82 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jam. 31, 1903. 
Initiating the Old Man. 
My son Clarence is a student in the New York 
School of Fine Arts. I visited New York the other 
day and expressed a wish to see him at work in his 
class along with the other art students. "Come along 
if you wish," said Clarence, "but if anything happens, 
don't blame me. I will not be responsible for what the 
'push' may do to you." 
I went up. Seated in a well-lighted and well-warmed 
room on low stools only a few inches from the floor, 
with inverted chairs in front of them for easels, sat 
in a circle thirty or forty bright and earnest young 
men. In the center, upon a rostrum, stood an athlete 
in the altogether, posed as Ajax defying the lightning. 
His muscles stood out upon his body like bunches of 
rope and he was the embodiment of strength com- 
bined with grace and suppleness. 
Around and upon the walls hung sketches done by 
the pupils present and past, and there were also many 
and varied dabs of paint, as if the students had used 
the wall surface as a palette on which to blend their 
colors. Many of the class were making a study of the 
model in crayon, and the grating of their pencils could 
be heard above the stillness as they swayed them to 
and fro over their paper. 
My boy, on entering the room, doffed his coat, and 
in a moment was in his shirt sleeves seated upon his 
stool, sketching like the rest of them. I think he said 
something to the monitor of the class as he took his 
seat, for out of the stillness came a deep bass voice: 
There's a bullfrog in the pool 
And a stranger in the room! 
The whole class taking up the refrain, yet not looking 
at me nor ceasing their work. 
And then came the question: 
What does a stranger do? 
And in perfect unison came the reply from the whole 
class: 
Treat!!! Treat!!! Treat!!! 
And if I mistake not my boy was in the refrain with 
the rest. 
Then came: 
What ■anil make hair grow on bald heads? 
And in strong accents came the unanimous reply : 
Beer!!! 
This was getting a little personal, but withal, inter- 
esting. 
Wtil he "dig" up? came next, and the answer followed: 
Of course he zvill! 
The class certainly was fixing things to suit them- 
selves. 
Then came in a deep bass voice: 
When? 
And in all sorts of voices came back: 
Nozu! 
I took the hint, and sidestepping over to where my 
boy was drawing, I simply queried "How much?" 
"Oh! a V will do," and as I passed him the bill the 
leader started with: 
Oh! He's a jolly good felloiv, 
in which all joined with a will. 
The money had but hardly passed, seemingly, to the 
monitor when a case of beer, another of ginger ale, 
then sandwiches, pickles, olives, crackers, jam and what 
not were brought in and piled in a corner awaiting 
noon recess, then near at hand. 
When time was called the model left his throne; 
chairs and stools disappeared; a large sheet of brown 
paper was spread on the stand, and in a moment the 
provender was ready and free for all. Corn thrown to 
a flock of hungry chickens could not have disappeared 
more quickly than did the food upon that table, and 
in a moment the boys were each armed, in one hand 
with crackers, cheese or sandwich, and in the other 
with beer or ginger ale, as the case might be. 
They treated me as a guest, and ascertaining my 
wants, brought me some of the provender. 
I certainly felt I was a boy again among those 
youths, and before I had completed my Bohemian meal 
cries went up for a speech, but I declined to face that 
crowd on an empty stomach, and ate on. 
My meal finished, a chair was placed in the center 
of the room, which I ascended, and when I raised my 
hand to gesticulate and opened my mouth to speak, I 
could neither hear myself nor could they hear anybody 
but themselves. My boy was making as much noise 
as anybody. I looked at my watch and inwardly won- 
dered how long this thing would last, when finally 
silence was proclaimed. 
I started in by saying to them that inasmuch as they 
had asked me to speak and yet would not let me, yet 
would I compromise by telling them a story, the 
same story Tom Reed told the Gridiron Club in Wash- 
ington under somewhat similar circumstances. The 
committee from the club waited on him and urged him 
to be present, but he knew and he declined positively. 
