Indian. “I can shew you all that I got. I have received such and such articles, (naming them and the quantity of each), do you think that is enough?”
Heckew. “That I cannot know, unless you tell me how much of the land which was sold came to your share.”
Indian. (after considering a little), “Well, you, my friend! know who I am, you know I am a kind of chief. I am, indeed, one, though none of the greatest. Neither am I one of the lowest grade, but I stand about in the middle rank. Now, as such, I think I was entitled to as much land in the tract we sold as would lie within a day’s walk from this spot to a point due north, then a day’s walk from that point to another due west, from thence another day’s walk due south, then a day’s walk to where we now are. Now you can tell me if what I have shewn you is enough for all the land lying between these four marks?”
Heckew. “If you have made your bargain so with the white people, it is all right, and you probably have received your share.”
Indian. “Ah! but the white people made the bargain by themselves, without consulting us. They told us that they would give us so much, and no more.”
Heckew. “Well, and you consented thereto?”
Indian. “What could we do, when they told us that they must have the land, and for such a price? Was it not better to take something than nothing? for they would have the land, and so we took what they gave us.”
Heckew. “Perhaps the goods they gave you came high in price. The goods which come over the great salt water lake sometimes vary in their prices.”
Indian. “The traders sell their goods for just the same prices that they did before, so that I rather think it is the land that has fallen in value. We, Indians, do not understand selling lands to the white people; for when we sell, the price of land is always low; land is then cheap, but when the white people sell it out among themselves, it is always dear, and they are sure to get a high price for it. I had done much better if I had stayed at home and minded my fall hunt. You know I am a pretty good hunter and might have killed a great many deer, sixty, eighty, perhaps a hundred, and besides caught many raccoons, beavers, otters, wild cats, and other animals, while I was at this treaty. I have often killed five, six, and seven deer in one day. Now I have lost nine of the best hunting weeks in the season by going to get what you see! We were told the precise time when we must meet. We came at the very day, but the great white men did not do so, and without them nothing could be done. When after some weeks they at last came, we traded, we sold our lands and received goods in payment, and when that was over, I went to my hunting grounds, but the best time, the rutting time, being over, I killed but a few. Now, help me to count up what I have lost by going to the treaty. Put down eighty deer; say twenty of them were bucks, each buckskin one dollar; then sixty does and young bucks at two skins for a dollar; thirty dollars, and twenty for the old bucks, make fifty dollars lost to me in deer skins. Add, then, twenty dollars more to this for raccoon, beaver, wild cat, black fox, and otter skins, and what does the whole amount to?”
Heckew. “Seventy dollars.”