As soon as an Indian boy becomes a warrior he thinks of a wife; and as an Indian belle is often something of a coquette, he finds, as others have done, that the favours of wooing are ‘fashious to seek.’ At length, however, the dusky beauty is won, and the favoured lover betakes himself to the father’s lodge, and something like the following colloquy ensues. ‘You have got a daughter,’ begins the lover, ‘an ugly lazy thing; but I want a wife, and I am willing as a favour to take her off your hands.’
‘Are you speaking of my darling girl?’ says the father—‘the prettiest best girl in the whole tribe. I do not think of giving her to any one, much less to you. Why, you are a mere boy; you have done nothing to speak of; you have not taken one scalp; you have only stolen a few wretched ponies. No, no; she is not for you, unless indeed you give me twenty ponies for her.’
‘Twenty ponies!’ yells the lover. ‘One is too many.’ And thus the haggling goes on, until a bargain is struck at something like the fair market-price of the girl, who forthwith, for there is no marriage ceremony, accompanies her new husband or master to his father’s lodge. Many families generally live under one roof, and they have not upon an average more than one meal a day. A large pot full of meat is set upon the fire, and when sufficiently cooked is taken off and placed in the middle of the floor. The inmates then gather around and help themselves with their fingers. What is left is set aside, and any one who feels hungry goes and helps himself. The lodge of the Indians is made of dressed buffalo-skins, supported upon a light framework of wood. The fire is in the centre; and as the draught is very defective, the lodge is generally in cold weather full of smoke. The beds are piles of buffalo-robes and blankets, which serve as seats during the day. Furniture there is none; except a few pots, kettles, and trunks containing the dried meat and superfluous clothing of the family, may be dignified by that term. But what is wanting in upholstery is made up in dirt, everything being kept in a state of inconceivable filth. The wealth of an Indian consists in his horses and mules; and as he leads a nomadic life in fine weather, he rarely burdens himself with anything that is not easily transported. In the general division of meat and skins, the widows and orphans of the tribe are cared for, and a certain portion set aside for their maintenance.
The Indians are very fond of gambling, and also of drinking, which is a very destructive vice to them. Another of their favourite indoor amusements is story-telling, in which they take great delight. A good story-teller is a very important personage in the tribe, and is always surrounded by an eager audience.
The cruelty of the Indians is extreme; men and women alike take an exquisite pleasure in torturing their captives. Much of this cruelty, however, has in latter days arisen from vengeful hatred to the United States government, which has broken faith with them over and over again, and is still conducting a war of extermination. No wonder that under the circumstances the red man should resent the cruelties practised by his invaders, and make reprisals when opportunity offers. It is but fair to the Indians to state, that across the frontier-line in Canada, where the treaties made with them have been rigidly observed, there have been no Indian wars and no Indian massacres; and that the red men have proved themselves to be quiet and not unthriving subjects of Queen Victoria.
ROBBERY OF AN EXPRESS TRAIN.
The following story shews the extent to which wholesale plunder may be carried on in the United States of America: About eleven o’clock on the night of Wednesday 19th September, 1877, an express train on the Union Pacific Railway was approaching the little station of Big Springs in Wyoming Territory. There wanted fully a quarter of an hour to the time when it was due, and the station-master William Barnard and his assistant had not yet commenced to prepare for its arrival; the former was still in his office, the latter engaged somewhere about the premises. All was as silent as a station generally is during the intervals between trains; when the stillness was suddenly broken in a manner no less unexpected than unpleasant. The door of the office was burst open, and four men entering, seized the astonished station-master, and told him that if he attempted the slightest resistance or refused to obey their orders, his life should instantly be forfeited. He had no choice but to submit; for he perceived clearly by the words and actions of the intruders that they were members of a large party of robbers, and that the station was completely in their power. They all wore crape masks to conceal their features, but spoke in their natural tones; and as the band consisted of thirteen men fully armed, nothing but compliance with their demands was possible on the part of the station officials. The place was solitary, the hour late; and the robbers lost no time in carrying out their evidently carefully prepared plans. The telegraph apparatus was their first object, and this they compelled the station-master to destroy. Barnard endeavoured to mislead them by only removing a portion of it, but it was of no avail; one of the men angrily desired him to mind what he was about or he would have a bullet through his head, and then ordered him to take out certain parts of the instrument and give them to him; shewing by his knowledge of the terms employed that he must have been a telegraph operator himself. In the meantime the rest of the band had not been idle. They compelled the porter to put out his ordinary signals for the now rapidly advancing train; and they maintained the strictest watch to see that nothing was done that might in the faintest degree create alarm or suspicion.
All fell out exactly as they had anticipated: the train came gradually to a stand in obedience to the signal, and ran blindly into the trap prepared for it. The unconscious passengers, most of whom were asleep, were quite at the mercy of the robbers, who lost not a moment in diligently setting to work to make the most of the golden opportunity before them. The train in the meantime had drawn up at the platform; it was a long one, consisting of a saloon and two Pullman’s sleeping-cars, besides ordinary carriages and luggage-vans; and there were a good many passengers, nearly all of them sleeping soundly. A portion of the gang at once made prisoners of the engineer and stoker; while four of them compelled Barnard the station-master to go as he usually did to the mail-van and knock at the door for admittance. George Miller, the post-office agent in charge of the mails and specie, immediately opened the door, when several of the robbers jumped in, one of them holding a revolver to his head, while the others rapidly cleared the drawers and boxes of all the money they contained; thus securing a very large sum—about forty or fifty thousand dollars. They did not trouble themselves to examine the letters; and a combination-safe containing a very large sum in gold and notes was also left untouched; for it was beyond their power to break it open, and neither Miller the agent nor Patterson the conductor of the train knew the combined intricacies; this the robbers obliged them to swear on their word of honour.