178 MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS 



with bow and arrow, fighting with his fellow-tribes- 

 men, and torturing his prisoners of war. And the 

 pity of it is that he has been unable to assimilate the 

 virtues or the knowledge of the white man. White 

 civilization has been his bane. It is an indictable 

 offence to sell liquor to an Indian, because in this 

 respect he has no self-control. His only idea is to 

 drink himself mad drunk. In his native buckskin, 

 feathers and beads, he possesses a fine natural dignity 

 all his own. In a white man's dress he looks 

 supremely ridiculous. I have seen a Red Indian 

 chief in a tall hat with the crown thereof removed 

 for the sake of coolness through which his black hair 

 protruded, and wearing with the greatest pride an old 

 dress coat split up the back. 



Many years ago the United States Government 

 desired to impress the western tribes with the power, 

 resources, and numbers of the white aggressors 

 who were occupying the Indian soil. Accordingly, a 

 selected number of the chiefs of the Utes, Cheyennes, 

 and Arapahoes were taken east in an express train ; 

 were rattled through Chicago, Washington, and New 

 York ; were shown some of the wonders of modern 

 civilization ; were taken up the Hudson in a steam- 

 boat ; were duly impressed with the numbers of the 

 white men and with their knowledge and power ; and 

 then were sent back to their respective tribes to tell 

 of what they had seen. The result was an absolute 

 failure. The tribes refused to believe the tales that 

 were told them, and thought the white men had 

 thrown dust in the eyes of the chiefs, and made them 

 see things that did not exist. 4 There are only a 

 few white men,' said the stay-at-home Indians, ' on a 

 narrow strip of land east of the Mississippi River. 



