Campfire Stories of Indian Character 531 



broken, and our rations were short. Those not worn by 

 disease were wasted by hunger. To stay there meant that 

 all of us would die. Our petitions to the Great Father 

 were unheeded. We thought it better to die fighting to 

 regain our old homes than to perish of sickness. Then our 

 march we begun. The rest you know. " 



Then turning to Captain Wessells and his ofiicers: 

 "Tell the Great Father Dull Knife and his people ask 

 only to end their days here in the north where they were 

 bom. Tell him we want no more war. We cannot live in 

 the south; there is no game. Here, when rations are short, 

 we can hunt. Tell him if he lets us stay here Dull Knife's 

 people will hurt no one. Tell him if he tries to send us back 

 we will butcher each other with our own knives. I have 

 spoken. " 



Captain Wessells's reply was brief — an assurance that 

 Dull Knife's words should go to the Great Father. 



The Cheyennes sat silent throughout the council, all 

 save one, a powerful young buck named Bx;ffalo Himip, 

 old Dull Knife's son. With a thin strip of old canvas, that 

 served as his only covering, drawn tightly about his tall 

 figure, his bronze face aflame with sentiments of wrong, of 

 anger, and of hatred, Buffalo Hump strode rapidly from 

 one end to the other of the long barrack room, casting fierce 

 glances at the white men, the very incarnation of savage 

 wrath. From beginning to end of the council I momen- 

 tarily expected to see him leap on some member of the 

 party, and try to rend him with his hands. 



Of course nothing came of the council. The War and 

 Interior Departments agreed that it would be imprudent 

 to permit these unsubduable people to be merged into the 

 already restless ranks of the Sioux. It was therefore 

 decided to march them back south to Fort Reno, whence 

 they had come. 



