The Indian tribes leave

The Indian tribes leave is the great turning point of the Ingalls family's year on the High Prairie, the moment when the terror of the war-cry crisis dissolves into a vast, silent procession of departing tribes. For nights the family had endured the drums and war-cries of the Indian camps along the creek, with Pa watching at the window with his gun, Laura and Mary pressed close to Ma, and little Carrie crying. Then, in a single morning, the prairie emptied. The event is not merely an ending but a revelation: it exposes the hidden diplomacy of the Osage chief Great Soldier, who had argued day and night with the other tribes to save the white settlers, and it closes with Laura's aching, inexplicable wish to keep a little Indian baby she sees riding past — a moment that binds the family's deliverance to a loss she cannot name.

The End of the War-Cry Crisis

The departure comes as the direct consequence of the worst night the family had endured. All up and down the creek, war-cries had answered war-cries, the drums beat faster, and the sound filled the prairie with no rest. Pa watched and listened all the time, eating little, until one day his head fell onto the table and he slept a little, only to wake with a jump and say crossly to Ma, 'Don't let me do that again!' That night was the worst of all, the drums beating faster and the war-cries making their blood run cold. At the window Pa told Ma that the Indians were quarrelling among themselves, and Ma answered, 'Oh, Charles, I hope so!' Just before the sun came up, the last war-cry ended and Laura fell asleep in Ma's arms. She woke at noon to find the door open and the sun high in the sky, Ma cooking dinner and Pa sitting outside on the step. He reported that another big group was going off to the south, and told Laura that two long lines of Indians had gone west that morning. It meant the Indians had argued among themselves and were not going to hunt buffalo together. 'Tonight we'll sleep!' Pa said, and they did, not even dreaming.

Great Soldier's Hidden Diplomacy

The true cause of the departure emerges only after Pa takes his gun and goes down the creek road, leaving Laura, Mary, and Ma to wait the whole long day. When he returns in the late afternoon, he says everything is all right. He had gone up and down the creek and seen many empty Indian camps; all the Indian tribes had left, except the Osages. In the forest he met an Osage who could speak English, and the man told him the whole story. All the tribes except the Osages had wanted to kill the settlers. The tall Indian who had ridden so far and so fast that night — the same chief who had once come silently into their house — had ridden because he did not want them to kill the white people. He was an Osage chief, and his name was Great Soldier. 'He went on arguing with them day and night,' Pa said, 'until the other Osages agreed with him. Then he told the other tribes that the Osages were ready to fight them to save the white settlers.' That was why there had been so much noise in the camps: the tribes were howling at each other. In the end, the other tribes did not want to fight Great Soldier and the Osages, so they went away. 'That's one good Indian!' Pa said.

The Great Procession

After another long night of sleep, Pa opens the door to let in the warm spring air and stands on the step looking east, calling Caroline, Mary, and Laura to come see. Laura runs out first and is surprised: the Indians are coming. First comes the tall Indian chief who had saved their lives, his black horse very near, and Laura's heart beats fast. She looks at his moccasins, at his colourful blanket, at his naked brown-red arms that carry the long gun. His face is still and fierce, and only the long eagle feathers in his hair move in the wind. 'Great Soldier himself,' Pa says softly, lifting his hand to say hello. But the horse and the Indian chief go by without looking at Pa or Ma or Mary or Laura or the house. Then other horses and Indians with eagle feathers in their hair go by, brown face after brown face, bright beads shining in the sun, horses' tails and eagle feathers blowing in the wind. The women and children come riding behind the Indian men. Little naked brown Indians, no bigger than Mary and Laura, ride by with their straight black hair blowing in the wind and their black eyes shining with happiness. Laura looks and looks at the Indian children, and they look at her. She has a sudden wish to be a little Indian girl, to ride naked in the wind and the sun.

Laura and the Papoose

The procession ends with a moment of pure, unanswerable longing. Indian mothers come riding by with babies in baskets at the sides of their horses, and Laura looks straight into the bright eyes of one little baby, its eyes black as a night when no stars shine. 'Pa,' she says, 'get me that little Indian baby!' Pa tells her to be quiet, but the baby's head turns and its eyes look into Laura's eyes. 'Oh, I want it! I want it!' Laura cries. 'It wants to stay with me. Please, Pa, please!' 'Quiet, Laura,' Pa says. 'The Indian woman wants to keep her baby.' Then Laura begins to cry. The little papoose is gone, and she is never going to see it again. Ma is baffled: 'I've never heard of such a thing. Why do you want an Indian baby, of all things?' 'Its eyes are so black,' Laura cries, unable to say what she means. The moment gathers the whole history of the family's year — the first sight of the tall, fierce-looking men on the Indian trail, the silent visit of the chief with his eagle feathers and beaded moccasins, the terror of the war-cries — into a single child's grief for a baby she will never see again. The Indians leave, the prairie is still, and the Ingalls family is safe; but Laura's tears mark the cost of that safety, a loss that no amount of deliverance can undo.