blackened ridges burned by the fires these men had made. Later they laid small trees on the naked earth and over them made a trail of iron that ran into the east, without end.
"And then one summer we saw the Iron Horse, fed with fire, come out of the east following the Iron Trail. And with the Iron Horse came the free-traders to barter for furs the burning water which the Great Company would not give the Indians. Here I saw Ojibways sell in one day for this devil-water their winter hunt of fur, while the women wailed in the tepees where there was no tea or flour. The young men, no longer men but slaves to the traders—and not ashamed—begged for the bad medicine that filled their veins with fire and stole their manhood. Here I looked on starvation and misery among my people brought by those who followed the Iron Trail with their camps.
"All this I saw when I journeyed far south to the Big Sweet Water.
"When I learned, two long snows ago, that the white man would make another Iron Trail, my heart was saddened. It was in the freezing moon before the last long snows that white men came to The Beautiful Valley. I was south at the post when my sons found them, so they gave them their lives."
On the old man's face was written the torture of his thoughts. Shortly he continued:
"You have the soul of an Ojibway, and understand. Look down there at those forests untouched by fire; those lakes, clean as the springs which feed
