Chapter VII: Part 7

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.

_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_]

_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.

IV

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.

V

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.

_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 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.

VI

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.