Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science | Page 9

He cannot understand why the government allows the Indians to roam over enormous tracts of land, rich in minerals they will never extract and containing agricultural possibilities they will never seek to realize. His plan would be to have only the same governmental care exercised over the red man as is now enjoyed by the white, and then look to the law of the survival of the fittest to furnish a solution of the problem. The case seems so clear and the arguments so potent that he looks for some outside reasons for their failure, and very naturally thinks he discovers them in governmental quarters. "There's too many people living off this Indian business for it to be wound up yet a while." Thus does a representative man at the outposts express the sentiment of no inconsiderable class.
Next to the Indian himself, the frontiersman holds in slight esteem the soldiers who are sent for the protection of the border. The objects of his supreme hatred still often merit his good opinion for their bravery and fighting qualities, but upon raw Eastern recruits and West-Point fledglings he looks with mild disdain. Having learned the Indian methods by many hard knocks, he doubtless fails to exercise proper charity toward those whose experiences have been less extended; and added to this may be a lurking jealousy--which, however, would be stoutly disclaimed--because the blue uniform is gaining honors and experience more easily and under conditions more favorable than were possible with him in the early days. "They be about the greenest set!" said an old Indian-fighter to whom this subject was broached, "and the sight of an Injun jest about scares 'em to death at first. I never saw any of 'em I was afraid of if I only had any sort of a show. Why, back in '59 I undertook to take a young man back to the States, and we started off in a buggy--a buggy, do you mind. When we got down the Arkansas a piece we heard the red-skins was pretty thick, but we went right on, except keeping more of a lookout, you know. But along in the afternoon we saw fifteen or twenty coming for us, and we got ready to give 'em a reception. We had a hard chase, but at last they got pretty sick of the way I handled my rifle, and concluded to let us alone for a while. They kept watch of us, though, and meant to get square with us that night. Well, we travelled till dark, stopped just long enough to build a big fire, and then lit out. When those Injuns came for us that night we were some other place, and they lost their grip on that little scalping-bee. They didn't trouble us any more, that's sure. And when we got to the next post there were nigh a hundred teams, six stages and two companies of soldiers, all shivering for fear of the Injuns. It rather took the wind out of 'em to see us come in with that buggy, and they didn't want to believe we had come through. But, like the man's mother-in-law, we were there, and they couldn't get out of it. And, sir, maybe you won't believe me, but those soldiers offered me _seventy-five dollars_ to go back with them! That's the sort of an outfit the government sends to protect us!"
[Illustration: SANTA Fé AVENUE, PUEBLO, COLORADO.]
We have had frequent occasion since our frontier experiences began to ponder the untrammelled opulence of this Western word, outfit. From the Mississippi to the Pacific its expansive possibilities are momentarily being tested. There is nothing that lives, breathes or grows, nothing known to the arts or investigated by the sciences--nothing, in short, coming within the range of the Western perception--that cannot with more or less appropriateness be termed an "outfit." A dismal broncho turned adrift in mid-winter to browse on the short stubble of the Plains is an "outfit," and so likewise is the dashing equipage that includes a shining phaeton and richly-caparisoned span. Perhaps by no single method can so comprehensive an idea of the term in question be obtained in a short time, and the proper qualifying adjectives correctly determined, as by simply preparing for a camping-expedition. The horse-trader with whom you have negotiated for a pair of horses or mules congratulates you upon the acquisition of a "boss outfit." When your wagon has been purchased and the mules are duly harnessed in place, you are further induced to believe that you have a "way-up outfit," though, obviously, this should now be understood to possess a dual significance which did not before obtain, since the wagon represents a component part. The hardware clerk displays a tent and recommends a fly as forming a desirable addition