Then Jim's eyes blazed, and he turned a look of anger on the chief, his
face pale and hard, as he said: "The stream rises above the banks; come
with me, chief, or all will drown. I am master, and I speak. Ye are
hungry because ye are idle. Ye call the world yours, yet ye will not
stoop to gather from the earth the fruits of the earth. Ye sit idle in
the summer, and women and children die round you when winter comes.
Because the game is gone, ye say. Must the world stand still because a
handful of Crees need a hunting-ground? Must the makers of cities and
the wonders of the earth, who fill the land with plenty--must they stand
far off, because the Crees and their chief would wander over millions of
acres, for each man a million, when by a hundred, ay, by ten, each white
man would live in plenty, and make the land rejoice. See. Here is the
truth. When the Great Spirit draws the game away so that the hunting is
poor, ye sit down and fill your hearts with murder, and in the blackness
of your thoughts kill my brother. Idle and shiftless and evil ye are,
while the earth cries out to give you of its plenty, a great harvest from
a little seed, if ye will but dig and plant, and plough and sow and reap,
and lend your backs to toil.
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