There was a
cheering crowd. There was roping, and marvelous riding.
But my eyes were fixed on the grand-stand with a stony stare.
I am an adopted Blackfoot Indian, known in the tribe as "Pi-ta-mak-an,"
and only a few weeks before I had had a long conference with the chiefs
of the tribe, Two Guns, White Calf (the son of old White Calf, the great
chief who dropped dead in the White House during President Cleveland's
administration), Medicine Owl and Curly Bear and Big Spring and Bird
Plume and Wolf Plume and Bird Rattler and Bill Shute and
Stabs-by-Mistake and Eagle Child and Many Tail-Feathers--and many more.
[Illustration: _Pi-ta-mak-an, or Running Eagle (Mrs. Rinehart), with two
other members of the Blackfoot Tribe_]
And these Indians had all promised me that, as soon as our conference
was over, they were going back to the Reservation to get in their hay
and work hard for the great herd which the Government had promised to
give them. They were going to be good Indians.
So I stared at the grand-stand with a cold and fixed eye. For there,
very many miles from where they should have been, off the Reservation
without permission of the Indian agent, painted and bedecked in all the
glory of their forefathers--paint, feathers, beads, strings of thimbles
and little mirrors--handsome, bland, and enjoying every instant to the
full in their childish hearts, were my chiefs.
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