He sent a boy with my pony and took me to his tepee near by, and there I ate some bread and meat in silence. When I had finished I began: “Father, I have come to stop the dance and to put the priest away.”
My father looked troubled. “Do you come from the agent?”
“Yes, he has heard of the dance and his orders are to stop it.”
“My son, all that is bad. It makes my heart sore. Do not speak to the chief now. Wait till evening, when he is weary. The agent is wrong. There is no harm in this dance. Has not the Messiah said, ‘Do not strike anyone; leave all punishment to the Great Spirit?’ Go back and tell the agent there is no harm in it.”
I did not listen well, for the song outside was wilder and sadder each moment. They were dancing very fast now, and the ground, bare and very dry, had been tramped into dust, fine as flour, and this rose from under their feet like smoke, half concealing those on the leeward side. All were singing a piteous song of entreaty. The women’s voices especially pierced me with their note of agonized appeal. It was a song to make me shudder—the voice of a dying people crying out for life and pleading for the return of the happy past. I could not understand how the white men could listen to it and not be made gentle.
The chief gazed intently at the circle. He seemed waiting in rigid expectancy, his face deeply lined and very sad. He looked like one threescore and ten sitting so. It was plain that he did not yet permit himself to believe in the message. He, too, felt the pain and weariness of the world, but still he could not join in the song. His mind was too clear and strong to be easily confused.
The interest was now very great. Waves of excitement seemed to run over the circle and those who watched. Shouts mingled with the singing. The principal song, which they repeated endlessly, was the Messiah’s promise of eternal life:
“There the Father comes,
There the Father comes,
Speaking as he flies.