quence
and force--"the Government never refuse you meat. Last winter your
people would have starved but for the Government."

"No," cried the Indian again in harsh quick reply, the rage in his
face growing deeper, "my children cry--Indian cannot sleep--my white
brother's ears are closed. He hear only the wind--the storm--he sound
sleep. For me no sleep--my children cry too loud."

"My brother knows," replied Cameron, "that the Government is far away,
that it takes a long time for answer to come back to the Indian cry.
But the answer came and the Indian received flour and bacon and tea and
sugar, and this winter will receive them again. But how can my brother
expect the Government to care for his people if the Indians break the
law? That is not good. These Indians are bad Indians and the Police will
punish the thieves. A thief is a bad man and ought to be punished."

Suddenly a new voice broke in abruptly upon the discourse.

"Who steal the Indian's hunting-ground? Who drive away the buffalo?" The
voice rang with sharp defiance. It was the voice of Onawata, the Sioux
Chief.

Cameron paid no heed to the ringing voice. He kept his back turned upon
the Sioux.

"My brother knows," he continued, addressing himself to Running Stream,
"that the Indian's best friend is the Government, and the Police are the
Government's ears and eyes and hands and are ready always to help the
Indians, to protect them from fraud, to keep away the whisky-peddlers,
to be to them as friends and brothers. But my brother has been listening
to a snake that comes from another country and that speaks with a forked
tongue. Our Government bought the land by treaty. Running Stream knows
this to be no lie, but the truth. Nor did the Government drive away the
buffalo from the Indians. The buffalo were driven away by the Sioux from
the country of the snake with the forked tongue. My brother remembers
that only a few years ago when the people to which this lying snake
belongs came over to this country and tried to drive away from their
hunting-grounds the Indians of this country, the Police protected the
Indians and drove back the hungry thieving Sioux to their own land. And
now a little bird has been telling me that this lying snake has been
speaking into the ears of our Indian brothers and trying to persuade
them to dig up the hatchet against their white brothers, their friends.
The Police know all about this and laugh at it. The Police know about
the