| OCR Text |
Show INDIAN HOSTILITIES AND TEEACHEEY. 301 made good for all the Indians that could approach it, with an intention to tear it down. If I did not do that, I would go to where I could be safe, I would take up my abode with the body of the people. I would take my family there at least. By taking this course, every person will be safe from the depredations of the Indians, which are generally committed upon the defenceless and unprotected portions of the community. I know what the feelings of the generality of the people are, at this time-they think all the Indians in the mountains are coming to kill off the latter-day saints. I have no more fear of that, than I have of the sun ceasing to give light upon the earth. I have studied the Indian character sufficiently to know what the Indians are in war, I have been with them more or less from my youth upward, where they have often had wars among themselves. Let every man, woman, and child, that can handle a butcher knife, be good for one Indian, and you are safe. I am aware that the people want to ask me a thousand and one questions, whether they have done it or not, touching the present Indian difficulties. I have tried to answer them all, in my own mind, by saying, it will be just as the Lord will. How many times have I been asked in the past week, what I intend to do with Walker. I say, LET HIM ALONE, severely. I have not made war on the Indians, nor am I calculating to do it. My policy is to give them presents, and be kind to them. Instead of being Walker's enemy, I have sent him a great pile of tobacco to smoke when he is lonely in the mountains. He is now at war with the only friends he has upon this earth, and I want him to have some tobacco to smoke. |
