When the Dahcotah agreed to bury the hatchet with the Mehneaska [Americans]--went on the speaker--a treaty was entered into, and under this the Great Father [the President of the United States] promised that the reservations they now occupied should be secured to them for ever-- that no white men should be allowed within them, either to hunt or to settle or to search for gold, and on these conditions the Dahcotah agreed to abandon the war-path. That was seven years ago. They had abandoned it. They had "travelled on the white man's road," had sat within their reservations, molesting no one. They had made expeditions to their hunting-grounds to find food for their families and skins to build their lodges, but they had sent forth no war-parties. They had always treated the whites well. And now, how had the Great Father kept his promises? White men were swarming into the Dahcotah country. First they came by twos and threes, quietly, and begging to be admitted as friends. Then they came by twenties, armed with rifles and many cartridges, and began to lay out towns. Soon the Dahcotah country would be black with the smoke of their chimneys, and the deer and the buffalo, already scarce, would be a thing of the past. Look at Pahsapa [the Black Hills]. Every valley was full of white men digging for gold. What was this gold, and whose was it? Was it not the property of the Dahcotah nation, on whose ground it lay hidden? If it was valuable, then the Great Father should make the Dahcotah nation rich with valuable things in exchange for it. But these intruding whites took the gold and gave nothing to its owners--threatened them with bullets instead. It had been suggested that they should sell Pahsapa. But these Hills were "great medicine"--sacred ground entrusted to the Dahcotah by the Good Spirit of Life. How could they sell them? What price would be equivalent to such a precious possession? There was a chief here of mighty renown--the war-chief of the Ogallalla--who had led the nation again and again to victory, whose war-whoop had scattered the whites like buffalo before the hunters, the "medicine chief" of the Dahcotah race. When the council should hear his words on this matter their path would be plain before them. As the orator ceased an emphatic grunt went round the circle with a unanimity that spoke volumes. Red Cloud [Note 1], thus directly referred to, made, however, no sign. Motionless as a statue, there was a thoughtful, abstracted look upon his massive countenance, as though he had not heard a word of the harangue. A few moments of silence, then another chief arose--a man of lofty stature and of grim and scowling aspect, his eyes scintillating with a cruel glitter from beneath his towering war-bonnet. After less than usual of the conventional brag as to the greatness of his nation and so forth, speaking fiercely and eagerly, as if anxious to come to the point, he went on:--