Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/105

 So the talk ended. My brother was to go in the morning. The colonel said, “We will go now and see the prisoners. I have twenty-five Queen’s River Piutes here already.” As we walked along he said,—

“They are very good Indians. They are always ready to do whatever I tell them to do that is in the line of work. You will see that I have given them such clothes as I give my soldiers, but the women and children I can’t do much for, because the government does not give me anything for them. But we will see what can be done for them after your father comes in, and when your sister gets rested, she may be able to do something for them.” We got to the camp at last. They all ran out of their tents to see us. The men ran to brother, saying, “My brother, oh, my brother!” They threw their arms round him, calling him many endearing words. Then they would throw their robes down on the ground for him to sit upon. They had not said a word to me until my brother told them I was his sister. Then they held out their hands to me, saying, “Our sister, we are glad to see you too. Oh, how kind of you to come and see us so far away.” Then the women came to me crying, and said the same, “Our sister, we are glad to see you. Oh, how kind of you to come and see us so fat away.” It is the way we savages do when we meet each other; we cry with joy and gladness. We ‘told the officer to go,—we would come back soon. We would be ready at seven o’clock. Our people said many beautiful things about their black-clothes fathers. They should have said blue-clothes. They said, “We are getting plenty to eat, and we men get nice clothes to wear, and we do very little work for the clothes. All the work we do is only child’s play. We would do more if they would only ask us to. We are as happy as we can be.” Brother said, “I am so glad, my people, to hear you say so, because I was going