this spring? You say that you love the whites, and are full of many
expressions of friendship to us; but you are not willing to undergo the
fatigue of a few days' ride to save our lives. We do not believe what you
have said, and will not listen to you. Whatever a chief among us, tells
his soldiers to do, is done. We are the soldiers of the great chief, your
father. He has told us to come here and see this country, and all the
Indians, his children. Why should we not go? Before we came, we heard that
you had killed his people, and ceased to be his children; but we came
among you peaceably, holding out our hands. Now we find that the stories
we heard are not lies, and that you are no longer his friends and
children. We have thrown away our bodies, and will not turn back. When you
told us that your young men would kill us, you did not know that our
hearts were strong, and you did not see the rifles which my young men
carry in their hands. We are few, and you are many, and may kill us all;
but there will be much crying in your villages, for many of your young men
will stay behind, and forget to return with your warriors from the
mountains. Do you think that our great chief will let his soldiers die,
and forget to cover their graves? Before the snows melt again, his
warriors will sweep away your villages as the fire does the prairie in the
autumn. See! I have pulled down my _white houses_, and my people are
ready: when the sun is ten paces higher, we shall be on the march. If you
have any thing to tell us, you will say it soon."

I broke up the conference, as I could do nothing with these people; and,
being resolved to proceed, nothing was to be gained by delay. Accompanied
by our hospitable friends, we returned to the camp. We had mounted our
horses, and our parting salutations had been exchanged, when one of the
chiefs (the Bull's Tail) arrived to tell me that they had determined to
send a young man with us; and if I would point out the place of our
evening camp, he should join us there. "The young man is poor," said he;