“He said to us: ‘I will not give you a cent.’
“We said to him: ‘We are in a strange country. We cannot find our way home. Give us a pass, that people may show us our way.’
“He said: ‘I will not give you any.’
“We said to him: ‘This interpreter is ours. We pay him. Let him go with us.’
“He said: ‘You shall not have the interpreter. He is mine, and not yours.’
“We said to him: ‘Take us at least to the railroad ; show us the way to that.’
“And he would not. He left us right there. It was winter We started for home on foot. At night we slept in hay-stacks. We barely lived till morning, it was so cold. We had nothing but our blankets. We took the ears of corn that had dried in the fields; we ate it raw. The soles of our moccasins wore out. We were barefoot in the snow. We were nearly dead when we reached the Otoe Reserve. It had been fifty days. We stayed there ten days to strengthen up, and the Otoes gave each of us a pony. The agent of the Otoes told us he had received a telegram from the inspector, saying that the Indian chiefs had run away; not to give us food or shelter, or help in any way. The agent said: ‘I would like to understand. Tell me all that has happened. Tell me the truth.’ ”
(This Otoe agent afterward said that when the chiefs entered his room they left the prints of their feet in blood on the floor as they came in.)
“Then we told our story to the agent and to the Otoe chiefs—how we had been left down there to find our way.
“The agent said: ‘I can hardly believe it possible that any one could have treated you so. That inspector was a poor man to have done this. If I had taken chiefs in this way, I would have brought them home; I could not have left them there.’
“In seven days we reached the Omaha Reservation. Then
