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Show FORTY YEARS AMONG THE INDIANS. you may talk to them and make them good if you can. I am not bad and do not steal, so you do not need to talk to me." I held several meetings and cultivated on every opportunity the personal friendship of the Indians, especially the raiders, talking kindly to them and gain-ing their confidence and good- will. At length, one night, the bad Indians were induced to talk. They related many things about their raids ; each in turn told some-thing of his experience, entering into details. How they felt, and giving the causes of their ill- feelings. Each taking his turn in talking, said that hunger often caused them to go on raids to get cattle to eat, always making the statement that the agents stole what " Washington" sent them ; that Mormons helped the agents to steal ; that the Sanpete Mormons had stolen their country and fenced it up. The lands that their fathers had given them had been taken for wheat fields. When they asked the Mormons for some of the bread raised on their lands, and beef fed on their grass, the Mormons insulted them, calling them dogs and other bad names. They said when the Mormons stole big fields and got rich, other Mormons, who were poor, had to buy the land from them, they were not allowed to steal it from the first owners, the same as the first Mormons stole it from the Indians. I have often wondered how these statements will be answered. They are still open. I never could answer them like many other propositions I have had to meet while laboring among the Indians. I have had to give it up acknowledging that they had been wronged. All I could do was to get their hearts set right and then teach them magnanimity. Some may jeer at this idea, but I have found more |