might well have proved
disastrous to the Forsythe command, whose leader was wounded and
helpless. The danger was acute until Roman Nose fell, and even then his
lieutenants were bent upon crossing at any cost, but some of the older
chiefs prevailed upon them to withdraw.

Thus the brilliant war chief of the Cheyennes came to his death. If he
had lived until 1876, Sitting Bull would have had another bold ally.

CHIEF JOSEPH

The Nez Perce tribe of Indians, like other tribes too large to be
united under one chief, was composed of several bands, each distinct in
sovereignty. It was a loose confederacy. Joseph and his people occupied
the Imnaha or Grande Ronde valley in Oregon, which was considered
perhaps the finest land in that part of the country.

When the last treaty was entered into by some of the bands of the Nez
Perce, Joseph's band was at Lapwai, Idaho, and had nothing to do with
the agreement. The elder chief in dying had counseled his son, then not
more than twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, never to part with
their home, assuring him that he had signed no papers. These peaceful
non-treaty Indians did not even know what land had been ceded until the
agent read them the government order to leave. Of course they refused.
You and I would have done the same.

When the agent failed to move them, he and the would-be settlers called
upon the army to force them to be good, namely, without a murmur to
leave their pleasant inheritance in the hands of a crowd of greedy
grafters. General O. O. Howard, the Christian soldier, was sent to do
the work.

He had a long council with Joseph and his leading men, telling them they
must obey the order or be driven out by force. We may be sure that he
presented this hard alternative reluctantly. Joseph was a mere youth
without experience in war or public affairs. He had been well brought
up in obedience to parental wisdom and with his brother Ollicut had
attended Missionary Spaulding's school where they had listened to the
story of Christ and his religion of brotherhood. He now replied in
his simple way that neither he nor his father had ever made any treaty
disposing of their country, that no other band of the Nez Perces was
authorized to speak for them, and it would seem a mighty injustice and
unkindness to dispossess a friendly band.

General Howard told them in effect that they had no rights, no voice in
the matter: they had only to obey. Although some of the l