Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/47

 left for me. The large country I gave Governor Stevens, and you have not paid for it. The white man has settled on it. I feel that I have here a small piece of land left, this that I live on now. The whites have all the land outside, and the other reservations are all full of people who belong on them. The Nez Perce are living on their reservation, and the Indians at Simcoe are on their reservation. The Indians below live on Warm Spring reservation. I see that they are all living on their own reservations, and feel just as I do living on mine. The same I said before I say again, I cannot let my reservation go. That is what I have to say now to your commissioners."

Then Wenap-Snoot followed; and Hom-li. Tenale-Temane made a characteristic Indian speech:

"I have heard what you said to me. There is my friend Mr. Brunot; he has just come here; I heard him with my ears and with my heart, and what I heard him say he talked straight. When he talked of God, of Him who made the ground on which we stand, my heart was glad, and I thought he talked straight; this is why I thought we were going to have a straight talk. The whites talked to me some time ago, and I came over here. The land was marked out for me and I came upon it. We have been here eleven years; and since I saw this reservation, I have been on it ever since. I looked and saw with my eyes, there is so much land