erpreted or
explained to us. We are told it gives about three hundred boxes
($300,000) of our money to some of the traders! We don't think we owe
them so much. We want to pay all our debts. We want our Great Father to
send three good men here to tell us how much we do owe, and whatever
they say, we will pay; and (pointing to the Indians) that's what all
these braves say. Our chiefs and all our people say this.'

And the Indians responded with the usual 'Ho! ho!' of acquiescence.

But the Governor don't see it. A poor devil of an Indian, according to
his Christian conviction, ought to be content to pay unaudited, untaxed
bills, wherein the margin is broad enough for any scoundrel to do his
robberies by tens of thousands. So his excellency told Red Iron:

GOVERNOR. 'That can't be done!' [Nay, more confounding and
appalling still, he added:] 'You owe more than your money will pay, and
I am ready now to pay your annuity, and no more; and when you are ready
to receive it, the Agent will pay it.'

Red Iron replies in a speech full of pathos:

RED IRON. 'We will receive our annuity, but we will sign no
papers for anything else.' [You've swindled us enough, lied to us deep
enough already, and we have no belief in your words or agreements.] 'The
snow is on the ground, and we have been waiting a long time to get our
money. We are poor; you have plenty. Your fires are warm; your _tepees_
(wigwams, tents) keep out the cold. We have nothing to eat. We have been
waiting a long time for our moneys. Our hunting season is past. A great
many of our people are sick for being hungry. We must die because you
won't pay us. We may die! but if we do' [hold on, reader! no curses on
the white men are coming next, as one might naturally expect, either
from Christian or heathen orator, under the circumstances!]--'but if we
do,' he continues, 'we will leave our bones on the ground, that our
Great Father may see where his Dacotah children died!' [He has seen many
such shambles, O thou eloquent Indian! eloquent to ears of flint and
hearts of granite! and I never heard that the 'Great Father' ever shed a
single tear over them.] He goes on: 'We are very poor. We have sold our
hunting grounds, and with them the graves of our fathers. We have sold
our own graves.' [Out of all those hundreds of thousands of acres, not
six feet of earth, which they could call their own, left for any one of
them!] 'We have no place to bury our dead, and you will not pay