LIEUT.-GOV. MORRIS--"I told you before we have nothing to do with the Company, we have nothing to do with its debts. I have told you what we will do for you, what the Queen will do for you forever. But the money that the Indian owes the Company is just like the money that the Indians owe to each other or to any trader and is not due to the Queen. We have no power to put money in your hands and your children's to pay your debts, and it would not be right for the Queen to come in and take away either what is between you and the Company, or what is between you and the traders, or what is between you and each other. If one of you owes the Chief is it right that the Queen should wipe it out? I would be very glad if we had it in our power to wipe out your debts, but it is not in our power. All we can do is to put money in your hands and promise to put money in the hands of those who are away, and give you money every year afterwards, and help you to make a living when the food is scarce. I have told you from the first that whether my words please you or not I will tell you only the truth, and I will only speak as far as the Queen has given us power."
(He who walks on four claws)--"Whenever you give to these my children what they desire, then you will get what you want."
LIEUT.-GOV. MORRIS--"We will give them what we have power to give. We are ready to hear."
KAMOOSES--"Yes, I understand and my heart also, but it is
not large, it is small, and my understanding is small; that is the word I tell you."
LIEUT.-GOV. MORRIS--"I have told you what we are ready to do for you. Your understanding is large enough to know what is good for you. We have talked these many days, and I ask you now to talk straight, to tell me your mind, to tell me whether you wish to take our offers or not, it is for you to say."
KEE-E-KUK--"Twenty dollars we want to be put in our hand every year, this we have heard from the others. Twenty-five dollars to each chief."
LIEUT.-GOV. MORRIS--"If I understand you aright you are mistaken. The Saulteaux did not get twenty-five dollars per head. They get five dollars every year. We promised them five dollars every year, and a messenger was sent this year to pay them that sum. I may tell you that my children at the Lake of the Woods had big hearts to ask. You say you have small. I told them that if the Queen gave them all they asked I would have to ask her to allow me to become an Indian, but I told them I could not give them what they asked, and when they understood that, and understood the full breadth and width of the Queen's goodness, they took what I offered, and I think if you are wise you will do the same."
(A proposition was made here by an Indian that they should receive five dollars per head every second year for fifty years, but he must have done so without authority as it was not acceded to by the other Indians who expressed their dissent strongly as soon as the offer was made.)
KAMOOSES--"I am going to speak for Loud Voice and for the other chiefs. Some chiefs are not here, they are absent, hereafter you will see them. I myself will tell them, and my child that is at my back will tell them also. Will you receive that which I am asking? I want to clear up what the Indians and I want to try and put it right, what my child will say. Well, can you give me that. We want the same Treaty you