"'And you have since decided for them?' 'I speak. It is enough.'
"'Could not your people, whom you love so well, get on with the Americans?' 'No!'
"'Why?' 'I never taught my people to trust Americans. I have told them the truth—that the Americans are great liars. I never dealt with the Americans. Why should I? The land belonged to my people. I say I never dealt with them—I mean I never treated with them in a way to surrender my people's rights. I traded with them, but I always gave full value for what I got. I never asked the United States Government to make me presents of blankets or cloth, or anything of that kind. The most I did was to ask them to send me an honest trader that I could trade with, and I proposed to give him buffalo robes and elk skins, and other hides in exchange for what we wanted. I told every trader who came to our camps that I did not want any favors from him—that I wanted to trade with him fairly and equally, giving him full value for what I got, but the traders wanted me to trade with them on no such terms. They wanted to give little and get much. They told me if I did not accept what they gave me in trade they would get the Government to fight me. I told them I did not want to fight.'
"'But you fought?' 'At last, yes; but not until I had tried hard to prevent a fight. At first my young men, when they began to talk bad, stole five American horses. I did not like this and was afraid something bad would come of it. I took the horses away from them and gave them back to the Americans. It did no good. By and by we had to fight.'"
The reporter now drew from the great leader his version of the Little Big Horn fight, and the death of Custer. But, as neither party to the dialogue were in the battle, this part of the interview must of necessity be the work of imagination and will not be quoted. It is impossible for any one to give an authentic description of a battle fought in his absence.
John F. Finnerty, the war correspondent for the Chicago Times, also visited Sitting Bull, while he and his band were encamped on Mushroom Creek, Woody Mountain, in the summer of 1879.
His experience with the "Sphinx" was somewhat different from that of the other reporter.
The invitation to make this visit also came from Major Walsh, of the mounted police, who called at General Miles's camp, on Rocky Creek, a few days previous. We can only quote a few paragraphs bearing directly on the famous chief:
"So," thought I, "I am going to see the elephant. I have followed Sitting Bull around long enough, and now I shall behold 'the lion in his den,' in earnest. Presently the tramping and shouting of the scalp-dance ceased, and the chiefs, their many colored blankets folded around them, after the fashion of the ancient toga, came filing down to the council, seating themselves according to their tribes in a big semicircle.
"Major Walsh had chairs placed for himself and me under the shade of his garden fence. The chiefs seated themselves on the ground, after the Turkish fashion. Behind them, rank after rank, were the mounted warriors, and still further back, the squaws and children. The chiefs were all assembled, and I inquired which was Sitting Bull. 'He is not among them,' said Major Walsh. 'He will not speak in council where Americans are present, because he stubbornly declares he will have nothing to do with them. You will see him, however, before very long.'