ken the peace chain. They
had crossed the mountains and were on their way north, for Canada.

That the Pierced Noses had taken the war trail was astonishing news.
For one hundred years they had held the hand of the white man. Their
proudest boast said: "The Nez Perces have never shed white blood."

They spoke truly. During the seventy years since the two captains
Lewis and Clark had met them in 1805, only one white man had been
killed by a Pierced Nose. That was not in war, but in a private
quarrel between the two.

Hunters, traders and missionaries had always been helped by the Pierced
Noses. The white man's religion had been favored. The Good Book had
been prized.

Young Chief Joseph was now the leader of the Pierced Noses upon the war
trail. His Indian name was Hin-ma-ton
Ya-lat-kit--Thunder-rising-from-the-water-over-the-land. But his
father had been christened Joseph by the missionaries; so the son was
called Young Chief Joseph.

A tall, commanding, splendid-looking Indian he had grown to be, at
forty years of age. He was every inch a chief, and had a noble face.

His people were the Lower Nez Perces, who lived in the beautiful
Wallowa Valley--their Valley of the Winding Waters, in northeastern
Oregon. Here they raised many horses, and hunted, but put in few
crops. Old Chief Joseph had believed that the earth should not be
disturbed; the people should eat only what it produced of itself. The
earth was their mother.

He believed also that nobody owned any part of the earth. The earth
had been given to all, by the Great Creator. Everybody had a right to
use what was needed.

Twenty years ago, or in 1855, Old Chief Joseph had signed a paper, by
which the United States agreed to let the Pierced Noses alone on their
wide lands of western Idaho, and eastern Oregon and Washington.

But it was seen that the Pierced Noses did not cultivate the better
portion of this country; the white men wanted to plough the Valley of
Winding Waters; and eight years later another treaty was made, which
cut out the Winding Waters. It narrowed the Nez Perces to the Lapwai
reservation in Idaho.

Old Chief Joseph did not sign this treaty. Other chiefs signed, for
the Nez Perces. The United States thought that this was enough, as it
considered the Pierced Noses to be one nation. The Valley of the
Winding Waters was said to be open to white settlers.

The Old Chief Joseph Pierced Noses continued to live there, jus