I repeat his words with elision. “I am not one of the old men,” he said, “and yet I can easily remember the time when this valley, these mountains, were ours; not because someone had given them to us, but because we had taken them for ourselves, because our arrows flew straightest, our spears reached furthest, our horsemen rode fastest, our hearts were bravest.” Here several of the old men grunted sympathetically. More and more the faces of the throng were turned toward the speaker. “Then everything was changed. The strangers came like a flood, like our rivers in the spring; they surged over us and they left us—as we are. Perhaps this was the will of the Stranger-on-High, we cannot tell.... But these strangers on earth were not altogether unkind to us. For what they took they gave a sort of compensation. It was as though they carried away from us fat buffaloes and then handed to us in exchange each a little slice of their meat. They deprived us of our valley and our mountains but instead they gave us each eighty acres of the land. Then they sent more strangers with chains and three-legged toys to measure these off correctly for us. They gave us wire for our fences but only enough so that we must spend much money for more. They gave us seed, but also so little that we were driven to buy more. We worked—some of us with the chains and three-legged toys—some at the ditches, every way we could, for now we needed a new thing—something of which we had before known nothing, _money_. We received it—and then we spent it.” Again faint grunts and groans encouraged him. “For we cannot keep money long. We are children. This the Great Father in Washington understands, and also that our ears are dull, that our eyes cannot read his written words. Therefore, in his kindness, he sends to us this man to speak to us face to face.” He turned his slow gaze upon the inspector. In his eyes was the look of mockery. “We have listened to his words. But what has he said to us? ‘Give up the eighty acres, for your children to be born, give up the money you earned and spent, give up your homes; as you gave up this valley and these mountains. The white men need them. Your day is past. But I am not unkind. Without compensation I will not deprive you. See, I will give you even a little more money—’” He stopped abruptly. His eyes drooped, his shoulders, his hands, the whole man. A strained silence had fallen upon the room, smothered it. From it escaped the faint sighing of the younger men. The chiefs stiffened as they sat.