208 



RECREATION. 



SITTING BULLS CABIN; SCENE OF THE FIGHT. 

 Photo, by Scott, Lander, Wyo. 



was supposed to be, whence it had 

 travelled by the aid of runners and 

 visiting Indians. As it reached the 

 Sioux, it brought up wonderful vis- 

 ions for future years and memories 

 of old-time wars. The Messiah was 

 on earth, ready to aid his followers. 

 Now he was herding buffalo, mak- 

 ing spring-wagons and money — so 

 the queer tale ran — and all for those 

 who obeyed his wishes and followed 

 .his teachings. The white people, in 

 the spring, would be covered by a 

 "sea of mud," and once more the 

 red men would rule. 



Who should be one of the first to 

 pretend to accept the belief, but the 

 crafty, cunning old medicine-man, 

 Sitting Bull, he who had been so 

 great among the Sioux not many 

 years before ? Now, in his old age, 

 he found himself almost alone, his 

 band having, one by one, joined 

 those of other and more progressive 



chiefs. No longer a prophet, no 

 longer an authority, bereft of all the 

 prestige of his younger life, his wily 

 nature exposed by honest Indians, 

 he was eager to grasp anything that 

 might restore him to his old power 

 In the Messiah craze he saw his op- 

 portunity. He heard the tale, pro- 

 fessed to believe it, then retold it, 

 exaggerated and dwelt upon it with 

 all his savage eloquence. 



Could he but once again make 

 himself a prophet, he knew some 

 of his band would return to him. He 

 first told the Indians it would be an 

 open winter. Fortunately for him, 

 the snows were late in coming, and 

 the winds were mild far into the 

 winter season. Then he quickened 

 the blood in the veins of his people 

 as he related, again and again, with 

 cunning rhetoric, the pleasures of 

 the hunt for the beloved buffalo ; 

 how they, the red men, could go to 



