He paused abruptly, while the women wailed in rapture. At last he continued: “Then the eagle entered a cloud and I saw no more. I woke and found myself here on the ground.”
This story, magnificently told though it was, affected the hearers less than the shining, ecstatic face of the mother who had seen her spirit child. Her slow, dreamy utterance was more eloquent than the vivid gestures and musical voice of Eagle Holder.
One by one others awoke and told of meeting friends and revisiting old scenes. Some told of people they had never met in life, and minutely described lodges they had never entered. These stories awoke wild cries of amazement and joy. It was plain that many believed. I had not seen my people so happy since I was a child, before the battle of the Big Horn.
At last when all had spoken they arose and joined hands and began singing once more; then the chief rose and left the circle, and I, intercepting him, said: “Chief, I bring a message to you.” He made a motion which means follow, and I accompanied him to his tepee, which he loved because of its associations with old days, and to which he went for meditation and council.
It would be wrong if I did not confess that I knew the chief distrusted me, for he did. After I had taken my position under the agent he was less free to speak his mind to me, and this was a grief to me. My father saw us go and joined us, and I was glad of his presence. His kind old face made it easier for me to begin.
The chief took his seat at the back of the lodge and said: “Speak. I listen.”
“Sire,” I said, “the agent has heard bad things of this dance on other reservations, and some days ago he sent policemen down here to forbid it. He now hears it is still going on and he has sent me to say that Mato, the messenger, must go away and the dance must stop.”
I could see the veins of his neck fill with hot blood as he listened, and when I had finished he said: “Are we dogs to be silenced by kicking! You say to the agent that the white men have beaten us and left us naked of every good thing, but they shall not take away our religion. I will not obey this command! I have said it!”
Here my father broke in, saying to me: “You yourself have told me that you saw among the white people dreams like this. Why do they seek to prevent us? You have read us the white man’s sacred Big Book, and you say it is full of medicine dreams. Why should we not dream also?”