Seger then said in a loud voice, “I am not a liar!” and repeated this in signs. “I told your children I would whip them if they did not obey me, and now I am going to do it! You know me; I do not say ‘I am your friend,’ and then work evil to your children. Jack, come here!” A little boy rose slowly and came and stood beside his teacher, who went on: “This is an orphan. He was dying in his grandmother’s tepee when I went to him. I took him—I nursed him—I sat by his bed many nights when you were asleep. Jennie,” he called again, “you come to me!” A shy little girl with scarred face tiptoed to her beloved teacher. “This one came to me so covered with sores that she was terrible to see. I washed her—she was almost blind. I made her see. I have done these things many times. There is not a child here that has not been helped by me. I am not boasting—this is my duty, it is the work the Great Father has told me to do. It is my work also to make your children obey me. I am the friend of all red men. I have eaten in your lodges. I have been in council with you. I am not a liar. It is my duty to whip disobedient children, and I will do it. Atokan, come up here!”
The boy rose and came forward, a smoldering fire in his black eyes. As Seger laid a hand on his shoulder and took up his whip Wahiah uttered a shuddering moan. A sinister stir went through the room. The white man’s dominion was about to be put to the final test. In Wahiah’s heart a mighty struggle was in progress. Love and pride in her son demanded that she put an end to the whipping, but her sense of justice, her love for Seger and her conviction that the boy was wrong kept her fixed and silent, though her lips quivered and the tears ran down her face. Tomacham’s broad breast heaved with passion, but he, too, remained silent.
“Will you obey me?” asked the master.
Receiving no answer, he took firm hold of Atokan’s collar and addressed the spectators. “Little Unko is younger than Atokan. He was led away by him. I will therefore give both whippings to Atokan,” and he brought the hissing withe down over the boy’s shoulders. Again a moan of involuntary protest went through the room. Never before had a white man struck a Cheyenne child and remained unpunished for his temerity—and no other man, not even the agent himself, could have struck that blow and survived the wrath of Tomacham.
Atokan seized the lapel of his coat in his teeth, and bit hard in order to stifle any moan of pain the sting of the whip might wring from him. His was the heart of a warrior, for, though the whip fell hissing with speed he uttered no cry, and when the rod was worn to a fragment he remained silent as a statue, refusing to answer a single word.
Seger, convinced that the punishment was a failure unless it conquered the culprit, caught up another willow withe and wore it out upon him, to no effect—for, casting a glance at the pieces lying on the floor, the boy’s lips curled in a smile of disdain as if to say: “I am a warrior; I do not cry!”
Realizing his failure, Seger caught him with a wrestler’s twist, threw him across his knee, and beat him with the flat of his hand. The suddenness of this attack, the shame of the attitude, added to the pain he was already suffering, broke the boy’s proud spirit. He burst into loud lamentation, dropped to the floor, and lay in a heap, sobbing like a child.
Straightening up, the teacher looked about him, expecting to meet a roused and ready group of warriors. Every woman and all the children were wildly moaning and sobbing. The men with stern and sorrowful faces were struggling in silence to keep back the tears. The resolute little white man had conquered by his logic, his justice, his bravery.
“Atokan, will you obey me?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered—his spirit broken.