demands, the hostiles were driven about from pillar to post for
several more years, and finally took refuge across the line in
Canada, where Sitting Bull had placed his last hope of justice and
freedom for his race. Here he was joined from time to time by
parties of malcontents from the reservation, driven largely by
starvation and ill-treatment to seek another home. Here, too, they
were followed by United States commissioners, headed by General
Terry, who endeavored to persuade him to return, promising
abundance of food and fair treatment, despite the fact that the
exiles were well aware of the miserable condition of the "good
Indians" upon the reservations. He first refused to meet them at
all, and only did so when advised to that effect by Major Walsh of
the Canadian mounted police. This was his characteristic remark:
"If you have one honest man in Washington, send him here and I will
talk to him."

Sitting Bull was not moved by fair words; but when he found
that if they had liberty on that side, they had little else, that
the Canadian government would give them protection but no food;
that the buffalo had been all but exterminated and his starving
people were already beginning to desert him, he was compelled at
last, in 1881, to report at Fort Buford, North Dakota, with his
band of hungry, homeless, and discouraged refugees. It was, after
all, to hunger and not to the strong arm of the military that he
surrendered in the end.

In spite of the invitation that had been extended to him in
the name of the "Great Father" at Washington, he was immediately
thrown into a military prison, and afterward handed over to Colonel
Cody ("Buffalo Bill") as an advertisement for his "Wild West Show."