They hardly spoke till after they had eaten.

The Indian is always hungry, for the reason that his food supply is insufficient and his clothing poor.

When they sat on the cracker-boxes and soap-boxes which served as seats, they spoke.

They told him of the chieftain's message.
They said they had come to assist him in driving his cattle back across the hills; that he must go.
To all this talk in the Indian's epigrammatic way, and in the dialect which has never been written, the rancher replied almost as briefly: "You go back and tell Drifting Crane that I like this place; that I'm here to stay; that I don't want any help to drive my cattle.

I'm on the lands of the Great Father at Washington, and Drifting Crane ain't got any say about it.