But the club must have him, and so anxious were they 
that the committee was authorized to do something 
never yet done at a banquet of the club, pledge a 
speaker against heckling, and accepting the solemn 
pledge of the committee Mr. Reed promised to attend. 
And as he arose at the cofl^ee and cigars stage of 
the banquet and began his oration, a member, who 
had heard nothing of the pledge to silence, broke in 
by asking Mr. Reed "what he knew about the Czar." 
For a moment it staggered Mr. Reed and abashed 
the members present, for a solemn pledge had been 
given and broken. The offending member, seeing that 
he had transgressed, in a nervous, apologetic voice 
explained that he had not heard of the compact. 
Like a flash Mr. Reed recovered his equanimity, and 
addressing the offending member, said he would tell 
a story, and this was the story: 
"It was an occasion when a universal peace pledge 
had been entered into by all animals and birds of the 
air. It was to last a week and all were bid to be pres- 
ent at the convention. A gander waddling along was 
^C90§te4 hy a (QJt, 'Where are you foing?' sai<J th? 
fox. 'To the great peace convention,' replied the gan- 
der. 'I'll go with you for company,' said the fox. 
And they went. Presently the faint baying of a pack 
of fox hounds was heard. The fox! halted and pricked 
up his ears. 'Come along,' said the gander, 'they are, 
like ourselves, bound for the peace convention! And 
again they waddled and trotted on. But the pack 
came nearer and nearer, until the baying was almost 
deafening; in fact, the hounds could be seen in the 
adjoining meadow as they came nosing the ground and 
running along. This was too much for the fox, and 
shutting off any further remarks from the gander, he 
said, 'I think this convention may be all right, and no 
doubt the hounds, like ourselves, are going there, but 
what if some fool hound in the pack hadn't heard about 
it,' and with that the fox lit out" — "and boys," I said, 
"that's what I am going to do right now." 
But before I could get my coat and hat I had to 
shake hands with all the boys and promise to come 
again, and my boy and I left the room amid a storm 
of cheers. And as we got into the street once more 
my boy, addressing me, remarked, "Pa, you're all 
right." Charles Cristadoro. 
The Half-Breed Indians. 
It would be interesting to know the exact numerical 
strength on this continent, north of the Mexican boun- 
dary, of that people which, neither Indian nor white, 
owes its existence to the union of the two races. No 
doubt the census bureaus of this Government and that 
of Canada might furnish some statistics, though we 
have never seen them. But they must at best prove 
faulty and inadequate. 
For a large part of the mixed people, though really 
constituting a race apart, would in any enumeration 
be counted either to the Indians or the whites. The 
full half-breeds, being found in largest numbers in the 
Indian tribes, or about the tribal reservations, would 
be numbered with the Indians. On the other hand, 
that much larger body which in color shades away to 
that of the Caucasian, would find place among the 
whites. The difficulty of any exact enumeration would 
thus be very great. In the case of the latter class, with 
whom a certain sensitiveness must tend to prevent dis- 
closures of the red line of descent, it would be well- 
nigh insuperable. 
But while trustworthy statistics are lacking, the 
number of half-caste Indians — including in that class 
all who have Indian blood in their veins — on the 
northern continent, must be very great. Any one 
who travels much in the West, and especially any one 
who has hunted over it, cannot fail to be impressed 
with this fact, and with the extent of their distribution 
quite outside the resci'vations. Among many of the 
Indian tribes, moreover, their number is far larger 
than at first appears. For the half-breed on the reser- 
vation marries the full-blood Indian woman, with the 
result to further continue the strain of white blood. 
In some of the tribes, notably in the Indian Terri- 
tory, or in southwestern parlance, "The Nation," the 
development of the new race has made startling prog- 
ress. Especially is this true among the Cherokees, 
where the full-blood seems in danger of entire sub- 
mergence. General Abercrombie once said that in fifty 
years the Cherokees would all be white, the Creeks 
all black. The prediction is being verified so rapidly 
that even now the tribes have markedly changed color 
and characteristics. The Cherokee country is almost a 
white State, while, as respects color, the Creek is 
becoming a second Hayti. 
