it to learn his ways?” he
argued.

To Carignan the agent talked freely of the chief. “He must be brought
low,” he declared, wrathfully. “His power must be broken. I will see
him in the morning and give him one more chance to quit peaceably.
If he does not I will arrest him. He will find he can’t run this
reservation.”

To this Carignan replied: “I don’t think he means to make trouble,
but he is profoundly interested in this new religion. I think he will
yield to reason.”

[Illustration: Scouts

_These Indian scouts are on the trail of a Chiricahua Apache
named Massai, famous in the ’nineties as the wildest and most
cruel of the Apaches. So crooked was Massai’s trail that even the
Indians themselves could not follow it._

_Illustration from_
MASSAI’S CROOKED TRAIL
_by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _January, 1898_]

[Illustration: On the Little Big Horn

_When Cheschapah, son of the aged Crow chief, Pounded Meat,
became a medicine man and aspired to leadership of the tribe, a
party of Sioux came on a visit to the Crows. Fearing that the
feasting and eloquence of Cheschapah might turn their thoughts
to war, troops were sent to bring the visitors home. The Sioux
started for home meekly enough, but Cheschapah, with a yelling
swarm of his young friends, began to buzz about the column,
threatening to attack the troopers who had so rudely broken up
their dinner party, and did not desist even when the soldiers had
forded the river. Whereupon the chief of the Crow police rode out
to Cheschapah, commanding him to turn back, and received for an
answer an insult that with Indians calls for blood. But for old
chief Pounded Meat, who then rode out to his son and cowed him
with a last flare of command, firing would have begun then and
there._

_Illustration from_
LITTLE BIG HORN MEDICINE
_by_ Owen Wister

_Originally published in_
HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _June, 1894_]

There had already been a great deal of talk of the War Department
sending someone to quiet the disturbance, and this the agent did not
relish. He had been an Indian agent for many years and prided himself
on knowing how to handle his people, and was especially anxious to
keep the chief authority entirely in his own hands. Poor and despised
as The Sitting Bull had become, even the agent considered it an honor
to arrest and imprison him. Furthermore, I could see that he did not
care to attempt this except as a last resort.

The following morning the agent, Carignan, and myself went up to
see The Sitting Bull. He was in his tepee, smoking beside a small
smoldering fire. He was very cold and quiet, and looked tired and
weak. His hair parted in the middle and the sad look of his face
made him resemble an old woman. To me he was only a tragic wraith of
his former self. His eyes were dull and heavy. He was a type of my
vanishing race as he sat there, and my heart went out to him.

He greeted us with a low word and shook hands. We all sat about in
the lodge. Few people were stirring.

“Tell the chief I have come to talk with him about this dance,” began
the agent.

I told the chief, and he said: “Speak on, my ears are open.”

“Tell him I hear he is dancing this foolish dance almost every day,
making his people tired, so that they neglect their cattle and have
taken their children from school. Tell him that all the people are
getting excited. Therefore, Washington says the dance must stop!”
continued the agent.

I told the chief this. His face did not change, but his eyes fired
a little. “Are the white people afraid of this new religion? Why do
they wish to stop it?” he scornfully asked, in answer.

“Say to him that I do not fear the dance—I consider it foolish—but I
do not want him wasting the energies of the people. He must stop it
at once!”

To this the chief replied: “I am a reasonable man and a peacemaker. I
do not seek trouble, but my people take comfort in this dance. They
have lost many dear ones and in this dance they see them again.
Whether it is true or not I have not yet made up my mind, but my
people believe in it and I see no harm in it.” Here he paused for a
moment. “I have a proposition to make to you,” he said firmly. “This
new religion came to me from the Brulé Reservation; they got it from
the west. The Mato and Kios claim to have seen the Messiah. Let us
two, you and I, set forth together with intent to trail down this
story of the Messiah. If, when we reach the last tribe in the land
where the story originated, they cannot show us the Messiah or give
us satisfactory proof, then we will return and I will tell my people
that they have been too credulous. This report will end the dance
forever. It will not do to order my people to stop; that will make
them sure the dance is true magic.”

