three
times, and now have come here to tell them for the fourth time. I
have made up my mind to take that way. I don't want my reservation
on the Missouri home of these people. I hear that my old men and
children are dying off like sheep. The country don't suit them. I
was born at the Forks of the Platte. My father and mother told me
that the land there belonged to me. From the north and west the red
nation has come into the Great Father's house. We are the last of
the Ogallallas. We have come to know the facts from our Father, why
the promises which have been made to us have not been kept.

"I want two or three traders that we asked for at the mouth of
Horse Creek in 1852. There was a treaty made, and the man who made
the treaty (alluding to General Mitchell), who performed that
service for the government, told the truth. The goods which have
been sent out to me have been stolen all along the road, and only a
handful would reach to go among my nation.

"Look at me here! I am poor and naked. I was not provided with
arms, and always wanted to be peaceful. The Great Spirit has raised
you to read and write, and has put papers before you; but he has
not raised me in that way. The men whom the President sends us are
soldiers, and all have no sense and no heart. I know it to-day. I
didn't ask that the whites should go through my country killing
game, and it is the Great Father's fault. You are the people who
should keep peace. For the railroads you are passing through my
country, I have not received even so much as a brass ring for the
land they occupy. [Nor even a shilling an acre for the lands taken
from the red men, he might have said.] I wish you to tell my Great
Father that the whites make all the ammunition. What is the reason
you don't give it to me? Are you afraid I am going to war? You are
great and powerful, and I am only a handful. I don't want it for
that purpose, but to kill game with. I suppose I must in time go to
farming, but I can't do it right away."

Secretary Cox promised that their complaints should be attended to by
the Great Father.

_Another Interview._

The Secretary made a speech, saying that some of the requests made by
the Indians concerning their rations and allowing them traders would be
acceded to, and that government would do all in its power to make them
happy. H