General Sully was absent at Washington, but every necessary precaution was taken to secure the fort.
Jumping Bear received a suit of clothes and some presents, and was sent back with a letter for me, which I never received, as I never saw him again. These facts I learned after my arrival at Fort Sully.
The night before our departure from the Blackfeet village, en route for the fort, I was lying awake, and heard the chief address his men seriously upon the subject of their wrongs at the hands of the whites. I now understood and spoke the Indian tongue readily, and so comprehended his speech, which, as near as I can recollect, was as follows:
“Friends and sons, listen to my words. You are a great and powerful band of our people. The inferior race, who have encroached on our rights and territories, justly deserve hatred and destruction. These intruders came among us, and we took them by the hand. We believed them to be friends and true speakers; they have shown us how false and cruel they can be.
“They build forts to live in and shoot from with their big guns. Our people fall before them. Our game is chased from the hills. Our women are taken from us, or won to forsake our lodges, and wronged and deceived.
“It has only been four or five moons since they drove us to desperation, killed our brothers and burned our tipis. The Indian cries for vengeance! There is no truth nor friendship in the white man; deceit and bitterness are in his words.
“Meet them with equal cunning. Show them no mercy. They are but few, we are many. Whet your knives and string your bows; sharpen the tomahawk and load the rifle.
“Let the wretches die, who have stolen our lands, and we will be free to roam over the soil that was our fathers’. We will come home bravely from battle. Our songs shall rise among the hills, and every tipi shall be hung with the scalp-locks of our foes.”
This declaration of hostilities was received with grunts of approval; and silently the war preparations went on, that I might not know the evil design hidden beneath the mask of friendship.
That night, as if in preparation for the work he had planned, the gracious chief beat his poor tired squaw unmercifully, because she murmured at her never-ending labor and heavy tasks.