Blood had flowed; many warriors
lay in their last sleep under the trees; but the iron monster that
belched fire had gone only to return again. Those white men were
many as the needles of the pines. They fought and died, but always
others came.
The chief was old and wise, taught by sage and star and mountain and
wind and the loneliness of the prairie-land. He recognized a
superior race, but not a nobler one. White men would glut the
treasures of water and earth. The Indian had been born to hunt his
meat, to repel his red foes, to watch the clouds and serve his gods.
But these white men would come like a great flight of grasshoppers
to cover the length and breadth of the prairie-land. The buffalo
would roll away, like a dust-cloud, in the distance, and never
return. No meat for the Indian--no grass for his mustang--no place
for his home. The Sioux must fight till he died or be driven back
into waste places where grief and hardship would end him.
Red and dusky, the sun was setting beyond the desert. The old chief
swept aloft his arm, and then in his acceptance of the inevitable
bitterness he stood in magnificent austerity, somber as death,
seeing in this railroad train creeping, fading into the ruddy
sunset, a symbol of the destiny of the Indian--vanishing--vanishing
--vanishing--
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The U.
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