第55章

"Maybe so," said Cameron, "but some of your party have, Running Stream, and the Commissioner will look to you.You are in command here.He will give you a chance to clear yourself."The Indian shrugged his shoulders and stood silent.

"My brother is not doing well," continued Cameron."The Government feed you if you are hungry.The Government protect you if you are wronged."It was an unfortunate word of Cameron's.A sudden cloud of anger darkened the Indian's face.

"No!" he cried aloud."My children--my squaw and my people go hungry--go cold in winter--no skin--no meat.""My brother knows--" replied Cameron with patient firmness--"You translate this, Jerry"--and Jerry proceeded to translate with eloquence and force--"the Government never refuse you meat.Last winter your people would have starved but for the Government.""No," cried the Indian again in harsh quick reply, the rage in his face growing deeper, "my children cry--Indian cannot sleep--my white brother's ears are closed.He hear only the wind--the storm--he sound sleep.For me no sleep--my children cry too loud.""My brother knows," replied Cameron, "that the Government is far away, that it takes a long time for answer to come back to the Indian cry.But the answer came and the Indian received flour and bacon and tea and sugar, and this winter will receive them again.

But how can my brother expect the Government to care for his people if the Indians break the law? That is not good.These Indians are bad Indians and the Police will punish the thieves.A thief is a bad man and ought to be punished."Suddenly a new voice broke in abruptly upon the discourse.

"Who steal the Indian's hunting-ground? Who drive away the buffalo?" The voice rang with sharp defiance.It was the voice of Onawata, the Sioux Chief.

Cameron paid no heed to the ringing voice.He kept his back turned upon the Sioux.

"My brother knows," he continued, addressing himself to Running Stream, "that the Indian's best friend is the Government, and the Police are the Government's ears and eyes and hands and are ready always to help the Indians, to protect them from fraud, to keep away the whisky-peddlers, to be to them as friends and brothers.

But my brother has been listening to a snake that comes from another country and that speaks with a forked tongue.Our Government bought the land by treaty.Running Stream knows this to be no lie, but the truth.Nor did the Government drive away the buffalo from the Indians.The buffalo were driven away by the Sioux from the country of the snake with the forked tongue.My brother remembers that only a few years ago when the people to which this lying snake belongs came over to this country and tried to drive away from their hunting-grounds the Indians of this country, the Police protected the Indians and drove back the hungry thieving Sioux to their own land.And now a little bird has been telling me that this lying snake has been speaking into the ears of our Indian brothers and trying to persuade them to dig up the hatchet against their white brothers, their friends.The Police know all about this and laugh at it.The Police know about the foolish man at Batoche, the traitor Louis Riel.They know he is a liar and a coward.He leads brave men astray and then runs away and leaves them to suffer.This thing he did many years ago." And Cameron proceeded to give a brief sketch of the fantastic and futile rebellion of 1870 and of the ignoble part played by the vain and empty-headed Riel.

The effect of Cameron's words upon the Indians was an amazement even to himself.They forgot their breakfast and gathered close to the speaker, their eager faces and gleaming eyes showing how deeply stirred were their hearts.

Cameron was putting into his story an intensity of emotion and passion that not only surprised himself, but amazed his interpreter.Indeed so amazed was the little half-breed at Cameron's quite unusual display of oratorical power that his own imagination took fire and his own tongue was loosened to such an extent that by voice, look, tone and gesture he poured into his officer's harangue a force and fervor all his own.

"And now," continued Cameron, "this vain and foolish Frenchman seeks again to lead you astray, to lead you into war that will bring ruin to you and to your children; and this lying snake from your ancient enemies, the Sioux, thinking you are foolish children, seeks to make you fight against the great White Mother across the seas.He has been talking like a babbling old man, from whom the years have taken wisdom, when he says that the half-breeds and Indians can drive the white man from these plains.Has he told you how many are the children of the White Mother, how many are the soldiers in her army? Listen to me, and look! Get me many branches from the trees," he commanded sharply to some young Indians standing near.

So completely were the Indians under the thrall of his speech that a dozen of them sprang at once to get branches from the poplar trees near by.

"I will show you," said Cameron, "how many are the White Mother's soldiers.See,"--he held up both hands and then stuck up a small twig in the sand to indicate the number ten.Ten of these small twigs he set in a row and by a larger stick indicated a hundred, and so on till he had set forth in the sandy soil a diagrammatic representation of a hundred thousand men, the Indians following closely his every movement."And all these men," he continued, "are armed with rifles and with great big guns that speak like thunder.And these are only a few of the White Mother's soldiers.

How many Indians and half-breeds do you think there are with rifles?" He set in a row sticks to represent a thousand men.

"See," he cried, "so many." Then he added another similar row.

"Perhaps, if all the Indians gathered, so many with rifles.No more.Now look," he said, "no big guns, only a few bullets, a little powder, a little food.Ha, ha!" he laughed contemptuously.