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." After traveling
about for several years with the famous showman, thus increasing his
knowledge of the weaknesses as well as the strength of the white man,
the deposed and humiliated chief settled down quietly with his people
upon the Standing Rock agency in North Dakota, where his immediate band
occupied the Grand River district and set to raising cattle and
horses. They made good progress; much better, in fact, than that of the
"coffee-coolers" or "loafer" Indians, received the missionaries kindly
and were soon a church-going people.

When the Commissions of 1888 and 1889 came to treat with the Sioux for
a further cession of land and a reduction of their reservations, nearly
all were opposed to consent on any terms. Nevertheless, by hook or by
crook, enough signatures were finally obtained to carry the measure
through, although it is said that many were those of women and the
so-called "squaw-men", who had no rights in the land. At the same
time, rations were cut down, and there was general hardship and
dissatisfaction. Crazy Horse was long since dead; Spotted Tail had
fallen at the hands of one of his own tribe; Red Cloud had become a
feeble old man, and the disaffected among the Sioux began once more to
look to Sitting Bull for leadership.

At this crisis a strange thing happened. A half-breed Indian in Nevada
promulgated the news that the Messiah had appeared to him upon a peak in
the Rockies, dressed in rabbit skins, and bringing a message to the red
race. The message was to the e