Captain Jack, who was now the real and recognized chief among the Indians, still held on to the home of his fathers, an honest and upright Indian, and gathered about him the best and bravest of his tribe. Here they remained, raising horses and cattle, hunting, fishing, and generally following their old pursuits, till the white settlers began to want the little land they occupied.
Then the authorities came to Captain Jack, and told him he must go to the Reservation, abandon his lands, and live with his enemies. The Indians refused to go.
"Then you must die."
"Very well," answered Captain Jack; "it is die if we go, and die if we stay. We will die where our fathers died."
At night that time which the Indians surrender to the wild beasts, and when they give themselves up in trust to the Great Spirit the troops poured in upon them. They met their enemies like Spartans.
After long holding their ground, then came the Peace Commissioners to talk of peace. The Indians, remembering the tragedy of twenty years before, desperate and burning for revenge, believing that the only alternative was to kill or be killed, killed the Commissioners, as their own Peace Commissioners had been killed. They were surrounded, yet did this deed right in the face of the desperate con sequences which they knew must follow.
If we may be permitted to exult in any deeds of war, how can we but glory in the valour of these few
