164 . THE BEST POLICY. 



fectly well that on the very next visit of the agent 

 that particular store would be promptly closed, 

 and he would in future suffer all the disadvantages 

 of being cut off entirely from European traffic 

 and Euri/j ?an manufactures, which have become 

 to him al.i.ost as necessary now as they are to 

 ourselves. Instead of warm and comfortable 

 woollen blankets, he would have in future to con- 

 tent himself with the skins of beasts. Instead of 

 a good gun, powder, and shot, he would have in 

 future to subsist upon the precarious returns of 

 the chase with the bow and arrow. Instead of 

 wheaten flour, maize, and tobacco, he would have 

 in future to go back again to the miserable roots, 

 berries, and leaves which formed a large part of 

 tlje simple food-stuffs of his roaming ancestors. 

 Every Indian in each little community, therefore, 

 feels that on Ids own personal honesty, as well 

 as on that of all his fellows, depends the continu- 

 ance of the useful system whereby he and his 

 people are enabled at any time to satisfy their 

 wants in the utter wilderness with almost all the 

 ease and certainty of a civilized city, with its nu- 

 merous shops and busy market-places. Not only, 

 accordingly, does he willingly abstain himself from 

 acting dishonestly, but he also endeavors, as far 

 as in him lies, to enforce honest dealing on all his 

 neighbors and fellow-tribesmen. The sort of influ- 

 ence thus brought to bear so very obviously upon 



