CHAPTER XI. 



WHITK WOLF, THE CHETEXNK CHIEF — HUNGRY INDIANS — RETURN TO HAYS — A 

 CHEYENNE WAR PARTY — THE PIPE OF PEACE — THE COUNCIL CHAMBER — WHITE 

 wolf's SPEECH, AS RENDERED BY SACHEM THE WHITE MAN's WIGWAM. 



ABOUT midway between our party and the 

 dusky group that stood watching us the four 

 embassadors met. The Indians proved to be a band 

 of Cheyennes, under White Wolf, or, as he is more 

 frequently called, Medicine Wolf, out on the war- 

 path against the Pawnees. The Wolf was a fine- 

 looking man, six feet four in height, straight as 

 an arrow, and developed like a giant. Being a chief, 

 he possessed the regalia and -warranty .deed of one, 

 consisting of a ragged military coat without any tail, 

 and a dirty letter from some Indian agent, with a lie 

 in it over which even a Cheyenne must have smiled, 

 telling how White Wolf loved the whites. Perhaps 

 he did ; his namesake loves spring lamb. 



Our guide was an indiiferent interpreter, but had 

 no difficulty in understanding that the Indians were 

 hungry and wished something to eat. In all my ex- 

 perience from that day to this I have never found an 

 Indian who was not hungry, except once. The ex- 

 ception was an old fellow who, although enough of an ' 

 Indian to be habitually drunk, was so degenerate a 

 specimen in other respects as to be somewhat dys- 

 peptic. His stomach had repudiated, after receiving 



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