Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/645

154 been such as to make us miserable. You have driven away our game and our means of livelihood out of the country, until now we have nothing left that is valuable except the hills that you ask us to give up. When we give these up to the Great Father we know that we give up the last thing that is valuable either to us or the white people; and therefore my people wish me to say that, as long as two Indians are living, we expect them to have the benefit of the price paid for these lands.

My friend, [to the chairman,] I am going to give you a pipe. Perhaps we are deceiving each other in this matter, perhaps we are not going to be truthful, and shall commit a great sin, but I for my part am trying to speak the truth.

—I look upon you as you sit before me, and I see that there are no boys among you; that you are all men of age, and I am glad to see it. I am very old, very near the time when I shall lie down in the earth. Therefore if you have really come to help us we are very happy. I will speak now about myself. I am an orphan. Before my father died he told me that my country was very valuable. You say you are going to give me rations by weight; I do not know anything about that; I think it will take me at least twelve years to understand it. It is only yesterday that the people of my generation were laid in the ground, and I am the only one left. My father, who is now dead, went to the Great Father's house and talked with him there. The people have now given you the Black Hills, and we for our part would like to go to our Great Father's house and hear how much money he proposes to give us in return. Again, the whisky that the white people have and carry about with them is very bad. We hear that our people who are living up to the north of us drink a great deal of whisky. We do not like it at all. My friends, I am going to ask you for something that I want. I do not think it possible that you have come out here to ask me for something without paying me for it. I do not consider myself very rich. You white people come out here with a great many pockets in your clothes. Probably the person who sent you told you what to do with the things in your pockets. I would like to have you take up a collection. Each of you put your hands in your pockets and take out ten cents and give it to me to buy something at the store. You are not particularly modest in asking for the things you want, and I see no reason