106 The Winning of the West 



them down as if they had been elk or buffalo, they 

 themselves being almost absolutely safe from harm, 

 as they flitted from cover to cover. It was this ca- 

 pacity for hiding, or taking advantage of cover, that 

 gave them their great superiority ; and it is because 

 of this that the wood tribes were so much more for- 

 midable foes in actual battle than the horse Indians 

 of the plains afterward proved themselves. In dense 

 woodland a body of regular soldiers are almost as 

 useless against Indians as they would be if at night 

 they had to fight foes who could see in the dark; 

 it needs special and long-continued training to fit 

 them in any degree for wood-fighting against such 

 foes. Out on the plains the white hunter's skill 

 with the rifle and his cool resolution give him an 

 immense advantage; a few determined men can 

 withstand a host of Indians in the open, although 

 helpless if they meet them in thick cover: and our 

 defeats by the Sioux and other plains tribes have 

 generally taken the form of a small force being over- 

 whelmed by a large one. 



Not only were the Indians very terrible in battle, 

 but they were cruel beyond all belief in victory; and 

 the gloomy annals of border warfare are stained 

 with their darkest hues because it was a war in 

 which helpless women and children suffered the 

 same hideous fate that so often befell their hus- 

 bands and fathers. It was a war waged by savages 

 against armed settlers, whose families followed 

 them into the wilderness. Such a war is inevitably 

 bloody and cruel; but the inhuman love of cruelty 



