away, a great council among the Indians was
held; all the tribes possible were called to this big council on the
Platte River. All the different tribes were there. A white man came
there and brought a lot of stuff, such as clothes, plates, guns, coffee
grinders, knives, blankets, and food, and gave them to the Indians. They
also brought shoes. This man said that he wanted some Indians to go to
Washington. They went down the Missouri River. They went by ox team from
the Platte River to the Missouri, and then by ship down the Missouri
River. These men were gone to Washington for a year; they came back about
the middle of the summer. The President told the Indians they were his
grandchildren, and thus the Indians called the President their
grandfather. Grandfather told them that a white man would come and live
with them, and that for fifty-five years they would get clothes and food.
I was nine years old when they held the council and ten years old when
they came back. From the time of the council the old people settled down
in the Black Hills and in the south and quit running around. From that
time all the Indians became friends of the white man, and the white man
bought the buffalo hides and other skins. After they settled down
everything went along all right until I was fifteen years old, and then
the whites came in and there was a fight between the whites and Cheyennes
and some other tribes of Indians. I do not know what happened, but some
Cheyennes went over to the white man's camp on Shell River, and the white
men started to fire at the Indians. That was the cause of the trouble
that year. Later the Comanches and Apaches and Kiowas fought among
themselves, and came north to fight the Cheyennes. We called them the
Texas Indians. Then the wars between the tribes and the hostilities
between the Red and White grew less and less. There was a man named
Honey;--the Indians called him Bee--he told the Cheyennes they must not
fight. In the numerous battles in which I was engaged I received many
wounds. I was wounded by the Pawnee Indians in a fight with them, by an
arrow; wounded again at Elk River in the Yellowstone, when I was shot
through the arm by a Crow of the Big Horn. I was wounded again on the
Crow River in Utah in a fight with the United States soldiers, when I was
shot through the thigh. I had my horse shot through the jaw in a fight
with the Crows, but to-day I am a friend of all the tribes; once