In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse Read Online Free Page A

river?”
    â€œYeah,” Jimmy replied.
    â€œWell, that trail came to this place, and then went on farther to the west. This place is Fort Laramie. It’s been here a long time.”
    Jimmy looked around. There was a wagon beside one of the buildings. Near another wagon stood a group of men in blue uniforms.
    â€œAre those Long Knives?” Jimmy wanted to know.
    â€œIn a way,” Grandpa Nyles answered. “They are reenactors. They come here and play the part of soldiers. They talk to the tourists.”
    â€œWhere are the Indians?” Jimmy asked.
    â€œGood question. Come on, let’s look around.”
    â€œOkay. So Crazy Horse was here?”
    â€œYeah, he sure was. He was here, as Light Hair and as Crazy Horse.”

    The way it was—September 1851
    Light Hair could not believe the number of people. He could stand in one place, turn in a circle, and there were people, lodges, and horses everywhere he looked. All were campedalong Horse Creek, a day’s ride east of Fort Laramie, the Long Knives’ outpost
.
    â€œWhere did they come from?” he asked They Are Afraid of Her, one of his mothers
.
    â€œAll over,” she replied as she sliced wild turnips into an iron kettle. “From the south, west, north, and east.”
    â€œWhy are we here?” he asked
.
    â€œBecause the white peace talkers invited all of them and us to come,” she replied
.
    â€œI heard some people talking, but I couldn’t understand them,” Light Hair told her
.
    â€œYes. Many different people means different languages,” she said. “There are our friends the Arapaho and the Cheyenne. Our enemies, too, the Crow. Then the Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. Our relatives the Dakota and the Nakota are here, too.”
    â€œWhy?”
    They Are Afraid of Her chuckled. “Because of the white people in the wagons on the Shell River Road. They’re afraid we might attack them. So the peace talkers want us to promise to leave them alone.”
    â€œThen maybe they should just stay away,” said Light Hair
.
    His mother laughed. “That’s what most of the people here think. Now, go find your brother and the two of you stay close to our lodge. I don’t want you wandering away. It’s easy to get lost.”
    Light Hair found his little brother, Whirlwind. He was called that because he was always on the move, first going in one direction, then another. “Come here,” he said to the younger boy. “Mother wants us to stay close.”
    â€œLet’s go look at those horses!” begged Whirlwind. “See, over there? They have little black spots all over them.”
    â€œAll right—but just for a little while,” Light Hair said, giving in
.
    They hurried through the groups of people while avoiding the barking dogs. Light Hair took his little brother by the hand. He had never seen so many people in one place. Men stood in groups together talking. Older boys rode by on horses. Women called out for their children. Others tended to kettles hanging over cooking fires. Smaller childrenplayed by the lodges. And everywhere he looked, it seemed there were more horses than people
.
    He suddenly felt very small
.

    â€œThat was the Council on Horse Creek,” said Grandpa Nyles. “East of here. History calls it the Fort Laramie Treaty Council of 1851. The people came because they were curious about what the white peace talkers wanted. They were told all the Indians were not to bother the people in the wagons on the Oregon Trail. Also because the whites offered gifts. Being asked not to bother those people seemed kind of silly, because it was the wagon people who always started the trouble. Some of them would shoot at Indians. The tribes signed the treaty. But after Light Hair became Crazy Horse, he was here again. Other than that, he stayed away. He didn’t like this place.”
    â€œWell, why did he come