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Show 556 , WESTERN WILDS. were sealed for ages till my people should come. The Scarred Arms have long thought this land their own, but it is not. Waukantunga gives it to the Lacotas ; they shall possess the land of their daughter's captivity. But why wait ye? Go gather your warriors and attack the Scarred Arms. Fear not, their scalps are yours.' " The warriors did return. They found the Scarred Arms at the foot of the mountain, and drove them to the South. Our grateful braves then sought the mountain to reverence the medicine woman, who told them so many good things. But woman and cave were gone. There was only a cleft in the mountain side from which came a cold stream of water. Then the Lacotas made peace with the Scarred Arms. Each year our warriors visit the Shoshonees for scalps and medicine dogs, and each of our braves, as. he passjes the old woman's spring, stops to quench his thirst and yield a tribute of ven-eration." The Shoshonees not only have a legend answering to this, but name the various times when the Comanches, Arapahoes, - and Apaches seceded from the main body. Thus this great colony of the Athabas-can race, slowly moving southward, has sent off branches right and left, from the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande and Gulf of California. It would surprise some people who have been indignant over the death of Ouster and his companions to learn how small, comparatively, is the number of hostile Indians. A strip of 500 miles wide, from the Missouri to the Pacific, is rarely visited by hostiles; and at no time for the past ten years have more than one- fifth of the race been in arms or even threatening. All the border States except Texas are free from hostiles. Of the nine Territories only three have been seri-ously troubled since 1867, and the three Pacific States have had even a longer exemption. Within that time Indian hostilities have been confined to three districts. First, and greatest, is that strip of mount-ain, forest, and desert including all Northern Wyoming, South- eastern and Eastern Montana, and a small portion of Western Dakota. Next are the highlands of Western Texas, raided by the Comanches. and their allies ; and lastly that part of New Mexico and Arizona dom-inated by the Apaches. To judge how contemptible a performance an Indian war is, how small the glory in proportion to the aggrava-tion, be it noted that the whole Apache race numbers less than 8,000, and can not possibly mount 2,000 warriors. If it be decided that the 300,000 Indians in the United States ( or rather the 200,000 wild ones) are to " die off," then by all means let a " feeding policy " be pursued ; it is so much cheaper to kill them by |