White Eagle was born deaf on a Sioux reservation in Oklahoma in the late 1870s. Unable to hear, he taught himself read and write as a child and eventually left the reservation at the age of 15.

In 1909, White Eagle found work on a ranch near Gillette and began writing poems about life on the high plains.

He eventually became a contributor for the Gillette News, who published this poem in 1912.

The Wyoming Wind

O, Wyoming wind why this way
Of coming round so rough today?
You close my door with such a slam
You almost caught me in the jam.
You make me feel a bit afraid
You shake the roof so e’er-head
You startle me with your wild roar
As you go racing past my door.
Coming screeching across the land
You fill my eyes with dust and sand
You catch up mud in your mad race
And sling it roughly in my face
You snatch my hat with gusts wild
And have me chase it most a mile.
You whip in rags my one old coat
And blow my breath back down my throat.
You took my wash tub most to town
And left it sitting upside down
You take the moisture from my crop
And leave me wondering where you’ll stop.

White Eagle would go on to write a cookbook and a series of articles for The Highway Magazine and Popular Mechanics.

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