ming oo 
TheIndians in the broad prairie or in the mountains, familiar 
from childhood with the dangers of the wild life of 
the hunter and warrior, choosing his country wher- 
ever he can maintain himself by force of arms, and 
his shelter where the sky arches over him, must nat- 
urally have a sense of self-reliance vastly differing 
from that of the effeminate civilized being, born, nur- 
tured and buried amid a thousand conditions of de- 
pendence. The Indian feels himself free, his wants 
are few, his resources lie within himself. This con- 
sciousness fills him with such pride and with such con- 
tempt for all civilization. But his indifference is often 
seeming rather than real, and is based on a marked 
Indian characteristic, self-control. The passions of 
the Indian are as stormy, as eager to blaze out as they 
can be with any human being, but by extraordinary 
self-control he maintains all the outward appearance 
of calmness. An Indian will often endure, without 
the slightest manifestation of pain, the most tortur- 
ing modes of death, simply to defy his enemy. The 
Indian who seeks to conceal his feelings or his plans 
will not let his left hand know what his right hand 
does; neither kindness nor threats can cause him to 
break silence. On the other hand, this self-control 
often serves as a cloak for guile and treachery. But 
it must be confessed that many acts of treachery to- 
ward Indians can be charged against the whites; so 
much so as to often seem to afford justification for 
the cruelties of the former. Acquaintance with the 
whites seems also to have diminished the high esteem 