With the former the change may largely be attributed 
to the desire of white men to share in the Cherokee 
lands, a desire which could only be gratified by mar- 
riage with the native women, and thus practical in- 
clusion in the tribe. In the case of the Creeks the 
change is due to adoption of its former slaves by the 
tribe under the treaty of 1867 with this Government. 
By this act the negro was given the same status as 
the Indian, sharing equally in the government, the 
lands, annuities, etc., an equality which easily paved 
the way to intermarriage. In both tribes the new race 
is, if anything, more law-abiding than the old, work- 
ing out its own destiny as peacefully as adverse condi- 
tions will permit. 
But while the mixture of white and Indian blood 
among the tribes themselves has thus attained large 
proportions, the increase in the number of Indian half- 
castes scattered throughout the white population is 
considerable. This increase is not, of course, full half- 
blood. It is quarter and eighth blood, and of the lesser 
degrees of consanguinity approaching the pure white. 
For numbered with the latter are very many persons 
who, on the maternal side, trace their ancestry back to 
tlie Indian. They are found in every State in the 
Union, and are the descendants of the early settlers 
and hunters, who, in the lack of white women, or 
through close association with their Indian neighbors, 
took wives from the tepees. They have no color, are 
classed with the whites, are never suspected of mixed 
blood; and if they recall the fact themselves, do so 
much as they would recall their European ancestors 
when "wild in the woods they ran." Yet they are 
widely distributed. Two of the proprietors of one of 
the greatest dailies of this country belong to this 
class, as do a number of officers in the army; and in 
the South and the Eastern States not a few well- 
known families may claim blood relationship with the 
red man. 
Ethnologically, however, the Indian half-breeds are 
a new race in this country, dating back scarcely more 
than two generations. Its life is synchronous with the 
comparatively recent settlement of our Western States 
and Territories; the development of the race east of 
the Illinois line being inconsiderable when compared 
with that west of that frontier. ^ On the other side of 
our northern boundary the race is older, having its be- 
ginning in the invasion of the wilderness west of the 
Great Lakes by the agents of the rival fur companies 
during the early years of the last century. There are 
thus half-breeds whose great-grandfathers were half- 
tireeds, and cQ?lin;unities, or districts, in which, until 
quite recent years, at least, they formed the bulk of 
the population. 
By far the larger section of the race is French-In- 
dian. It had its beginnings, on the paternal side, in the 
coureurs des bois, or wood-runners, a class which owed 
its existence to the competition of the X. Y. and 
Northwest companies with the Hudson's Bay Company 
for possession of the Indian trade. These men were 
French colonists from eastern Canada, who became in 
time hunters and traders, and gradually spread them- 
selves over the whole region east from the height of 
land west of Lake Superior. As traders with the In- 
dians, they were outfitted by the Canadian companies 
with the necessary goods to barter for furs; and the 
story of their wanderings and conflicts with the agents 
of the rival English company is one of the most in- 
teresting in border history. 
Following the coalition of the competing fur com- 
panies in 1821, however, and the consequent loss of 
their employment as traders, the coureurs des bois 
gradually pushed further westward into the interior, 
past the Lake of the Woods and on to the fertile 
prairies of Manitoba and the valley of the Saskatche- 
wan. Here they became hunters and trappers rather 
than traders, disposing of their furs at the trading posts 
scattered throughout the country and near which they 
invariably settled. To this they added employment as 
canoe-men and freighters for the fur company, and. in 
time, acquired small land-holdings and engaged in agri- 
culture on a limited scale. Up to the early sixties, 
however, their chief dependence was upon freighting 
and the great buffalo hunts, in which practically all 
the adult male population engaged. 
