![]() I’ll fight you, white-skins, one by one, till I kill you all, he said īut the threat was scarcely uttered, ere a dozen balls of lead He turned, like a hunted lion: I know not fear, said he Īnd the words outleapt from his shrunken lips in the language of the Cree. Over those hungry, hollow eyes that glared for the sight of food. ![]() Over that wrinkled, tawny skin, unfed by the warmth of blood. ![]() Over that fleshless, hungry frame, starved to the bone and old Was that the game they had coveted? Scarce fifty years had rolled Never! and up from the cotton woods rang the voice of the Eagle Chief Īnd right out into the open stepped, unarmed, the Cattle Thief. He’ll come in the night for cattle, but he’s scared to face a man. The sneaking Indian coward, they hissed he hides while yet he can Up they wheeled to the tepees, all their British blood aflame,īent on bullets and bloodshed, bent on bringing down their game īut they searched in vain for the Cattle Thief: that lion had left his lair,Īnd they cursed like a troop of demons-for the women alone were there. Who thieved and raided, and scouted, who rode like a hurricane!īut they’ve tracked him across the prairie they’ve followed him hard and fast įor those desperate English settlers have sighted their man at last. That monstrous, fearless Indian, who lorded it over the plain, That terror to all the settlers, that desperate Cattle Thief. Mistake him? Never!-Mistake him? the famous Eagle Chief! Where the cotton woods fringed the river, miles and miles away. Sighted him off to Eastward, where the Cree encampment lay, They were coming across the prairie, they were galloping hard and fast įor the eyes of those desperate riders had sighted their man at last. It then shifts, as the daughter of the chief comes and rebukes the killers, undermining their ideas about the land, food, ownership, and religion. “The Cattle Thief” begins with the chasing down, confrontation, and killing of a Cree chief by English settlers.
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