The cattle thief

They were coming across the prairie.

They were galloping hard and fast

for the eyes of those desperate riders

had sighted their man at last.

Sighted him off to the eastward

where the Cree encampment lay,

Where the cottonwood fringed the river

Miles and miles away.

Mistake him? Never! Mistake him

that famous Eagle Chief.

That terror to all the settlers,

that desperate cattle thief.

That monstrous fearless Indian

who lorded it over the plain

Who thieved and raided and scouted

who rode like a hurricane.

Up they wheeled to the tepees

All their British blood aflame,

Bent on bullets and bloodshed

Bent on bringing down their game.

But they searched in vain for the cattle thief

that lion had left his lair.

And they cursed like a pack of demons

for the women alone were there.

"That sneaking Indian coward," they hissed.

"He hides while yet he can.

He'll come in the night for cattle,

but he's scared to face a man."

"Never!" Then up from the cottonwood rang

the voice of Eagle Chief.

And right into the open,

stepped unarmed the cattle thief.

A dozen hands responded

and a shower of metal rain

whizzed through the air and the Cattle Thief

fell dead on the open plain.

"Stand back, back you white skins

Touch that dead man to your shame.

You have stolen my father's spirit,

but his body I only claim."

And that cursing band of settlers

dropped backward one by one

for they knew that an Indian woman roused

was a woman to let alone.

And then she raved in a frenzy

that they scarcely understood.

Raved of the wrongs she had suffered

from her earliest babyhood.

"You have robbed him and robbed my people.

Look there at that shrunken face.

Starved with a hollow hunger

We owe to you and your race.

"Give back our land and our country.

Give back our herds of game.

Give back the furs and the forests

that were ours before you came.

"Give back the peace and the plenty

Then come with your new belief.

And blame if you dare the hunger

that drove him to be a thief."