Very naturally, the wood-runners, being social in 
disposition and gregarious in habit, and cut off from 
the women of their own race, sought wives from the 
various Indian tribes. The object was attained gener- 
ally through barter — so many blankets or so much 
ammunition for a wife. And though the marriage 
ceremony lacked the essentials of bell, book and candle, 
the unions thus formed were generally happy enough, 
and a numerous progeny speaking Cree, Ojibway and 
Assiniboine, swarmed about them. As the latter mar- 
ried in turn, and always young, the new race increased 
rapidly; and as its daughters proved comely and at- 
tracted the attention of white traders and settlers, it 
gradually lightened in color until among the probably 
five thousand French-Indian half-castes at the date 
of the transfer of the country to Canada, the white 
blood clearl}' predominated. 
Of the remaining half-breed population, the larger 
part is made up of the offspring of the Scotch and 
English employes of the fur company. Like the 
coureurs des bois, these men were in a way forced 
to find wives among the Indian tribes, or the half- 
caste daughters of the hunters and voyageurs, 
And so attractive did the latter prove that the readi- 
ness of the fur company to import wives for its ofii- 
cers from the British Isles failed materially to alter 
the custom. 
Very naturally, as the majority of these marriages 
were, in the first instance, those of whites with half 
and quarter-bloods, with the intermarriage of its de- 
scendants, this section of the new race has bleached 
out even more rapidly than the French. In fact, it is, 
as a rule, almost indistinguishable from the white. 
Singularly enough, too, it exhibits something of the 
same prejudice against the other moiety of the race 
that is borne by the pure whites against both; though 
until the present generation their avocations and habit 
of life were largely identical. 
It is probable, of course, that in the case of the 
Scotch and English half-breeds this prejudice is due 
in part to social and economic differences. The latter 
are descendants of the better class of the fur com- 
pany's employes, many of them of the officer class, 
while the forebears of the French half-castes were 
hunters, freighters and voyageurs. And the tradition 
of authority, of fixed position, of superior emolument, 
on the one hand, and of service, of desultory labor, and 
hand to mouth existence, on the other, still lingers. 
Again, the Scotch and English half-breeds have, as 
a rule, attained a greater degree of material prosper- 
ity than the French. Many of them are wealthy, the 
majority are well-to-do farmers. They are " well- 
clothed and housed, their sons and daughters inter- 
marry with the whites, especially with the descendants 
of the old officers of the fur company, with whom, 
owing to long association, race prejudice is reduced 
to the minimum. 
The French section, on the other hand, still main- 
tains much of its original gregariousness. Intermar- 
riage with the whites is less frequent. No doubt this 
is due in part to difference of language, the new immi- 
gration with which it is surrounded being largely Eng- 
lish speaking. But in larger part it is due to cl'annish- 
ness, to race feeling, and to closer adherence to old 
methods of living. The disposition is to settle in little 
communities by themselves; an inclination fostered by 
their spiritual guides, who naturally desire to keep their 
flocks separate, with the mission church as a center. 
So far as possible, moreover, the French half-castes 
follow their old pursuits. They are still freighters and 
hunters and guides, preferring these callings to farm- 
ing, though the latter has now become their chief 
means of livelihood as a class. There is thus less of 
thrift than among the Scotch and English; less ambi- 
tion to advance in the social scale, to possess the ap- 
pliances, comforts and conveniences which go so far 
to make up what we call civiHzation. 
Inevitably this difference of wealth and social status 
tends markedly to separate the two sections of the race. 
The divergence is accentuated by the desire — unacknowl- 
edged yet existent — of the Scotch and English to escape 
the prejudice which attaches to a mixed race and which 
identity with the French Indians would entail. For this 
prejudice operates against the half-breed wherever he is 
found, and tends constantly to perverted judgment of 
his real worth. 
Apparently there is little consciousness of this preju- 
dice among the quarter and eighth bloods on our own 
side of the line; at least in localities where the half-caste 
apt} Indian popylstion is massed, A partial e:!tpIapatjQn 
