Part 2 (2/2)

”Never!” and up from the cotton woods rang the voice of Eagle Chief; And right out into the open stepped, unarmed, the Cattle Thief.

Was that the game they had coveted? Scarce fifty years had rolled Over that fleshless, hungry frame, starved to the bone and old; Over that wrinkled, tawny skin, unfed by the warmth of blood.

Over those hungry, hollow eyes that glared for the sight of food.

He turned, like a hunted lion: ”I know not fear,”

said he; And the words outleapt from his shrunken lips in the language of the Cree.

”I'll fight you, white-skins, one by one, till I kill you _all_,” he said; But the threat was scarcely uttered, ere a dozen b.a.l.l.s of lead Whizzed through the air about him like a shower of metal rain, And the gaunt old Indian Cattle Thief dropped dead on the open plain.

And that band of cursing settlers gave one triumphant yell, And rushed like a pack of demons on the body that writhed and fell.

”Cut the fiend up into inches, throw his carca.s.s on the plain; Let the wolves eat the cursed Indian, he'd have treated us the same.”

A dozen hands responded, a dozen knives gleamed high, But the first stroke was arrested by a woman's strange, wild cry.

And out into the open, with a courage past belief, She dashed, and spread her blanket o'er the corpse of the Cattle Thief; And the words outleapt from her shrunken lips in the language of the Cree, ”If you mean to touch that body, you must cut your way through _me_.”

And that band of cursing settlers dropped backward one by one, For they knew that an Indian woman roused, was a woman to let alone.

And then she raved in a frenzy that they scarcely understood, Raved of the wrongs she had suffered since her earliest babyhood: ”Stand back, stand back, you white-skins, touch that dead man to your shame; You have stolen my father's spirit, but his body I only claim.

You have killed him, but you shall not dare to touch him now he's dead.

You have cursed, and called him a Cattle Thief, though you robbed him first of bread-- Robbed him and robbed my people--look there, at that shrunken face, Starved with a hollow hunger, we owe to you and your race.

What have you left to us of land, what have you left of game, What have you brought but evil, and curses since you came?

How have you paid us for our game? how paid us for our land?

By a _book_, to save our souls from the sins _you_ brought in your other hand.

Go back with your new religion, we never have understood Your robbing an Indian's _body_, and mocking his _soul_ with food.

Go back with your new religion, and find--if find you can-- The _honest_ man you have ever made from out a _starving_ man.

You say your cattle are not ours, your meat is not our meat; When _you_ pay for the land you live in, _we'll_ pay for the meat we eat.

Give back our land and our country, give back our herds of game; Give back the furs and the forests that were ours before you came; Give back the peace and the plenty. Then come with your new belief, And blame, if you dare, the hunger that _drove_ him to be a thief.”

A CRY FROM AN INDIAN WIFE

My forest brave, my Red-skin love, farewell; We may not meet to-morrow; who can tell What mighty ills befall our little band, Or what you'll suffer from the white man's hand?

Here is your knife! I thought 'twas sheathed for aye.

No roaming bison calls for it to-day; No hide of prairie cattle will it maim; The plains are bare, it seeks a n.o.bler game: 'Twill drink the life-blood of a soldier host.

Go; rise and strike, no matter what the cost.

Yet stay. Revolt not at the Union Jack, Nor raise Thy hand against this stripling pack Of white-faced warriors, marching West to quell Our fallen tribe that rises to rebel.

They all are young and beautiful and good; Curse to the war that drinks their harmless blood.

Curse to the fate that brought them from the East To be our chiefs--to make our nation least That breathes the air of this vast continent.

Still their new rule and council is well meant.

They but forget we Indians owned the land From ocean unto ocean; that they stand Upon a soil that centuries agone Was our sole kingdom and our right alone.

They never think how they would feel to-day, If some great nation came from far away, Wresting their country from their hapless braves, Giving what they gave us--but wars and graves.

Then go and strike for liberty and life, And bring back honour to your Indian wife.

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