“The Wasichus had made another iron road along the Minitonka [Niobrara]. It was the way Wooden Cup said before my grandfather was born. A strange people would come from the sunrise, too many to be counted. They would kill all the bison and take the land and bind it with iron bands. I was going to see where all the Wasichus came from. We started for the sunrise on this iron road, and went faster than our horses could run. I was afraid, but I held on tight and looked at the land I knew since I was a boy. It was running away, and the hills looked scared. After a while it was dark, and I slept. Then I awoke and there was a big moon outside. The land was still running away. The wagon under me was jumping fast and crying, ‘_yea-hay, yea-hay, yea-hay_,’ like warriors fleeing from too many enemies; and I could hear the iron horse running and snorting and puffing all out of breath. Sometimes he screamed like a war-pony shot in the guts. I held on tight, and the morning came. “Then I saw the Mini Shoshay [Missouri River], and there was a big Wasichu village [Omaha], bigger than all the Lakotas camped in one hoop. Then there were more iron roads in a land I never saw before, and Wasichu villages--many, many. And the iron horse went on running as fast as before, snorting and puffing all out of breath and screaming. “I wanted to go back, but I could not. Afterwhile I got used to it, but my heart was not strong in me. When I was a boy we used to say that some time we would kill all the Wasichus; but now I knew there were more of them than grasshoppers. When Red Cloud went to see the Great Father, and we heard the big stories he told about the Wasichus and their villages yonder where the sun rises, we did not believe. We said he turned into a Wasichu when he put on their clothing, and his tongue was forked like theirs. But I could see his words were straight. And when we came to the biggest village of all where the great water begins [New York], I knew his stories were not big enough. Wasichus! Wasichus! They came crowding like a bison herd to look and look at us when we got on the big _peyta watah_ [fire-boat] that was there. “I cannot tell how big this _watah_ was. They put all the horses and tepees and wagons in its belly; and the fire that made it go was in there too. When it started for the sunrise with us, it bellowed like bison bulls sending forth voices together when they paw the young grass and tear it with their horns. I saw the land begin to move. It did not run away fast. It floated away, and afterwhile it was all gone, and there was the great water to the sky. It was sleeping and breathing, up and down, up and down. I got sick, and I was afraid. Maybe I would die. I remembered what old men said, ‘It is not good to grow old.’ But I wore the quirt down my back, and you see I am alive yet.