ther Indian delegates,
met in a grand council at the Patent Office building. All the Indians
were dressed in full costume, and seemed to be impressed with the
importance of the occasion. Secretary Cox made a long address to the
Indians on behalf of the President, assuring them that if they would go
to their reservations, and keep the peace, all the rations and goods
promised them by the government would be sent to them, and agents also,
to see that they reached them safely.

In regard to giving them arms and ammunition, he said they would not be
given them at present, but after they have kept themselves peaceable on
reservations for a time, these would be furnished.

Red Cloud then shook hands with all, and said:

"I came from where the sun sets. You were raised on the chairs. I
want to sit where the Indian warrior sat."

Sitting down on the floor, Indian fashion, he went on:

"The Great Spirit has raised me this way. He raised me naked. I
make no opposition to the Great Father who sits in the White House.
I don't want to fight. I have offered my prayer to the Great Father
so that I might come here safe and well. What I have to say to you
and to these men, and to my Great Father, is this: Look at me! I
was raised where the sun rises, and I came from where he sets.
Whose voice was the first heard in this land? The red people's. Who
raised the bow? The Great Father may be good and kind, but I can't
see it. I am good and kind to white people, and have given my
lands, and have now come from where the sun sets to see you. The
Great Father has sent his people out there, and left me nothing but
an island. Our nation is melting away like the snow on the side of
the hills where the sun is warm, while your people are like the
blades of grass in the spring when summer is coming. I don't want
to see the white people making roads in our country. Now that I
have come into my Great Father's land, see if I have any blood when
I return home. The white people have sprinkled blood on the blades
of grass about the line of Fort Fetterman. Tell the Great Father to
remove that fort, and then we will be peaceful, and there will be
no more troubles.

"I have yet two mountains in that country,--the Black Hills and Big
Horn. I want no roads there. There have been stakes driven in that
country, and I want them removed. I have told these things