During the first lull in the proceedings, a delegation came to visit me
and to explain. This is what they said: First of all, they desired me to
make peace with the Indian agent. He was, they considered, most
unreasonable. There were many times when one could labor, and there was
but one round-up. They petitioned, then, that I intercede and see that
their ration-tickets were not taken away.
And even as the interpreter told me their plea, one old brave caught my
hand and pointed across to the enclosure, where a few captive buffalo
were grazing. I knew what it meant. These, my Blackfeet, had been the
great buffalo-hunters. With bow and arrow they had followed the herds
from Canada to the Far South. These chiefs had been mighty hunters. But
for many years not a single buffalo had their eyes beheld. They who had
lived by the buffalo were now dying with them. A few full-bloods shut
away on a reservation, a few buffalo penned in a corral--children of the
open spaces and of freedom, both of them, and now dying and imprisoned.
For the Blackfeet are a dying people.
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