His braves surrounded his tent and cut it into strips with their knives.  They threatened to depose him from the chiefship unless he immediately put on the “war-paint” and led them against the whites.  They knew that the Civil War was then in progress, that the white men were fighting among themselves, and they declared that now was the time to regain their lost hunting-grounds; that now was the time to avenge the thievery and insults of the Agents who had for years systematically cheated them out of the greater part of their promised annuities, for which they had been induced to part with their lands; that now was the time to avenge the debauchery of their wives and daughters by the dissolute hangers-on who, as employees of the Indian Agents and licensed traders, had for years hovered around them like buzzards around the carcasses of slaughtered buffaloes.

But Little Crow was unmoved by the appeals and threats of his warriors.  It is said that once for a moment he uncovered his head; that his face was haggard and great beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.  But at last one of his enraged braves, bolder than the rest, cried out: 

“Ta-o-ya-te-du-ta is a coward!”

Instantly Little Crow sprang from his teepee, snatched the eagle-feathers from the head of his insulter and flung them on the ground.  Then, stretching himself to his full height, his eyes flashing fire, and in a voice tremulous with rage, he exclaimed: 

“Ta-o-ya-te-du-ta is not a coward, and he is not a fool!  When did he run away from his enemies?  When did he leave his braves behind him on the war-path and turn back to his teepees?  When he ran away from your enemies, he walked behind on your trail with his face to the Ojibways and covered your backs as a she-bear covers her cubs!  Is Ta-o-ya-te-du-ta without scalps?  Look at his war-feathers!  Behold the scalp-locks of your enemies hanging there on his lodge-poles!  Do they call him a coward? Ta-o-ya-te-du-ta is not a coward, and he is not a fool.  Braves, you are like little children; you know not what you are doing.

“You are full of the white man’s devil-water” (rum).  “You are like dogs in the Hot Moon when they run mad and snap at their own shadows.  We are only little herds of buffaloes left scattered; the great herds that once covered the prairies are no more.  See!—­the white men are like the locusts when they fly so thick that the whole sky is a snow-storm.  You may kill one—­two—­ten; yes, as many as the leaves in the forest yonder, and their brothers will not miss them.  Kill one—­two—­ten, and ten times ten will come to kill you.  Count your fingers all day long and white men with guns in their hands will come faster than you can count.