I shall never forget that dreadful winter. It seems now like one continuous whirling storm of snow filled with wailing. We were cold and hungry all the time, and the white soldiers were ever on our trail. Many died and the cries of women never ceased. It was as if the Great Spirit had forgotten us.
The chief, satisfied at last that the Cree had told the truth and despairing of the future, turned his little band to the north, and in the early spring crossed the line near the head of Frenchman’s Creek and camped close to the hill they call Wood Mountain, where the redcoats had a station and a small store. No one would have known this small, ragged, sorrowful band as “the army of The Sitting Bull.”
My father was a great man—as great in his way as his chieftain—but he was what you call a philosopher. He spoke little, but he thought much, and one day soon after this he called me to him and said: “My son, you have seen how the white man puts words on bits of paper. It is now needful that some one of us do the same. We are far from our home and kindred. You must learn to put signs on paper like the white man in order that we may send word to those we have left behind. I have been talking with a black-robe (a priest) and to-morrow you go with him to learn the white man’s wonderful sign language.”
My heart froze within me to hear this, and had I dared I would have fled out upon the prairie; but I sat still, saying no word, and my father, seeing my tears, tried to comfort me. “Be not afraid, my son. I will visit you every day.”
“Why can’t I come home each night?” I asked.
“Because the black-robe says you will learn faster if you live with him. You must travel this road quickly, for we sorely need your help.”
He took me to Father Julian and I began to read.
We lived here peacefully for two years. The Cree had told us the truth. General Miles dared not cross the line, but he chased my people whenever they ventured over it. At Wolf Point, on the Missouri, was a trader who spoke our language (he had an Indian wife) and with him my chief often talked. He had spies also at Fort Peck, which was an agency for the Assiniboines, and so knew where the soldiers were at all times.
I had a friend, a Cree, who could read the papers, and from them I learned what the white people said of us. Through him I heard that many people sympathized with The Sitting Bull and declared that it was right to defend one’s native land.
These words pleased the chief, but it made two of his head men bitter. They grew jealous because their names were not spoken by the white man, and they would have overthrown my chief if they dared, but now the “Silent Eaters” came to his aid. With them to guard him, the chief could treat the jealous ones with contempt. Wherever he went my father and others of his bodyguard went with him, so that no traitor could kill him and sell his head to the white people.