"'Listen,' said Sitting Bull, not changing his posture, but putting his right hand out upon my knee. I told them to-day what my notions were--that I did not want to go back there. Every time that I had any difficulty with them they struck me first. I want to live in peace.' "'Have you an implacable enmity to the Americans? Would you live with them in peace if they allowed you to do so or do you think you can only obtain peace here?' 'The White Mother is good.' "'Better than the Great Father?' 'Hough!' And then, after a pause, Sitting Bull continued: 'They [the Commissioners] asked me to-day to give them my horses. I bought my horses and they are mine. I bought them from men who came up the Missouri in Mackinaws. They do not belong to the Government, neither do the rifles. The rifles are also mine. I bought them I paid for them. Why I should give them up, I do not know. I will not give them up.' "'Do you really think, do your people believe that it is wise to reject the proffers that have been made to you by the United States Commissioners? Do not some of you feel as if you were destined to lose your old hunting grounds? Don't you see that you will probably have the same difficulty in Canada that you have had in the United States?' 'The White Mother does not lie.' "'Do you expect to live here by hunting? Are there buffaloes enough? Can your people subsist on the game here?' 'I don't know. I hope so.' "'If not, are any part of your people disposed to take up agriculture? Would any of them raise steers and go to farming? 'I don't know.' "'What will they do, then?' 'As long as there are buffaloes that is the way we will live.' "'But the time will come when there will be no more buffaloes.' 'Those are the words of an American.' "'How long do you think the buffaloes will last?' Sitting Bull arose. 'We know,' said he, extending his right hand with an impressive gesture, 'that on the other side the buffaloes will not last very long. Why? Because the country over there is poisoned with blood--a poison that kills all the buffaloes or drives them away. It is strange,' he continued, with his peculiar smile, 'that the Americans should complain that the Indians kill buffaloes. We kill buffaloes, as we kill other animals, for food and clothing, and to make our lodges warm. They kill buffaloes for what? Go through your country. See the thousands of carcasses rotting on the plains. Your young men shoot for pleasure. All they take from a dead buffalo is his tail or his head, or his horns, perhaps, to show they have killed a buffalo. What is this? Is it robbery? You call us savages. What are they? The buffaloes have come north. We have come north to find them, and to get away from a place where the people tell lies.'" {Illustration: Chief One Bull and Family.}