In addition to this, those who are selected to command the troops employed in the neighborhood of the Reservations, or to act as Indian Agents, are, in nine cases out of ten, utterly ignorant of the nature of the savage with whom they have to deal, the character of the country in which they have to move; and, in the latter position, not infrequently deficient in one of the cardinal virtues—that of honesty. In this last case, they will not only disgust the settler, but enrage the savage, who, on the score of his own dishonesty and treachery, is far less disposed to smile at these vices in others, when he himself suffers from their exercise. The false philanthropy, also, is deeply injurious, which believes in the possibility of guiding uneducated nature without a due degree of compulsory restriction.

If in mentioning these few points in relation to the dealings of our Government with the white settler and the red-skin, I awaken the attention of the public to the real obstacles for the preservation of a steady and creditable peace on the Indian territory and in the Reservations, without the complete extermination of the original inhabitants of my country, I shall be satisfied. Nor do I feel that I have said nearly as much, nor said it one-tenth as strongly, as the necessity for plain speaking might have justified me in doing.

Before concluding, I would, however, call attention to one portion of my volume which, without corroborative proof, might cause considerable doubt as to my veracity. This is my positive mention of the existence of Masonry, of my own knowledge, among the Cheyennes, and by hearsay from them, among other Western tribes.

If I am right, it was in 1854, that Judge Harrison, of Red Bluffs, in California, with his wife and children, was captured by the Cheyennes. Like myself, he was a Mason, and was indebted to that circumstance for the liberation of himself and his family. This he told me in Susanville, where he afterwards died. When he mentioned this circumstance to me, he showed me a war-club presented to him, which was almost identical in its decorative carving with my own, and which is now, or lately was, in the possession of his widow. Nor have I any reason to doubt that there may be others now living, who have also been indebted, for a similar immunity, to the fact of their belonging to the Masonic order.

While touching upon this, I might also mention that Peter Lassen, killed by the Indians, at Black Rock, in 1859, was the first Mason who carried a Charter to, and founded the first Masonic Lodge, on the Pacific coast. Peace be with the old man's ashes.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE
I.[9]
II.[25]
III.[40]
IV.[53]
V.[68]
VI.[83]
VII.[95]
VIII.[111]
IX.[131]
X.[143]
XI.[158]
XII.[172]
XIII.[187]
XIV.[207]
XV.[217]
XVI.[230]
XVII.[240]
XVIII.[255]
XIX.[270]