The chief was very serious in this offer. He knew that he could not,
by merely ordering it, stop the dance; but if he should go on this
journey with the agent and make diligent inquiry, then he could on
his return speak with authority. He made this offer as one reasonable
man to another, and, had the agent met him halfway or even permitted
him to send my father or Slohan, the final tragedy might have been
averted, but the agent was too angry now to parley. His answer was
contemptuous.

“Tell him I refuse to consider that. It is as crazy as the dance. It
would only be a waste of time.”

I urged him to accept, for in the months to follow the excitement
would die out, but he would not listen.

“I will not consider it. It would be like trying to catch up the wind
that blew last year. I do not care to argue here. Tell him to come to
my house to-morrow and I will give him a night and a day to prove to
me that he is not a foolish old man, chasing a will-o’-the-wisp.”

To this the chief replied: “Are there miracles only in the white
man’s religion? I hear you believe there was once a great flood and
all the people were drowned but a man and a woman, who took all the
animals, male and female, into a big steamboat. When did this happen?
How do you know it? Is the ghost dance more foolish? Are my people to
be without a religion because it does not please the white man?”

To this the agent answered, impatiently: “I refuse to debate. I have
orders to stop the dance, and these orders must be carried out. Tell
him to come to the agency to-morrow and we will talk it out there. I
can’t do it now.”

To my surprise, the chief pacifically responded: “I will come. My
people are few and feeble, I do not wish to make trouble. Let us
speak wisely in this matter. You are angry now and my people are
excited. I will come and we will talk quietly together.”

But the faces of the old guard were dark, and Black Bull, who stood
near, cried out, saying: “Let us alone. We will not give up the
dance. We are afraid. Send the coyote away! Is The Sitting Bull
afraid?”

This touched the chief to the quick, and he said, “I am not, but I do
not desire trouble.”

My father spoke and said: “Do not go. The white man will imprison you
if you do.”

Black Bull again shouted: “The white man is a liar! His tongue is
double. He has set a trap. Will you walk into it?”

The chief turned to me. “Is this true? Have they talked of putting me
in prison?”

I could not deny this, and while I sat in silence, seeking words
which would not inflame him, Catch the Bear said: “I have heard that
they have planned to kill you. Do not go to the agency.”

The chief was now convinced that the agent and myself had come to
entice him into a snare. He rose, and his face took on the warrior’s
lionlike look as he said: “I will not go to the agency. I will not
die in prison. If I am to die it will be here, as a soldier, on the
spot where I was born.”

Even then the agent could have won him by pacific speech, but he too
was angry, and he said: “I give you till to-morrow morning to decide.
If you do not come to the agency I will send the police and take
you.” He then went back to the school.

To Carignan he said, as he got into his wagon: “You had better send
all your people up to the post. I am going to arrest The Sitting Bull
to-night and it may make trouble,” and in this spirit he drove away.

XIII

THE CHIEF PLANS A JOURNEY

That was a dark night in The Sitting Bull’s camp. The women were
weeping and the men, with faces sullen and fierce, gathered in
solemn council. Black Wolf, Catch the Bear and The Two Strike loudly
advocated resistance, their hot hearts aflame, but the chief kept on
smoking his pipe, which is the sign of indecision. He was still the
peacemaker and concerned over the welfare of his people.

When he spoke he said: “To fight now is to die. The white man will
crush us like flies. I know that for I have seen his armies. The
happy hunting grounds are as near to me as to any of you, but I am
not ready to die. I have thought deeply over the matter, and I have
resolved not to fight, for unless we intend to kill all our children
and so leave no one to follow us, the white man will visit his hate
on those who remain. If the agent comes with his renegades to arrest
me I will resist to the death, but if the soldiers come for me I will
go with them, for they have the hearts of warriors and know how to
treat a chief. This is my decision; but whatever comes, let no one
interfere in my behalf, for to do so would only mean bloodshed, and
that will do no good. I am your head—they will visit their punishment
on me. I will meet them alone.”

