"We want no other place, we want no new houses, or lands, or tools for farming. This is our home, here let us stay. Or, if you will not, let us go into the mountains and die."
It was very pathetic. Not only Walter and Nellie, but their father also, wiped away more than one sympathetic tear as, standing on the edge of the crowd, they listened to that soulful cry, nearly as old as the world:
"Here is our home, here let us stay. Die we can and will, but give up our homes we cannot."
The commissioners, unable to make any impression upon the Indians, soon departed, all of them deeply affected by the proceedings.
They had now nothing to do but continue their search for available lands, fearing it might yet come to pass that the Indians would have to be ejected by force from their homes.
In groups of two or three, the men together, the women and children following, but all composed, all silent, they went to their several dwellings. It had been a sorrowful day in Cupa; every hope raised by the expectation of meeting the commissioners had been dashed to the ground. Mr. Page and the children walked silently back to the camp, longing to exchange words of sympathy with these humble friends, yet respecting their silent grief too deeply to intrude upon it.
"Children, you will never forget this day," said their father. "Let it, then, always be a lesson to you, though it is not likely either of you will be called upon to decide the destiny of any nation, or part of a nation, however small. From his point of view, the present owner of Warner's Ranch has a perfect, undeniable right to occupy these lands, and so he has in the eyes of the law. He is not an unkindly man, I am told, nor is he a poor man. Yet it would seem that now he has neglected a grand opportunity for doing a generous action and gaining not only the gratitude of these poor people, but the admiration and respect of the whole country.
"However, it seems he cannot find it in his heart to allot them their beloved nine hundred acres out of his broad possessions, numbering thirty thousand. It has been said truly by the wisest lips that ever spoke: 'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.'"
[G] Charles F. Lummis, in "Out West."