XI 



THE Comanche of the Fort Sill region is a good type 

 of the Indian of to-day. He is the most expert horse- 

 stealer on the plains, if we can credit the Indians them- 

 selves, who yield to him the palm as a sneak thief with 

 them a title of honor rather than of reproach. There is 

 no boldness or clash in his method, but he is all the more 

 dangerous. The Indian has been much misconceived. It 

 is not strange that many novelists should have taken him 

 as the hero of their books ; few readers could check off 

 their errors, and he was a new character who served as a 

 vehicle for any number of qualities which might best fit 

 into any given plot. But the red man has been as much 

 overwrought as the Arabian horse. He is a brute, pure 

 and simple, and has practically always been so. If you 

 want the truth about him, consult people who have spent 

 their lives among his ilk, not those who theorize on be- 

 nevolent general principles at a judiciously safe distance. 

 Eead Our Wild Indians, and you will know more about 

 him than most of those who think his vices are all attribu- 

 table to the white man. 



Not that we can avoid responsibility for much that is 

 evil in the red man vile disease of body and mind and 

 character ; but he is none the less a brute whose nature 

 is a fit hot-bed for our worst vices. It is politics and dol- 

 lars which have used him as a shuttlecock. The Indian 

 problem is reducible to the simple question whether this 

 broad land of ours is for the pale-face or the redskin. If, 



