RED AND WHITE ON THE BORDER IO7 



upper-class Cherokee is nowadays as good as a white. The Nez Perces 

 differ from the Apaches as much as a Scotch laird does from a Calabrian 

 bandit. A Cheyenne warrior is one of the most redoubtable foes in the 

 whole world; a "digger" Snake one of the most despicable. The Pueblo 

 is as thrifty, industrious, and peaceful as any European peasant , and no 

 Arab of the Soudan is a lazier, wilder robber than is the Arapahoe. 



The frontiersmen themselves differ almost as widely from one another. 

 But in the event of an Indian outbreak all suffer alike, and so all are 

 obliged to stand together : when the reprisals for a deed of guilt are sure 

 to fall on the innocent, the latter have no resource save to ally themselves 

 with the guilty. Moreover, even the best Indians are very apt to have a 

 good deal of the wild beast in them; when they scent blood they wish 

 their share of it, no matter from whose veins it flows. I once had a Ger- 

 man in my employ, who, when a young child, had lost all his relations by 

 a fate so terrible that it had weighed down his whole after-life. His 

 family was living out on the extreme border at the time of the great 

 Sioux outbreak towards the end of the civil war. There were many- 

 Indians around, seemingly on good terms with them ; and to two of these 

 Indians they had been able to be of much service, so that they became 

 great friends. When the outbreak occurred, the members of this family 

 were among the first captured. The two friendly Indians then endeav- 

 ored to save their lives, doing all they could to dissuade their comrades 

 from committing violence. Finally, after an angry discussion, the chief, 

 who was present, suddenly ended it by braining the mother. The two 

 former friends then, finding their efforts useless, forthwith turned round 

 and joined with the others, first in violating the wretched daughters, and 

 then in putting them to death with tortures that cannot even be hinted 

 at. The boy alone was allowed to live. If he had been a native-born 

 frontiersman, instead of a peaceful, quiet German, he probably would have 

 turned into an inveterate Indian-slayer, resolute to kill any of the hated 

 race wherever and whenever met a type far from unknown on the 

 border, of which I have myself seen at least one example. 



With this incident it is only fair to contrast another that I heard 

 related while spending the night in a small cow ranch on the Beaver, 

 whither I had ridden on one of our many tedious hunts after lost horses. 

 Being tired, I got into my bunk early, and while lying there listened to 

 the conversation of two cowboys both strangers to me who had also 

 ridden up to the ranch to spend the night. They were speaking of 

 Indians, and mentioned, certainly without any marked disapprobation, a 

 jury that had just acquitted a noted horse-thief of the charge of stealing 