Thereupon he spoke to his “Silent Eaters” and said: “Put sentinels
on the hills and keep watch on all that is done at the agency. Let no
spy approach us.”

The dance went on after that in a sort of frenzy, as if desperate by
need. The cries of those who prayed were heart-breaking to hear. “O
Great Spirit, save us; bring the happy land quickly, ere the white
man slays us,” this they wailed over and over again, for the days
were fleet and the wolves of winter near.

When the chief did not appear as he had promised, then the agent
drew a dead line between the agency and the camp, and brought into
play the forces of hunger and cold. He sent word to all the Grand
River people, commanding them to move up and go into permanent camp
near the agency. “Those who do not come will be cut off from their
rations.” And to his clerk he said: “That will show the old chief’s
followers where they stand.”

The effect of this order cannot be overstated. The north wind was now
keen, and the people had little meat and no meal. They were dependent
on the agency issue for their daily food. They were forbidden to
leave the reservation to hunt and there was very little game left
anywhere. This order drew the line sharply between those who had
faith in the dance and those who only pretended to sympathize with
it. To remain was to starve and freeze; to go was to acknowledge the
final supremacy of the white man and all he stood for. Such was the
desolating decision thrust upon them.

When the order reached The Sitting Bull’s camp the dancers were
thrown into confusion. A hurried council was called and the leaders
were soon decided on the question of giving up the dance. Most of
them at once said: “It is of no use. The Great Spirit has not heard
us. There is but one thing to do. Let us obey the agent. To fight is
foolish.”

There were others who said: “What does a few months of life in
captivity matter? Let us dance, and if the white man comes to fight
let us all die like braves.” And as they spoke the women began to
sing old battle songs, urging resistance to the invaders. “We can
starve and die, for when we die we go to the happy land. A little
pain and all is over. Let us fight!”

As soon as the chief had thought the matter out he said: “So long as
I have cattle or money you shall be fed,” but he had little left. He
had already given all he had.

I do not know the mind of my chief at this point. I think that at
times when his indignation mounted high he, too, said: “Let us fight
to the death. The happy hunting grounds are near. They await us. Why
do we continue in our hunger and despair?” And then, as some good man
spoke to him, recalled to him the friends he had among the palefaces,
he had a gleam of hope, and recalled his bitter words.

That he was not afraid I know. Death held nothing appalling. Life
offered little. Why should he fear to die? He was fifty-six years old
and his days were nearly done. Furthermore, he could not look into
the future without pain, for he saw his people slaves or vagabonds
among an alien race.

During these weeks fear and hate of him revived among the settlers
in all the Western states and the papers were filled with demands
for his death. The near-by white settlers called loudly for troops,
and some of those to the north went so far as to patrol the borders
of the reservation in order to meet the warriors of The Sitting Bull
when they broke forth in war array. They were glad of an excuse to
utter their charges against us as cumberers of the earth, which they
desired. Feeling the millions of their fellows back of them and
knowing that troops were near, they were very brave.

In spite of the agent’s cruel order, a large number of the sternest
warriors of the Uncapappas remained at Rock Creek, and when he saw
this he was afraid to carry out his plan for arresting the chief.
With intent to league himself with cold and snow, he waited for
winter to fall, keeping vigilant eye on the War Department, lest the
Secretary should steal away the honor of arresting the chief. He was
not anxious to invite interference on the part of the military. “I
can take care of the reservation,” he repeated to the commander of
the post.

The chief understood his feeling and said to my father: “I will obey
the orders of the great war chief, but I will not be ordered about by
this agent. He has used me like a dog. The Great Father at Washington
said to me: ‘Sitting Bull, you are the head of the Sioux nation,
and I hold you responsible for the conduct of your people. Keep the
peace.’ I promised him that I would do this, but the agent has always
turned his back to me or has thrown words at me that are like stones
or mud. He has lied about me and his letters have made the settlers
angry. He now wishes to shut me up merely that he can smile and say:
‘I am a great chief; I have conquered The Sitting Bull.’ This I will
not permit him to do.”

