We may say in this connection, that we refrained from writing the biographies of mixed breeds, such as Osceola Powell, Weatherford or Red Eagle, simply because we knew, from our experience with other books, that people would be prone to say that their greatness was due to the infusion of the blood of the superior white race. As far as we know, all of our subjects treated at length were full-blooded Indians, except Sequoyah and Quanah Parker, and most of them, as we shall see, were nature's noblemen. We have enjoyed peculiar facilities for prosecuting our studies on Indian biography and history, having free access to the four great libraries of Chicago. For the benefit of others interested in the same subject, we will mention a few of the many books we found helpful, in the preparation of this work, besides the two already named. At the head of the list we place Roosevelt's "Winning of the West," Parkman's "Conspiracy of Pontiac," Mason's "Pioneer History," Ellis's "Indian Wars of the United States." In our judgment these are about the strongest books we have read on the subject, especially in relation to the Indian, the pioneer, and the border wars. In the next group we place Dunn's "Massacres of the Mountains," Finerty's "War-path and Bivouac," Helen Hunt Jackson's "Century of Dishonor," and Eggleston's "Biographies of Brant, Red Jacket, Tecumseh," etc. In addition to our library work, we spent much time traveling among the Indian tribes and making the acquaintance of many of the most famous living chiefs, and cultivating their friendship, so we record many of the incidents in the book as an eye-witness. We referred to the Indian in this introduction as a so-called "vanishing race." As a matter of fact the Indian is not vanishing at all but slowly increasing in numbers. The census of 1890 gave the number of Indians in the United States as 248,258, while that of 1900 gave the total as 270,544, a net gain of 22,291 in ten years. Another erroneous conception many people have of the Indian we can only call attention to here. They somehow have come to believe that the Red Man is very dignified and solemn, has no appreciation of the ludicrous, or conception of a joke. Never was a greater mistake. No one enjoys what he considers a good joke more than an Indian. You will find some evidence that he can be as funny as his white brother, in the chapter on "Indian Anecdotes."