“We will see,” he answered. “I have often reproved you for saying, ‘Yes, yes,’ to all that the white man says. This may be all a lie. The Kicking Bear has gone forth into the west to meet this wonder worker. When he returns we will council upon his report. Till then we will do nothing.”
But no power could prevent the spread of the story and its dream among my people. They were quick to seize and build upon this slender promise. Can you not understand our condition of mind? Imagine that a great and powerful race had appeared from over the sea and had driven your people from their ancestral lands, on and on, until at last only a handful of you remained. Imagine this handful corralled in a small, bleak valley cut off from all natural activities, its religions tabooed, its dances and ceremonies forbidden, hungry, cold, despairing. Could you then be logical and reasonable and completely sane?
If my race had been a servile race, ready to play the baboon, quick to imitate, then it would not have vanished, as it has, in war and famine. We are freemen. We had always been unhampered by any alien laws. We moved as we willed, led by the buffalo, directed by the winds, cowering only before the snows. Therefore, we resented the white man’s restrictions. We had the hearts of eagles in our cages, and yet, having the eyes of eagles and the brains of men, we came at last to see the utter futility of struggle. We lost all faith in physical warfare and sat down to die. As a race we were resigned to death, and in this night of our resignation the star of prophecy rose. We turned toward the mystic powers for aid.
IX
THE MESSAGE OF KICKING BEAR
One October day in 1890 a party of Brulé Sioux from the Cheyenne River agency came riding down into the valley of the Grand River, inquiring for The Sitting Bull. As they were passing my father’s lodge he came out and stopped them.
“What do you want of The Sitting Bull?” he asked, with the authority of one of the old-time “Silent Eaters.”
“We bring a message to him,” replied the head man. “I am Kicking Bear. Take us to him without delay.”
The chief at this time lived with his younger wife in a two-room log house (a cabin for his first wife stood near) and as the strangers came to the door they were accosted by an old woman who was at work about the fire under an open lodge. In answer to my father’s inquiry for the chief she pointed toward a large tepee standing behind the house, and, turning aside, my father lifted the door-flap and entered. The chief was alone, smoking his pipe in grave meditation.
“Father,” said my sire, “here are some men from the Cheyenne River to see you.”
“I am Kicking Bear,” said the visitor, “for whom you sent.”