on, tearing out the
banks along which on the plain were huddled the myriad tepees of the
Indian camp. The wind in the trees roared like distant thunder. The dogs
were crouching in any shelter. Horses were standing with their backs to
the storm, their tails drenched and driven between their legs. The flaps
of the tepees were closed, and the rawhide streamers from the poles
cracked like the sharp report of a rifle. The women and children were
closely huddled around the lodge fire. It was the great spring storm, the
last triumphant blast of winter. Yonder in the centre of all this
dripping circle of tepees stood the council lodge. Inside were gathered
the great chief and his medicine men and warriors. They encircled the
blazing logs, heeding little the melancholy night that kept tune with the
sorrowful thoughts of their own hearts. The ashes had cooled in the bowl
of the council pipe, when, at the head of the circle, Chief Plenty Coups,
chief of all the Crow Nation, arose from his blankets, laid down his coup
stick, and addressed his brothers:

"The ground on which we stand is sacred ground. It is the dust and blood
of our ancestors. On these plains the Great White Father at Washington
sent his soldiers armed with long knives and rifles to slay the Indian.
Many of them sleep on yonder hill where Pahaska--White Chief of the Long
Hair--so bravely fought and fell. A few more passing suns will see us here
no more, and our dust and bones will mingle with these same prairies. I
see as in a vision the dying spark of our council fires, the ashes cold
and white. I see no longer the curling smoke rising from our lodge poles.
I hear no longer the songs of the women as they prepare the meal. The
antelope have gone; the buffalo wallows are empty. Only the wail of the
coyote is heard. The white man's medicine is stronger than ours; his iron
horse rushes over the buffalo trail. He talks to us through his
'whispering spirit.' " (The Indian's name for the telegraph and
telephone.) "We are like birds with a broken wing. My heart is cold
within me. My eyes are growing dim--I am old. Before our red brothers
pass on to the happy hunting ground let us bury the tomahawk. Let us
break our arrows. Let us wash off our war paint in the river. And I will
instruct our medicine men to tell the women to prepare a great council
lodge. I will send our hunters into the hills and pines for deer. I will
send my runners to the lod