ii4 The Winning of the West 



apt to be very few indeed whose disapproval took 

 any active shape. 



Each race stood by its own members, and each 

 held all of the other race responsible for the mis- 

 deeds of a few uncontrollable spirits; and this clan- 

 nishness among those of one color, and the refusal 

 or the inability to discriminate between the good and 

 the bad of the other color, were the two most fruit- 

 ful causes of border strife. 23 When, even if he 

 sought to prevent them, the innocent man was sure 

 to suffer for the misdeeds of the guilty, unless both 

 joined together for defence, the former had no al- 

 ternative save to make common cause with the lat- 

 ter. Moreover, in a sparse backwoods settlement, 

 where the presence of a strong, vigorous fighter 

 was a source of safety to the whole community, it 

 was impossible to expect that he would be punished 

 with severity for offences which, in their hearts, his 

 fellow townsmen could not help regarding as in some 

 sort a revenge for the injuries they had themselves 



23 It is precisely the same at the present day. I have 

 known a party of Sioux to steal the horses of a buffalo- 

 hunting outfit, whereupon the latter retaliated by stealing 

 the horses of a party of harmless Grosventres: and I knew 

 a party of Cheyennes, whose horses had been taken by white 

 thieves, to, in revenge, assail a camp of perfectly orderly cow- 

 boys. Most of the ranchmen along the Little Missouri in 

 1884 were pretty good fellows, who would not wrong Indi- 

 ans, yet they tolerated for a long time the presence of men 

 who did not scruple to boast that they stole horses from the 

 latter; while our peaceful neighbors, the Grosventres, like- 

 wise permitted two notorious red-skinned horse-thieves to 

 use their reservation as a harbor of refuge, and a starting- 

 point from which to make forays against the cattlemen. 



