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Banner: Canadian Poetry Archive

THE CATTLE THIEF

Johnson, E. Pauline

	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 Eastward, where the Cree en-
                 campment lay,
  Where the cotton woods fringed the river, miles and 
                  miles away.
    Mistake him? Never! Mistake him? the 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!
   But they've tracked him across the prairie: they've 
            followed him hard and fast;
   For those desperate English settlers have sighted 
                their man at last.

    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 troop of demons - for the 
             women alone were there.
    "The 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!" and up from the cotton woods rang the 
              voice of Eagle Chief;
   And right out into the open stepped, unarmed, the 
                  Cattle Thief.
   Was that the game they had coveted? Scarce fifty 
                years had rolled 
    Over that fleshless, hungry frame, starved to the 
                 bone and old;
     Over that wrinkled, tawny skin, unfed by the 
                warmth of blood.
   Over those hungry, hollow eyes that glared for the 
                  sight of food.

    He turned, like a hunted lion: "I know not fear,"
                    said he;
    And the word outleapt from his shrunken lips in 
             the language of the Cree.
    "I'll fight you, white-skins, one by one, till I kill 
                you all," he said;
    But the threat was scarcely uttered, ere a dozen 
                  balls of lead 
    Whizzed through the air about him like a shower 
                  of metal rain,
    And the gaunt old Indian Cattle Thief dropped 
              dead on the open plain.
    And that band of cursing settlers gave one trium-
                   phant yell,
   And rushed like a pack of demons on the body that 
                writhed and fell.
   "Cut the fiend up into inches, throw his carcass on 
                   the plain;
    Let the wolves eat the cursed Indian, he'd have 
               treated us the same."
   A dozen hands responded, a dozen knives gleamed 
                     high,
    But the first stroke was arrested by a woman's 
                strange, wild cry.
     And out into the open, with a courage past be-
                     lief,
   She dashed, and spread her blanket o'er the corpse 
               of the Cattle Thief;
   And the words outleapt form her shrunken lips in 
             the language of the Cree,
     "If you mean to touch that body, you must cut 
              your way through me."
    And that band of cursing settlers dropped back-
                ward 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 since her 
               earliest babyhood:
    "Stand back, stand back, you white-skins, touch 
           that dead man to your shame;
    You have stolen my father's spirit, but his body I 
                  only claim.
     You have killed him, but you shall not dare to 
             touch him now he's dead.
    You have cursed, and called him a Cattle Thief, 
        though you robbed him first of bread-
   Robbed him and robbed my people - look there, at 
                that shrunken face,
   Starved with a hollow hunger, we owe to you and 
                   your race.
    What have you left to us of land, what have you 
                  left of game,
   What have you brought but evil, and curses since 
                   you came?
   How have you paid us for our game? how paid us 
                  for our land?
    By a book, to save our souls from the sins you 
            brought in your other hand.
    Go back with your new religion, we never have 
                  understood 
    Your robbing an Indian's body, and mocking his 
                 soul with food. 
   Go back with your new religion, and find - if find 
                   you can - 
    The honest man you have ever made from out a 
                 starving man. 
   You say your cattle are not ours, your meat is not 
                   our meat;
    When you pay for the land you live in, we'll pay 
               for the meat we eat.
   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." 





Poem is in the public domain..