at father! When did a father wash his hands in his children's
blood? When did a father rob his children of their homes? When did a
father drive his children in anger into the wilderness, where they
will find an enemy who claim it as the gift of the Great Spirit, and
who will fight to retain it? Strike, and let me die--no time, no place
like this! The mother of my sons, their sisters, perished for food,
when I with my sons was fighting for our homes. I am alone; and not
afraid to die! Strike: eighty winters are on my head--they are heavier
than your sword! They weigh me to the earth! Strike, and let me go to
my squaw, my sons, and my daughters, and let me forget my wrongs!
Strike, and let my grave be here, where all I have is in the ground!
Strike: I would sleep where I was born--all around me are the graves
of my people, let mine be among them; and when the Great Spirit shall
come, let Him find us all together, here with our fathers of a
thousand winters, who first built their wigwams here, and who first
taught their children to be more cautious than the panther--more
watchful than the turkey!"

"I will not strike you," said the General. "No, I will not strike my
foe, a prisoner; but here is my hand in friendship."

"No," said the chief; "you have put your sword in its pocket, put your
hand in its pocket; do not let it reach out to blind me, or to take my
home. I am the white man's enemy; his friendship I fear more than his
anger. It is more fatal to the red man. It takes away his home, and
forces him living to go away and grieve for his country, and the
graves of his fathers, and to starve in a strange land. In his anger
he kills, and its mercy shuts his eyes and his heart away from the
wrongs and the miseries of his people. I have lived and I will die the
white man's enemy. I have done you all the harm in my power. If I
could, I would do you more. My tongue is not forked like yours, my
heart has no lies to make it speak to deceive. Strike, and let me go
to the happy hunting-grounds where all my people are."

He sat down upon the ground, and, in a low, monotonous, melancholy
tone, chanted the death-song.

"Who-ah-who-allee! wait for me, I am coming. Who-ah-who-allee! prepare
the feast, the great warrior's feast. Who-ah-who-allee! let my boys
and my braves come down to welcome me. Who-ah-who-allee! those who
went before me, tell them the old warrior is coming. Who-ah-who-allee!
the white man has come, he treads on t