fathers first met with them, but now great and
overbearing. Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil, and
the love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made
many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a
religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even
take tithes of the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule.
They claim this mother of ours, the Earth, for their own use, and fence
their neighbors away from her, and deface her with their buildings and
their refuse. They compel her to produce out of season, and when sterile
she is made to take medicine in order to produce again. All this is
sacrilege.

"This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and
destroys all who are in its path. We cannot dwell side by side. Only
seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the
buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take
that from us also. My brothers, shall we submit? or shall we say to
them: 'First kill me, before you can take possession of my fatherland!'"

As Sitting Bull spoke, so he felt, and he had the courage to stand
by his words. Crazy Horse led his forces in the field; as for him, he
applied his energies to state affairs, and by his strong and aggressive
personality contributed much to holding the hostiles together.

It may be said without fear of contradiction that Sitting Bull never
killed any women or children. He was a fair fighter, and while not
prominent in battle after his young manhood, he was the brains of the
Sioux resistance. He has been called a "medicine man" and a "dreamer."
Strictly speaking, he was neither of these, and the white historians
are prone to confuse the two. A medicine man is a doctor or healer; a
dreamer is an active war prophet who leads his war party according to
his dream or prophecy. What is called by whites "making medicine" in war
time is again a wrong conception. Every warrior carries a bag of sacred
or lucky charms, supposed to protect the wearer alone, but it has
nothing to do with the success or safety of the party as a whole. No one
can make any "medicine" to affect the result of a battle, although it
has been said that Sitting Bull did this at the battle of the Little Big
Horn.

When Custer and Reno attacked the camp at both ends, the chief was
caught napping. The village was in danger of surprise, and the women and
children must be