Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/99

“Well, that’s what the Big Father in Washington says.” Then Bill said, “Take it all.” After Mr. Mushrush took his unjust share, my poor cousin had only three sacks left for himself. Our present agent made my people give every third sack of grain, and the same of everything else. Every third load of hay is given. My people asked why, as he had not given them seed for planting, nor did the farmer help them. They did not see why they should pay so much, but the agent told them that was the order from Washington. They refused to pay it. The agent told them they must pay it or he would take their wagons away. They went home to talk it over that night. However, Jim, the sub-chief, told his people that the white men had been stealing from them for a long time, “and now I am going to steal from them this very night. I am going to have my family hide away half of my grain. I have sixty sacks of wheat and twenty-six of potatoes. As for the hay-cart I don’t care. What do you think of me for talking so to you? I see I can’t keep up with the white people. They think it right to steal all they can while they are with us. And I am going to do another thing; I am going to quit signing any paper, for I don’t know what I have been signing all these twenty-two years.” My cousin Captain Bill, and his brother, said, “We will keep all our grain, and if he wants the wagon he can take it.” Then all the rest of the men said, “We will do the same as our chief, and what is left he can have.” Some of them said, “We have only a little, and what shall we do?” The next morning they went to the agent’s house to see if he had changed his mind, but he told them that was the law. Bill told him that he might go and get his wagon. “I bought my seed and paid my own money for it, and you did not help me.” The agent replied, “If you won’t do what the government orders, you must leave the reservation.” Jim, the sub-chief, said, “You