Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/246

as in other cases, I never heard from it. I wrote to my school-children afterwards. The head man, who called himself War Jack, got some one to write to me, saying my children had forgotten what they had learned, as they were not going to school any more. That is the last I heard from them, and my work at Vancouver for the military government may be my last work, as I am talking against the government officials; and I am assured I never shall get an appointment as interpreter. I do have a little hope if the army takes care of my people that they will give me a place, either as teacher or interpreter. I tell you, my dear readers, the agents don’t want anybody but their own brothers and sisters, or fathers and mothers, wives, cousins, or aunts. If they do have an interpreter, they get one that is so ignorant he does not know what is said. Yes, one that can’t read, one that is always ready to sign any kind of letter that suits his own purpose. My people have been signing papers for the last twenty-three years. They don’t know what they sign. The interpreter tells them it is for blankets, coats, pants, shoes, socks, woollen shirts, calicoes, unbleached muslin. So they put their names to it, while it is only a report of the issues he has already made. He knows well enough that if they were told it was the report of an issue they would not sign it. This kind of thing goes on, on all the reservations; and if any white man writes to Washington in our behalf, the agent goes to work with letters and gets his men, and his aunts and cousins to help him, and they get any kind of Indians to sign the letters, and they are sent on to Washington. Yes, General Crook tells the truth about the agents stealing from the Indians, and whoever tells this truth is abused by the agent. He calls him nobody, and the agent is believed, because he is a Christian. So it goes on year after year. Oh, when will it stop? I pray of you, I implore of you,