to
give up our homes, our hunting grounds, and the honorable teaching of
our old men? Shall we permit ourselves to be driven to and fro--to be
herded like the cattle of the white man?"

His next speech that has been remembered was made in 1866, just before
the attack on Fort Phil Kearny. The tension of feeling against the
invaders had now reached its height. There was no dissenting voice in
the council upon the Powder River, when it was decided to oppose to
the uttermost the evident purpose of the government. Red Cloud was not
altogether ignorant of the numerical strength and the resourcefulness
of the white man, but he was determined to face any odds rather than
submit.

"Hear ye, Dakotas!" he exclaimed. "When the Great Father at Washington
sent us his chief soldier [General Harney] to ask for a path through
our hunting grounds, a way for his iron road to the mountains and the
western sea, we were told that they wished merely to pass through our
country, not to tarry among us, but to seek for gold in the far west.
Our old chiefs thought to show their friendship and good will, when they
allowed this dangerous snake in our midst. They promised to protect the
wayfarers.

"Yet before the ashes of the council fire are cold, the Great Father
is building his forts among us. You have heard the sound of the white
soldier's ax upon the Little Piney. His presence here is an insult and a
threat. It is an insult to the spirits of our ancestors. Are we then
to give up their sacred graves to be plowed for corn? Dakotas, I am for
war!"

In less than a week after this speech, the Sioux advanced upon Fort Phil
Kearny, the new sentinel that had just taken her place upon the farthest
frontier, guarding the Oregon Trail. Every detail of the attack had
been planned with care, though not without heated discussion, and
nearly every well-known Sioux chief had agreed in striking the blow.
The brilliant young war leader, Crazy Horse, was appointed to lead the
charge. His lieutenants were Sword, Hump, and Dull Knife, with Little
Chief of the Cheyennes, while the older men acted as councilors. Their
success was instantaneous. In less than half an hour, they had cut down
nearly a hundred men under Captain Fetterman, whom they drew out of the
fort by a ruse and then annihilated.

Instead of sending troops to punish, the government sent a commission
to treat with the Sioux. The result was the famous treaty of 1868, which
Red Cloud was the last