together, their trains being sometimes three or four miles in length.
Then their politeness might also be spoken of, for while it is true that
they have a traditional politeness, it is not a matter of history. Their
sledges were never in the public road but at least 10 to 20 rods outside
of the road in the sage brush and cactus, leaving the road free for the
Stage Company's mail coach.

In all the different books I have ever read, I have never seen one word
of praise for any courtesy the Indians gave us during those frontier
days, but instead I find nothing but abuse. The Indian is the only
natural born American and the only people to inhabit North America
before the discovery by Columbus. This land we so greatly love
rightfully belonged to the Red Man of the forest, and it is my opinion
that they had as much right to protect their own lands as do we in this
century. The novelists howl about the depredations committed by the
Indian, but their ravings are made more to sell their books and to
create animosity than for any good purposes.

The Eastern people eagerly read everything they found that abused the
Indians, and the Indians in those days had no presses in which to make
known their grievances. The only thing left was to get vengeance
wherever he found a white man. "To me belongeth vengeance and
recompense." Personally I blame the press for loss of life to both the
Indian and the white men, for having schooled the white man erroneously.
Travelers crossing the plains were always on the defensive, and ever
ready to commence war on any Indian who came within the radius of their
firearms. When I was a boy I read in my reader: "Lo, the cowardly
Indian." The picture above this sentence was that of an Indian in war
paint, holding his bow and arrow, ready to shoot a white man in
the back.