"Tell the white chief," said my client, "that Black Robes have taught me about the white man's customs. There was a chief medicine man of their tribe who gave thirty dollars to a white man by the name of Judas, who went to his master and kissed Him on both cheeks. Even the white man was ashamed, and hanged himself.
"Here is the white man's custom. Left Hand was paid to kiss me on both cheeks, while Bear Paw roped me. Did they get the thirty dollars each, or thirty dollars between them?"
"Tell the prisoner," said the judge, "that we can not expect him to understand our customs."
This I translated.
"Then," answered Charging Buffalo, "if I'm not expected to understand your customs, am I to be hanged for breaking them?"
"I think," said the judge to me, "that this is quite out of order. You will please abstain from the methods of cheap melodrama."
But that crushing retort of the Indian, arraigning our justice, left the whole court demoralized, for the prisoner sat in judgment. With a grave sweetness he turned to the witness who had betrayed him. "You may go," he said, "and take my pity with you."
It was then he told his story, while I translated. He called no witness for the prosecuting counsel to browbeat, he made no plea of innocence, he asked no mercy. Rather, he dwelt upon the Indian faith which sent him to worship his God in the far wilderness until the sacred woman, his wife, began to die. He brought her back to die among her people.
"Her spirit rides the Wolf Trail," he said, "that big trail across the star-field which leads to the Place of Waiting, and there I shall go. Life is too difficult to live, and death so easy."
A coming rain-storm filled the western sky, hiding the sun, then darkening the air until one could hardly see across the court room. The judge's clerk lighted candles.