THE RED MAN'S PLEA.

ALMOST LITERALLY THE REPLY OF 'RED IRON' TO GOVERNOR RAMSEY.

The snow is on the ground, and still my people wait; They ask but their just dues, ere yet it be too late; For we are poor, our huts are cold, we starve, we die, While you are rich, your fires are warm, your harvests lie High heaped above the hunting grounds, our fathers' graves, We sold you long ago. Alas! our famished braves Have sold e'en their own graves! When dead, our bones shall stay To whiten on the ground, that our Great Father may More surely see where his Dacotah children died— His dusky children whom ye robbed, and then belied.