V The Indian Question 139 



Indians. Indian hunting is, in fact, the real pro- 

 fession of both Jack and Bill, they being retained as 

 trackers, aye, and as fighters too, in the case of 

 horses being run from the neighbourhood of the 

 Fort ; though, from time to time, they are put in 

 charge of a band to see that it does not exceed the 

 limits of its Reservation, and to lead it out to the 

 hunt as a shepherd leadeth his flock to the pasture. 

 They have the strangest feelings about Indians, 

 these two. Though, when on the war path, they 

 would no more hesitate to shoot down an Indian 

 off his Reservation, than they would hesitate to 

 throw a stone at a felonious chipmunk, they have 

 a sympathy and a tenderness towards them in- 

 finitely greater than you will find among the greedy, 

 pushing settlers, who regard them as mere vermin 

 who must be destroyed for the sake of the ground 

 on which depends their very existence. But these 

 men know the Indian and his almost incredible 

 wrongs, and the causes which have turned him into 

 the ruthless savage that he is, and often have I heard 

 men of their class say that, before God, the Indian 

 was in the right, and was only doing what any 

 American citizen would do in his place. It is not 

 so much that the intentions of the U.S. Government 

 are not good, as it is that the manner in which they 

 are carried out is extremely evil. The men who 

 are told off as Indian agents are notorious for their 

 wholesale peculations, and for the riches which they 

 amass ; and the wretched native, driven to despera- 



