They said they must get two Indian men within ten days. If they did not they would all suffer for it. When this was told us our chiefs sent our men to find them, and it took some little time to do so, and when they did find them they were bringing them in. One more day would have brought them to Fort Hall. But some of the friends of the two men came and met them, and said that all of their people were in prison, and “oh, everything was taken from them, their guns and their ponies, and they were guarded by a great many soldiers, and it is said they are all going to be killed.”
“And what is the use,” they said, “for us to go with these men? We had better keep away from them.” Well, it was these men’s friends who went on the war-path, and this was the beginning of the Bannock war. Then Bannock Jack asked me if I had it all written down. I said, “Yes.” Then he said, “Will you be so kind as to send it to Washington and ask our Great Father in Washington to help us get back our guns and our ponies. They were not given us by our Good Father in Washington. If they had been we would not say a word. They were bought by our own hard work. We think it very hard for a whole tribe to lose everything and to be all killed beside, and for what they did not give us time to do, and as if we had refused to get the men.”
The second chief, Egan, got up again to talk. He began by saying, “My dear mother,”—for this is the way our people address any one who is their superior. If a woman, it is their mother; if a man, it is their father. So Egan began in this way. When he got up to talk to me, he said,—
“When our good father, Sam Parrish, was here, oh, then we were happy. Our children were not crying for anything to eat, and causing our hearts to ache for them. We all
