They bitterly resented the action of the government, which, in their eyes, failed to properly protect them, and yet sought to keep them out of waste, uncultivated lands which they did not regard as being any more the property of the Indians than of their own hunters.

With the best intentions, it was wholly impossible for any government to evolve order out of such a chaos without resort to the ultimate arbitrator--the sword.
The purely sentimental historians take no account of the difficulties under which we labored, nor of the countless wrongs and provocations we endured, while grossly magnifying the already lamentably large number of injuries for which we really deserve to be held responsible.
To get a fair idea of the Indians of the present day, and of our dealings with them, we have fortunately one or two excellent books, notably "Hunting Grounds of the Great West," and "Our Wild Indians," by Col.

Richard I.Dodge (Hartford, 1882), and "Massacres of the Mountains," by J.P.Dunn (New York, 1886).

As types of the opposite class, which are worse than valueless, and which nevertheless might cause some hasty future historian, unacquainted with the facts, to fall into grievous error, I may mention, "A Century of Dishonor," by H.H.

(Mrs.Helen Hunt Jackson), and "Our Indian Wards," (Geo.