24 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



new hunting-grounds, unless they were prevented 

 by stronger rivals ; and to most of the land on which 

 we found them they had no stronger claim than that 

 of having a few years previously butchered the 

 original occupants. When my cattle came to the 

 Little Missouri the region was only inhabited by a 

 score or so of white hunters; their title to it was 

 quite as good as that of most Indian tribes to the 

 lands they claim ; yet nobody dreamed of saying that 

 these hunters owned the country. Each could even- 

 tually have kept his own claim of 160 acres, and 

 no more. The Indians should be treated in just the 

 same way that we treat the white settlers. Give 

 each his little claim; if, as would generally happen, 

 he declined this, why then let him share the fate of 

 the thousands of white hunters and trappers who 

 have lived on the game that the settlement of the 

 country has exterminated, and let him, like these 

 whites, who will not work, perish from the face of 

 the earth which he cumbers. 



The doctrine seems merciless, and so it is; but it 

 is just and rational for all that. It does not do to 

 be merciful to a few, at the cost of justice to the 

 many. The cattlemen at least keep herds and build 

 houses on the land; yet I would not for a moment 

 debar settlers from the right of entry to the cattle 

 country, though their coming in means in the end 

 the destruction of us and our industry. 



For we ourselves, and the life that we lead, will 

 shortly pass away from the plains as completely 

 as the red and white hunters who have vanished 



