It was the universal language of the race.

So impressed was General Sheridan with its importance that he detailed Captain Clark to prepare and submit to him a work on the silent language. This was not completed until 1881 ; too late to be of value in the wars, but of great interest and merit. Old Indian fighters and frontiersmen had, however, absorbed much of it in the earlier years, and it was of much use to them from time to time.

Its value lay in not only being able to communicate and receive impressions, but it checked unreliable interpreters. Sometimes, after a crooked interpreter would convey one impression, a silent sign from a friendly would tell the observer the truth.

Indians can sit for hours with only an occasional grunt, yet their hands are unweaving a tale, or they are exchanging opinions. There was a child among the Sioux, that was dumb, but she could talk fluently with her hands. Even the Zodiac was crudely exemplified in the silent language of the Indians. The Trail to the Happy Hunting Grounds was indicated by "the sign of the milky way," for the starry pathway across the sky was believed by the Indians to be the "Long, long trail." Arapahoes who fainted, and came to, said they had been along the Milky Way, and had seen the tepees and game.

THE WINDING STORY-- SAGES TALE OF ORGIES -- THE NEW DAWN

"The story winds as winds the river," and memory and history goes back along the Red Cloud Trail, when it did not bear the distinction of the common translation of the name, "Marpiya Luta." It was used, however, by the trapper and the trader, and the country of North Sioux county, then unorganized, was alive with dangers similar to those that marked the close of Indian wars.