Flint and Feather | Page 9

the Cree.?"I'll fight you, white-skins, one by one, till I
kill you all," he said;?But the threat was scarcely uttered, ere a dozen
balls of lead?Whizzed through the air about him like a shower
of metal rain,?And the gaunt old Indian Cattle Thief dropped
dead on the open plain.?And that band of cursing settlers gave one
triumphant yell,?And rushed like a pack of demons on the body that
writhed and fell.?"Cut the fiend up into inches, throw his carcass
on the plain;?Let the wolves eat the cursed Indian, he'd have
treated us the same."?A dozen hands responded, a dozen knives gleamed
high,?But the first stroke was arrested by a woman's
strange, wild cry.?And out into the open, with a courage past
belief,?She dashed, and spread her blanket o'er the corpse
of the Cattle Thief;?And the words outleapt from her shrunken lips in
the language of the Cree,?"If you mean to touch that body, you must cut
your way through me."?And that band of cursing settlers dropped
backward one by one,?For they knew that an Indian woman roused, was
a woman to let alone.?And then she raved in a frenzy that they scarcely
understood,?Raved of the wrongs she had suffered since her
earliest babyhood:?"Stand back, stand back, you white-skins, touch
that dead man to your shame;?You have stolen my father's spirit, but his body I
only claim.?You have killed him, but you shall not dare to
touch him now he's dead.?You have cursed, and called him a Cattle Thief,
though you robbed him first of bread--?Robbed him and robbed my people--look there, at
that shrunken face,?Starved with a hollow hunger, we owe to you and
your race.?What have you left to us of land, what have you
left of game,?What have you brought but evil, and curses since
you came??How have you paid us for our game? how paid us
for our land??By a book_, to save our souls from the sins _you
brought in your other hand.?Go back with your new religion, we never have
understood?Your robbing an Indian's body, and mocking his
soul with food.?Go back with your new religion, and find--if find
you can--?The honest man you have ever made from out a
starving man.?You say your cattle are not ours, your meat is not
our meat;?When you_ pay for the land you live in, _we'll pay
for the meat we eat.?Give back our land and our country, give back our
herds of game;?Give back the furs and the forests that were ours
before you came;?Give back the peace and the plenty. Then come
with your new belief,?And blame, if you dare, the hunger that drove him to
be a thief."
A CRY FROM AN INDIAN WIFE
My forest brave, my Red-skin love, farewell;?We may not meet to-morrow; who can tell?What mighty ills befall our little band,?Or what you'll suffer from the white man's hand??Here is your knife! I thought 'twas sheathed for aye.?No roaming bison calls for it to-day;?No hide of prairie cattle will it maim;?The plains are bare, it seeks a nobler game:?'Twill drink the life-blood of a soldier host.?Go; rise and strike, no matter what the cost.?Yet stay. Revolt not at the Union Jack,?Nor raise Thy hand against this stripling pack?Of white-faced warriors, marching West to quell?Our fallen tribe that rises to rebel.?They all are young and beautiful and good;?Curse to the war that drinks their harmless blood.?Curse to the fate that brought them from the East?To be our chiefs--to make our nation least?That breathes the air of this vast continent.?Still their new rule and council is well meant.?They but forget we Indians owned the land?From ocean unto ocean; that they stand?Upon a soil that centuries agone?Was our sole kingdom and our right alone.?They never think how they would feel to-day,?If some great nation came from far away,?Wresting their country from their hapless braves,?Giving what they gave us--but wars and graves.?Then go and strike for liberty and life,?And bring back honour to your Indian wife.?Your wife? Ah, what of that, who cares for me??Who pities my poor love and agony??What white-robed priest prays for your safety here,?As prayer is said for every volunteer?That swells the ranks that Canada sends out??Who prays for vict'ry for the Indian scout??Who prays for our poor nation lying low??None--therefore take your tomahawk and go.?My heart may break and burn into its core,?But I am strong to bid you go to war.?Yet stay, my heart is not the only one?That grieves the loss of husband and of son;?Think of the mothers o'er the inland seas;?Think of the pale-faced maiden on her knees;?One pleads her God to guard some sweet-faced child?That marches on toward the North-West wild.?The other prays to shield her love from harm,?To strengthen his young, proud uplifted arm.?Ah, how her white face quivers thus to think,?Your tomahawk his life's best blood will drink.?She never thinks of my wild aching breast,?Nor prays for your dark face and eagle crest?Endangered by a thousand rifle balls,?My heart the target if my warrior falls.?O! coward self I hesitate no more;?Go forth, and win