When the white men reached the plains, the Blackfeet mustered about forty thousand mounted men, hunters. The national sport was stealing horses and scalps, but there was no organized war until the pressure of the whites drove the tribes westward, crowding them together, so that they had to fight for the good hunting grounds. Then there were wars in which the Blackfeet more than held their own. Next came the smallpox, and afterward the West was not so crowded. Whole nations were swept away, and those that lived were sorely reduced in numbers. After that came white frontiersmen to trade, to hunt, or as missionaries. The Indians called them Hat-wearers, but the Blackfeet had another name--the Stone-hearts. The whites were nearly always welcomed, but presently they came in larger numbers, claiming the land for mining camps and ranching, which drove away the game. The Indians fought the whites, fought for their land and their food, their liberty; but a savage with bow and arrows has no chance against a soldier with a rifle. For every white man killed a hundred would come to the funeral, so the Blackfeet saw that it was no use fighting. In 1853 they made a treaty that secured them their hunting ground, forever free. The Great Father at Washington pledged his honor, and they were quite content. It was the same with every western tribe that the United States was pledged by solemn treaty which the Indians kept, and the white men always broke. Troops drove the settlers off, but went away and the settlers came back. So young warriors broke loose from the chiefs to scalp those settlers and burn their homes; and the army would break vengeance. Such were the conditions when Schultz, a green New England boy of nineteen, came by steamer up the Missouri to Fort Benton. The truly respectable reader will be shocked to learn that this misguided youth went into partnership with a half-breed trader, selling water with a flavoring of whisky at very high prices to the Indians. In other words, he earned his living at a very risky trade. He married a Blackfoot girl, becoming a squaw-man, which, as everybody knows, is beneath contempt. In other words, he was honest enough to marry a most charming woman instead of betraying her to ruin. He went on guilty expeditions to snatch scalps and steal horses. He shared the national sports and so learned the inmost heart of a brave people. When our own countrymen get too self-righteous, bigoted, priggish, smug and generally beyond bearing, what a blessing it would be if we had a few wild Indians to collect their scalps! Schultz had a chum, a Blackfoot warrior called Wolverine, who taught him the sign language and a deal of bush craft. At times this Wolverine was unhappy, and once the white man asked him what was wrong. “There is nothing troubling me,” answered the Indian, then after a long pause: “I lied. I am in great trouble. I love Piks-ah’-ki, and she loves me, but I can not have her; her father will not give her to me.”