The old squaw kept on with her work, as she replied, "Because they want our lands, our ponies, our grass for their own pony herds, and they want to kill all the buffalo and antelope, so there will be none left for us. Then we could not make new tepees, nor warm robes, nor clothes, nor moccasins. Our ponies would all die if the white men had the prairie lands, and the white hunters killed the game which they did not need for food. Other Indians have told us how the white men cut the hides from buffaloes that lie as thick as fallen leaves, and then leave the meat to spoil or for coyotes to eat. Indians hunt that they may have enough meat and robes to provide for their tribes. So it will be with the grass. The white men's herds will eat it all, leaving our ponies to starve."
"But the world is so big," Songbird spoke, "why cannot all men dwell in peace and share the game and grass?"
"Because the white people want to rule us," the Picture-maker answered quickly. "We lived here long before the white men came. We are the children of the Great Spirit. He gave us the land, He gave us the wild horses that we might tame and use them, He gave us the buffalo and deer, the antelope on the flats, the fish in the streams, that we might live happily. And because these things all belong to the Great Spirit, we did not kill more than we needed.
"The tribes did not quarrel with each other, for each had its own land and no one sought to drive them from it. Men were taught not to lie or steal, and a man who pledged his word was dishonoured if he broke it. But long years ago tales came to us through other tribes, of men with white faces who lied, stole, and cheated Indians who had believed in them. These white-faced men killed the game, killed the Indians, burned their tepees, then came in still greater numbers and drove the Indians from place to place, saying, 'This is our land. This game belongs to us. You must not touch it!'"
Moko paused and Songbird kept silent, fearing the old woman might not speak further, but at last she went on.
"When game grew scarce in the places where we had been driven, our warriors went in search of foods and robes for the old people, the squaws, and the children. White men, who saw them coming, did not ask why our men had wandered from the camps, but began to fight. After that day our warriors fought every white man they met. Each chief knew that unless he fought, his own tribe would be driven until it had no place to go, no game to eat, no robes for tepees or to sleep under when cold nights brought wind and snow, and soon all the Indians would die."
"My father's mother did not want to go away from us," said Songbird. "Many times he has told me she loved the Comanche people."
"I saw her grief"—the old Picture-maker spoke slowly, and now her wrinkled hand lay idly in her lap—"I heard her beg the white men to leave her with us, but they would not listen to her. So Preloch, the white squaw of Peta Nocona, and her baby daughter, Prairie Flower, went away and none of us ever saw them again. That is how the white men would treat all of the Indians if we did not fight them."
"My father tells me that his mother was three winters older than I am now, at the time his father carried her to our camp." Songbird leaned forward. Her body rested on the ground, but her elbow propped her cheek, so that she might still watch the work of the old Picture-maker. "Tell me about her, please."
Moko nodded, but her hand moved less swiftly as she began talking, while her eyes looked through the tepee opening across the rolling prairie, as though she saw once more the young son of the chief coming into camp with the white child in his arms.