Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/310

Uncle Sam, Trustee than twice the sum that will be paid to the Indians for the lands taken; more visitors, and more visitors' money, than South Dakota had seen in ten years. Did it pay? Of course it paid. What would a sane, competitive sale at fair value have been, compared to this?

Who furnished the prizes? The Rosebud Indians,—the erstwhile followers of the powerful Spotted Tail. In 1877 we saw the Poncas driven by Congress into worse than Siberian exile that it might reward Spotted Tail for his valiant services in securing peace with the Black Hills Sioux. Now we see the dwindling remnant of Spotted Tail's people robbed by Congress that it may pay its political debt to the stalwart South Dakota delegation.

And the Steal? The entries made at both the four-dollar and the three-dollar rates will yield, if all entrymen pay in full, about $850,000; but after the first excitement, many will never make the second payment. What the Indians will eventually get for the remaining lands is problematical,—the four-year game of "heads I win, tails you lose" is now on for the grazing land. Taken as a whole, a guaranteed return of one million dollars for the tract would have been a better sale for the Indians; they could have sold for two million dollars. The steal? Approximately one million dollars. 287