Sitting Bull -- 1831-1890, James Morrow Walsh -- 1840-1905, Dakota -- Government relations, Dakota 

"It is late in 1876, the blood-soaked year of the Little Big Horn. Sitting Bull and his victorious followers are fighting or fleeing towards Canada to escape American revenge. Rather than surrender and be transported hundreds of miles from their beloved hunting grounds to reservations, the Indians are moving farther north, bringing to the Canadian plains the tension, danger and frenzy of the Indian wars, and to the Mounties, hopelessly outnumbered, the biggest challenge in Canada's new life as a nation.

Across the Medicine Line is the story of the dramatic encounter between Sitting Bull, the exiled leader of the Sioux, and James Morrow Walsh, Superintendent of the North-West Mounted Police. Between this grave, wily, persuasive Indian and his adventurous, quick-tempered antagonist, there arose a stormy friendship - at times severely tested by the Indians, by Ottawa and Washington, by the internal politics of the police, and by the vengeful U.S. Army, anxious to return Sitting Bull to his homeland and deal out punishment. In this new and important book, C. Frank Turner brings us the speech and temper of the times through first-hand accounts, taken from actual shorthand records written at the time of the Sioux invasion. Seldom has the period been so vividly depicted. Sitting Bull, in his own words, shows so graphically the Indians' mobility despite the vanishing of their hopes, their inability to trust the American Government, or their unwillingness to give up their land and legacy. The quick humour, the heroism, and the high spirits of the tribes, even in the face of starvation, assume extraordinary poignancy. And finally, tragically, step by step and year by year, the Sioux begin their involuntary return to the United States and absorption into history."--Book jacket.