They were the picked braves of the tribes, and with them a large number of the younger chiefs.
At length the half-breed Cree finished his tale, and in a few brief fierce sentences he called the Indians of the West to join their half-breed and Indian brothers of the North in one great effort to regain their lost rights and to establish themselves for all time in independence and freedom.
Then followed grave discussion carried on with deliberation and courtesy by those sitting about the fire, and though gravity and courtesy marked every utterance there thrilled through every speech an ever deepening intensity of feeling.

The fiery spirit of the red man, long subdued by those powers that represented the civilization of the white man, was burning fiercely within them.

The insatiable lust for glory formerly won in war or in the chase, but now no longer possible to them, burned in their hearts like a consuming fire.

The life of monotonous struggle for a mere existence to which they were condemned had from the first been intolerable to them.

The prowess of their fathers, whether in the slaughter of foes or in the excitement of the chase, was the theme of song and story round every Indian camp-fire and at every sun dance.
For the young braves, life, once vivid with color and thrilling with tingling emotions, had faded into the somber-hued monotony of a dull and spiritless existence, eked out by the charity of the race who had robbed them of their hunting-grounds and deprived them of their rights as free men.