It would not seem strange to me if he had decided never to be taken from his people alive.
He was growing old, and to suffer exile would be to die lingeringly. How much he knew of the agent’s plan to imprison him I do not know, but I have heard him assert his right (which the commissioner had orally given him) to come and go as any other citizen of the state. As chief man of his nation he considered it a gross injustice to be told, “You shall not cross this line.” “So long as I go peaceably and feed myself I do not see what right the agent has to object. Washington has said it and I go.”
On the night before his departure he addressed the “Silent Eaters.” “Be peaceful, do nothing harsh,” he said; “wait for my return. I go to visit Mato. Perhaps he has a new message for us. Perhaps he has again visited the Messiah. If he has not, then we will go together.”
He was at the dance till midnight and, being weary was still sleeping soundly when just before dawn Bull Head and seven other renegades gathered silently round his bed.
As Bull Head laid a hand on him the chief opened his eyes and quietly asked. “What do you want?”
“Be silent. The agent wants you to come to him,” Bull Head replied in a low voice. “Get up quickly.”
The chief lay for a time in thought. He saw the armed men and knew them to be enemies. Across the room his wife was sleeping with her children. Resistance would mean death. He did not wish to die in her presence.
“Very well,” he said, calmly, “I will go.” He partly rose. “But I must dress. It is cold, I wish to wear my new overcoat. Let me wake my wife to fetch it.”
Bull Head, less savage than Shave Head, said: “Good. We will wait,” but as the wife realized what these men had come to do she began to wail, “They will take him away,” and this wakened the children, who also began to cry.
Soon many feet were heard running rapidly. Catching up their blankets and concealing their rifles beneath their garments, the “Silent Eaters” came hurrying to the rescue, not knowing what was happening, but ready for battle.