Therefore, his armed sentries continued to ride the buttes
surrounding the camp. No one could come within twenty miles of his
camp without seeing shadowy horsemen appear and disappear on the
high hills. Every blanket concealed a weapon, while the dance went
on almost day and night, and one by one his cattle were killed and
eaten, till at last all were gone.

My own position became each day more intolerable. Within my heart
opposing passions warred. Here were my brothers about to fight their
last battle—persisting in a defiance which was as insane as their
religion. I could not deceive myself. The instant I returned to
the white men and the sight of my books I acknowledged the tragic
desperation of my people. The dance became merely another of the
religious frenzies which wise men say have attacked the human race,
at intervals, for ten thousand years. A letter from The Blackbird
said: “Keep away, Philip. Don’t mix in that mess. You can do no good.
Your letter makes it evident that a tragic end is inevitable. You
have done all you can. Throw in your lot with the white man. On the
whole, the white man has the organization for the new conditions. To
die with your people would be superb, but it would be wasteful. Don’t
do it, my boy. Use your best influence against violence, but avoid
danger. There is work for you to do in helping your people bridge the
chasm between their mode of life and ours.”

I told him that I was already denounced as a coward and a traitor to
my race. He replied: “No matter; ten years from now those who are
still alive will see you in the light of a wise leader.” And in the
spirit of this letter I sent word to my chief, saying that it was
best to accept the agent’s rule.

The department did not like to be called rash; it feared the
influence of the Indians’ friends in the East and so it hesitated,
and these days of waiting were days of torture to us all. I could not
look any man in the face. I went about my duties as if I, too, were
in a trance. I really could have been called a spy, for when one of
the scouts of my father asked me what was going on at the agency I
told him I was under suspicion by both races and knew not where to
turn for comfort.

The agent required my presence in his office each day, and to see my
father and my chief meant a night ride of nearly eighty miles. This I
dared not attempt, for the chief now reasoned that I had surely gone
over to the enemy and I was certain he would not let me come to him.
I was despised and rejected of both white man and red man, and had no
one to comfort me.

The weather continued mild. Each day I searched the sky for signs of
a storm. If only a tempest of snow would sweep over us it would stop
the dancing, it would cool the fury of anger, and yet when the hate
and contempt of the white man broke forth in my presence I hoped that
my chief would fight. Better to die like the lion than live like a
trapped wolf.

Meanwhile the chief and his little band continued to test the new
religion, but the Chief was not satisfied.

“Why do these visions come only to the women and weak men? Why do
they not come to my ‘Silent Eaters?’ Why does it not happen that I
can go and see these things and return?”

He was growing weary of his prison and longed for the bright world
where the spirits were. At last he came to a great resolution. He
determined to leave the reservation and visit The Kicking Bear in
order to learn more of the Messiah. He wished to know whether any new
revelation had been made to other tribes. He had exhausted the value
of the phenomena in his own camp and remained unconvinced.

He said: “The agent is going to send for me soon. I may go to the
agency and I may not. No matter. You must not get into trouble on my
account.”

Can you imagine what it means to a chief, when his proud, free race
sinks to the position of beggars and children, forbidden to trade,
forbidden to hunt, forbidden to make presents, ordered into line like
cattle, debarred from amusement like convicts, and condemned to wear
the white man’s cast-off clothing?

“If this religion is true, then we may hope. If it is not, then all
is over,” he said. “I will myself go seek those who saw the wonder
worker. Perhaps I shall find him and he will take pity on us and save
us from destruction. Wait patiently till I return, for then you will
know the truth.”

He arranged to leave at daybreak, and his guard was to follow him
later to see that he was not mistreated. There were not many of the
“Silent Eaters” now, but they were ready to go where he went, and die
with him if need rose.

