Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science | Page 8

and sent rejoicing upon their winding and rocky ways. Our sleepy gaze follows along Santa Fé Avenue, and the eye sees little that is suggestive of a modern Western town. But soon comes noisily along a one-horse street-car, which asserts its just claims to popular notice in consequence of its composing a full half of a system scarce a fortnight old by filling the air with direful screeches as each curve is laboriously described. And later, when the magnificent overland train, twenty-six hours from Kansas City, steams proudly up to the station, fancy can no longer be indulged. The old has become new. The great Plains have been bridged, and the outposts of but a decade ago become the suburbs of to-day.
[Illustration: OLD BRIDGE.]
Doubtless Old Si Smith now and then indulges in reveries somewhat similar, but his retrospections would be of a minute and personal character. To warm up the average frontiersman, however--and Old Si is no exception--into a style at once luminous and emphatic and embellished with all the richness of the border dialect, it is only necessary to suggest the Indian topic. However phlegmatically he may reel off his yarns, glowing though they be with exciting adventure, it is the red-skins that cause his eyes to flash and his rhetoric to become fervid and impressive. To him the Indian is the embodiment of all that is supremely vile, and hence merits his unmitigated hatred. Killing Indians is his most delightful occupation, and the next in order is talking about it. His contempt for government methods is unbounded, and the popular Eastern sentiment he holds in almost equal esteem. The Smith brothers have had a varied experience in frontier affairs, in which the Indian has played a prominent part. They hold the Western views, but with less prejudice than is generally found. They argue the case with a degree of fairness, and many of their opinions and deductions are novel and equally just. Said Stephen Smith to the writer: "We've got this thing reduced right down to vulgar fractions, and the Utes have got to go. The mineral lands are worth more to us than the Indians are"--this with a suggestive shrug--"and if the government don't remove them from the reserves, why, we'll have to do it ourselves. There's a great fuss been made about the whites going on the Indian reserves; and what did it all amount to? Maybe fifty or sixty prospectors, all told, have got over the lines, dug a few holes and hurt nobody. But I suppose the Indians always stay where they ought to! I guess not. Some of them are off their reserves half the time, and they go off to murder and kill. Do they ever get punished for that? Not much, except when folks do it on their own account. But let a white man get found on the Indian reserves and there's a great howl. I want a rule that will work both ways, and I don't give much for a government that isn't able to protect me on the Indian reserves the same as anywhere else. Some years ago Indian troubles were reported at Washington, and Sherman was sent out to investigate. Of course they heard he was coming, and all were on their good behavior. They knew where their blankets and ponies and provisions came from. Consequently, Sherman reported everything peaceful: he hadn't seen anybody killed. That's about the kind of information they get in the East on the Indian question.
"Misused? Yes, the Indians have been misused, badly misused. I know that. But who have they misused? This whole country is covered with ruins, and they all go to show that it has been inhabited by a highly-civilized race of people. And what has become of them? I believe the Indians cleaned them out long years ago; and now their turn has come. I find it's a law of Nature"--and here the narrator's tone grew more reverent as if touching upon a higher theme--"that the weak go to the wall. It's a hard law, but I don't see any way out of it. The old Aztecs had to go under, and the Indians will have to follow suit."
Whatever humanitarians and arch?ologists may conclude concerning these opinions, they are nevertheless extensively held in the Far West. The frontiersman, who sees the Indian only in his native savagery, who has found it necessary to employ a considerable part of his time in keeping out of range of poisoned arrows, and who must needs be always upon the alert lest his family fall a prey to Indian treachery, cannot be expected to hold any ultra-humanitarian views upon the subject. He has not been brought in contact with the several partially-civilized tribes, in whose advancement many see possibilities for the whole race.