e
prairie, and the buffalo would spring up, whole, when they turned their
backs.

All the buffalo would act this way, in the happy time to come.

The day of buffalo herds on the plains was past; but the party asserted
that they did find a herd, and killed one buffalo--and he sprang up,
from the hoofs and tail and head, just as the Messiah had promised.

The Cheyennes, the Shoshonis, the Arapahos, the Kiowas, the Utes, the
Pai-Utes, were dancing the Ghost Dance. The Sioux now danced.

The Ghost Dancers danced in a circle, holding hands and chanting, until
they fell over and went to spirit land. From the spirits they brought
back signs, such as buffalo tails, buffalo meat, and other things of an
Indian country.

The Sioux Ghost Dancers wore Ghost shirts, of white muslin. These
Ghost shirts would turn a bullet: no enemy weapon could pierce a Ghost
shirt! That was the word of Kicking Bear and Short Bull.

The Ghost Dance ceremonies were many, and the dance was noisy.

Away up on the Standing Rock reservation, which had not yet joined in
the craze, Sitting Bull, the former great medicine leader of the Sioux,
was much interested. The agent, Mr. James McLaughlin, refused to
permit him to visit Kicking Bear, the prophet on the Cheyenne River
reservation, south. Kicking Bear was hard at it, preaching the Messiah
religion to his Miniconjous and the other Sioux there.

But Sitting Bull was anxious to learn. So he sent six of his young men
down, to ask Kicking Bear to come up for a visit at the Grand River in
the Standing Rock reservation.

Kicking Bear appeared, in October, this 1890, with several of his
followers, and preached to the Sitting Bull people.

"My brothers, I bring to you the promise of a day in which there will
be no white man to lay his hand on the bridle of the Indian's horse;
when the red men of the prairie will rule the world, and not be turned
from the hunting grounds by any man. I bring you word from your
fathers the ghosts, that they are now marching to join you, led by the
Messiah who came once on earth with the white men, but was cast out and
killed by them. I have seen the wonders of the spirit land, and have
talked with the ghosts. I traveled far, and am sent back with a
message to tell you to make ready for the coming of the Messiah and
return of the ghosts in the spring."

This was the commencement of Kicking Bear's sermon, as reported to
Agent McLaughlin by One Bull, an Indian pol