I do not pretend to follow the turnings of his mind, but I think
he had resolved to leave the reservation even at the risk of being
arrested and brought back by the police, considering that the word
and the promise he sought to verify were worth more than anything
else on the earth.

It must have been in some such mood that he prepared for his long
journey, while still the dance went on, and the white people accused
him of leading a revolt.

XIV

THE DEATH OF THE CHIEF

The news of the chief’s intended departure, which was brought to
the agent by a spy, decided him to act at once. In accordance with
instructions from the department he went to Colonel Drum, the
commander of the garrison, and arranged to seize the chief before he
rose the next morning. The native police were to make the arrest, but
the troops were to be within supporting distance and to share in the
honor!

The leaders of the police were enemies of the chief. The Shave Head
was especially malignant. The reason was this: When The Sitting
Bull visited the Crows in 1884 Shave Head accompanied him. During a
dance one night the Crows grossly insulted the visitors and Shave
Head wished to kill them, but the chief counseled mild speaking.
“We must not quarrel,” he said, and went away. Shave Head was very
angry, and for his forbearance called The Sitting Bull a coward,
when, as a matter of fact, a single gesture by this reckless fool
might have involved the whole camp in an uproar. Thereafter he lost
no opportunity for insulting and annoying the chief, who bore it
patiently, knowing that a harsh word in reply would only make matters
worse.

Big Head, the lieutenant of police, was also opposed to the chief;
in truth the entire force was carefully chosen from those hangers-on
at the agency or from the Yanktonaise, ready, under the white man’s
pay, to act against the chief, whose contempt for such traitors and
weaklings was well known. In the days of The Sitting Bull’s power
these factions existed. The Gall and The Gray Bear were jealous of
his great fame, although The Gall never became actually disloyal. The
Gray Bear did and lost no chance of doing his old chief harm. It is a
disgraceful thing to say of my people, but some of them, for a new
uniform and twenty dollars, would kill their blood relatives. Witness
the so-called “scouts” of the army in Arizona.

My father says that The Sitting Bull advised against all violence,
but I must admit that his supporters were armed and that they had
sworn to protect him against mistreatment. Perhaps he accepted their
loyalty gratefully, and when he decided to go forth on his search for
the Messiah they asked to go with him in a body.

It would not seem strange to me if he had decided never to be taken
from his people alive.

He was growing old, and to suffer exile would be to die lingeringly.
How much he knew of the agent’s plan to imprison him I do not know,
but I have heard him assert his right (which the commissioner had
orally given him) to come and go as any other citizen of the state.
As chief man of his nation he considered it a gross injustice to be
told, “You shall not cross this line.” “So long as I go peaceably
and feed myself I do not see what right the agent has to object.
Washington has said it and I go.”

On the night before his departure he addressed the “Silent Eaters.”
“Be peaceful, do nothing harsh,” he said; “wait for my return. I go
to visit Mato. Perhaps he has a new message for us. Perhaps he has
again visited the Messiah. If he has not, then we will go together.”

He was at the dance till midnight and, being weary was still sleeping
soundly when just before dawn Bull Head and seven other renegades
gathered silently round his bed.

As Bull Head laid a hand on him the chief opened his eyes and quietly
asked. “What do you want?”

“Be silent. The agent wants you to come to him,” Bull Head replied in
a low voice. “Get up quickly.”

The chief lay for a time in thought. He saw the armed men and knew
them to be enemies. Across the room his wife was sleeping with her
children. Resistance would mean death. He did not wish to die in her
presence.

“Very well,” he said, calmly, “I will go.” He partly rose. “But I
must dress. It is cold, I wish to wear my new overcoat. Let me wake
my wife to fetch it.”

Bull Head, less savage than Shave Head, said: “Good. We will wait,”
but as the wife realized what these men had come to do she began to
wail, “They will take him away,” and this wakened the children, who
also began to cry.

Soon many feet were heard running rapidly. Catching up their blankets
and concealing their rifles beneath their garments, the “Silent
Eaters” came hurrying to the rescue, not knowing what was happening,
but ready for battle.

