Anger and revenge are carried out honestly to their natural fruit--injury to others.

Among the Indians this takes the form of murder, while with us it is obliged to content itself with slander, or cunning depreciation.

In short, the study of Indian character is the study of the unregenerate human heart; and the writer of these sketches of the Dahcotahs presents it as such, with express and solemn reference to the duty of those who have "the words of eternal life" to apply them to the wretched condition of the red man, who is, perhaps, with all his ignorance, quite as well prepared to receive them as many of those who are already wise in their own eyes.

The very degradation and misery in which he lives, and of which he is not unable to perceive some of the causes, prepare him to welcome the instruction which promises better things.

Evils which are covered up under the smoothness of civilization, stand out in all their horrible deformity in the _abandon_ of savage life; the Indian cannot get even one gleam of light, without instantly perceiving the darkness around him.