half-century of warfare with the Blackfeet, the savage tribe
which had preyed upon the men of the fur trade in a
long-continued series of robberies and murders. On January 22,
1870, Major E. M. Baker, led by half-breeds who knew the country,
surprised the Piegans in their winter camp on the Marias River,
just below the border. He, like Custer, attacked at dawn, opening
the encounter with a general fire into the tepees. He killed a
hundred and seventy-three of the Piegans, including very many
women and children, as was unhappily the case so often in these
surprise attacks. It was deplorable warfare. But it ended the
resistance of the savage Blackfeet. They have been disposed for
peace from that day to this.

The terrible revenge which the Sioux and Cheyennes took in the
battle which annihilated Custer and his men on the Little Big
Horn in the summer of 1876; the Homeric running fight made by
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perces--a flight which baffled our best
generals and their men for a hundred and ten days over more than
fourteen hundred miles of wilderness--these are events so well
known that it seems needless to do more than to refer to them.
The Nez Perces in turn went down forever when Joseph came out and
surrendered, saying, "From where the sun now stands I fight
against the white man no more forever." His surrender to fate did
not lack its dignity. Indeed, a mournful interest attached to the
inevitable destiny of all these savage leaders, who, no doubt,
according to their standards, were doing what men should do and
all that men could do.

The main difficulty in administering full punishment to such
bands was that after a defeat they scattered, so that they could