The whole camp was in a tumult before Bull Head could rush The
Sitting Bull to the threshold.

One of the first of the old guard was The Bear Catcher, a man of
fiery resolution, who cried out in a loud voice: “They are taking our
chief. Let us prevent them.”

Bull Head replied: “The agent has ordered it. Keep away!”

Bear Catcher again cried: “Let us stop this thing,” and, flinging
aside his blanket, leveled his rifle at Bull Head and fired. The
renegade fell, but in falling shot the chief. At almost the same
instant Shave Head, recreant dog, seized the opportunity to put a
bullet into the great heart of my chief, who fell and died without
speaking a word, while the battle went on above his prostrate body.

For a time nothing could be heard but the shouts of the warring
ones and the crack of their guns. When it was ended eight of the
“Silent Eaters” lay dead beside their chief, and with them fell four
renegades who went to their tragic end under a mistaken call of
duty—to be forever execrated for slaying their chief at the white
man’s command.

Taking shelter in the house, the other traitors killed the mute son
of the chief and were about to be burned out by the “Silent Eaters”
when the sound of a cannon on the hill announced the coming of the
soldiers. The renegades were saved by the bluecoats.

* * * * *

It is well that the body of my chief fell into the hands of his
honorable enemies, for it was being mutilated when the colonel
interfered. There were Sioux warriors so misbegotten that they were
ready to crush the dead lion’s helpless head, but the white commander
of the garrison took every precaution that the bones of the chief
should lie undisturbed in death.

The post surgeon at Fort Yates received the body and prepared it
for burial. In the afternoon of the following day it was sewn up in
canvas and placed in a coffin and buried in the northeast corner
of the military cemetery, without ceremony and with few to mourn,
though far away my people were waiting in unappeasable grief over the
passing of their great leader.

And so it is that in spite of vandal white men and traitorous reds
the dust of my chieftain lies undisturbed in a neglected corner of
a drear little military graveyard, near the Great Muddy River which
was the eastern boundary of his lands. The sod is hot with untempered
sun in summer, and piled with snow in winter, but in early spring
the wild roses bloom on the primeval sod above his bones. No hand
cares for the grave, no one visits it, and yet, nevertheless, the
name written on that whitewashed board is secure on the walls of the
red man’s pantheon, together with that of Red Jacket and Tecumseh,
Osceola and Black Hawk. Civilization marches above his face, but the
heel of the oppressor cannot wear from the record of his race the
name of “Ta-tank-yo-tanka,” The Sitting Bull.

He epitomized the epic, tragic story of my kind. His life spanned
the gulf between the days of our freedom and the death of every
custom native to us. He saw the invader come and he watched the
buffalo disappear. Within the half century of his conscious life he
witnessed greater changes and comprehended more of my tribe’s tragic
history than any other red man.

These are the words of my father, the chief of the “Silent Eaters,”
and his voice was tremulous as he spoke them: “Ta-tank-yo-tanka was a
great chief and a good man. He had nothing bad about him. He was ever
peacemaker, and just and honorable in his dealings. He cared only
for the good of his people. He was unselfish and careful of others.
He will grow bigger like a mountain as he recedes into the past. He
was chief among red men and we shall never see his like again. If the
Great Spirit does not hate his red children, our Father is happy in
the home of the spirits—the land of the returning buffalo.”

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Indian use the word “medicine” should be understood to mean
magic power. A medicine man may heal the sick, but a healer is not
necessarily a medicine man. A medicine man is a seer, a yogi.

[2] A substantially true account of an incident well-known to border
men.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.

Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

Pg 194: ‘while our brethern’ replaced by ‘while our brethren’.
Pg 200: ‘ ut we come’ replaced by ‘But we come’.
Pg 218: ‘Will your break down’ replaced by ‘Will you break down’.
Pg 219: ‘of the widsom of’ replaced by ‘of the wisdom of’.
Pg 219: ‘Menneconjous’ replaced by ‘Minneconjous’.

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