Page:The Conquest.djvu/428

 heard of your war songs and war parties,—they do not please him. He desires that his red children should bury the tomahawk."

"Heigh! heigh!"

"Children! look around you. See the result of wars between nations who were once powerful and are now reduced to a few wandering families. You have examples enough before you.

"Children, your wars have resulted from your having no definite boundaries. You do not know what belongs to you, and your people follow the game into lands claimed by other tribes."

"Heigh! heigh!"

"Children, you have all assembled under your Father's flag. You are under his protection. Blood must not be spilt here. Whoever injures one of you injures us, and we will punish him as we would punish one of our own people."

"Heigh! heigh! heigh!" cried all the Indians.

"Children," said General Cass, "your Great Father does not want your land. He wants to establish boundaries and peace among you. Your Great Father has strong limbs and a piercing eye, and an arm that extends from the sea to Red River.

"Children, you are hungry. We will adjourn for two hours."

"Heigh! heigh! heigh-h!" rolled the chorus across the Prairie.

As to an army, rations were distributed, beef, bread, corn, salt, sugar, tobacco. Each ate, ate, ate,—till not a scrap was left to feed a humming-bird.

Revered of his people, Wabasha and his pipe-bearers were the observed of all.

"I never yet was present at so great a council as this," said Wabasha. Three thousand were at Prairie du Chien.

The Sioux? Far from the northwest they said their fathers came,—the Tartar cheek was theirs. Wabasha and his chiefs alone had the Caucasian countenance.

Three mighty brothers ruled the Sioux in