They were emerging into the meadow and Lydia laughed up at him mischievously, "I've always thought I overpaid for those school books. They were fearfully used up. Oh, the speeches have begun," and Billy was hard put to it to keep close to her as she rushed toward the speakers' stand. Levine had just finished his speech when Billy and Lydia got within hearing, and he introduced State Senator James Farwell as the chief speaker of the day. Farwell had considerable history to cover in his speech. He began with the Magna Charta and worked by elaborate stages through the French Revolution, the conquest of India, the death of Warren Hastings, the French and Indian War, the American Revolution and the Civil War to Lincoln's Gettysburg speech. His audience, standing in the burning sun, was restless. The Indians, understanding little that was said, were motionless, but the whites drifted about, talked in undertones and applauded only when as a fitting peak to all the efforts of the ages toward freedom, Farwell placed the present freeing of the Indians from the reservation. "The great fool!" said Billy to Lydia, as Farwell finally began to bow himself off the platform. Levine rose and began, "Ladies and gentlemen, this ends our program. We thank--" He was interrupted here by applause from the Indians. Looking round he saw Charlie Jackson leading forward old Chief Wolf. "Chief Wolf wants to say a few words," cried Charlie. "The program is closed," called Levine loudly. There was a threat in Charlie's voice. "He is going to speak!" And there was a threat in the Indian voices that answered from the audience, "Let speak! Let speak." Levine conferred hastily with Farwell and the Indian Agent, then the three with manifest reluctance--stood back and Charlie led the old Indian to the foot of the platform. Old Wolf was half blind with trachoma. He was emaciated with sickness and slow starvation. Nevertheless, clad in the beaded buckskin and eagle feathers of his youth, with his hawk face held high, he was a heroic figure of a man. He held up his right hand and began to speak in a trembling old bass, Charlie's young tenor translating sentence by sentence. With the first word, the audience became motionless and silent. "I come from the wick-i-ups of my fathers to say one last word to the whites. I am an old, old man. The last winter was bitter hard and I may never see another July sun. I have lived too long. I have seen my race change from young men strong and daring as eagles, as thrifty and fat as brown bears, to feeble yellow wolves fit only to lap the carrion thrown them by the whites, and to lie in the sun and die.