Is it quite certain, for instance, that, given arms, and drilled as soldiers, detachments of the tribes, as auxiliaries of the regulars, might not do good service at the different military posts, in routine duty, of course, and that the prestige of such employment would not appeal to the military spirit of the tribes at large? What is there at Fort Halleck that Indians could not do as well as white men? It is a notorious fact, and as old as American history, that the red man holds sacred everything that his tribe is guarding. Why should not this chivalry, common to every savage race on earth, and largely utilized by other governments in Asia and in Africa, be turned to account in America too, and Indians be entrusted with the peace of Indian frontiers? I know well enough that many will think my suggestion sentimental and absurd, but fortunately it is just the class who think in that way that have no real importance in this or in any other country. They are the men who think the "critturs" ought to be "used up," and who, when they are in the West, "would as soon shoot an Injun as a coyote." These men form a class of which America, when she is three generations older, will have little need for, and who, in a more settled community, will find that they must either conform to civilization or else "git." There are a great number of these coarse, thick-skinned, ignorant men floating about on the surface of Western America: for Western America still stands in need of men who will do the reckless preliminary work of settlement, and shoot each other off over a whisky bottle when that work is done. Now, these men, and those of a feebler kind who take their opinions from them, believe and preach that annihilation of the Indian is the only possible cure for the Indian evil. I have heard them say it in public a score of times that "the Indian should be wiped clean out." But a larger and more generous class is growing up very fast in the West, who are beginning to see that the red men are really a charge upon them: and that as a great nation they must take upon themselves the responsibilities of empire, and protect the weaker communities whom a rapidly advancing civilization is isolating in their midst. But it is a pity that those in authority cannot see their way to giving practical effect to such sentiments, and devise some method for utilizing the Indian. For myself, seeing what has been done in Asia and in Africa with equally difficult tribes, I should be inclined to predict success for an experiment in military service, if the routine duties of barracks and outpost duty, in unnecessary places, can be called "military service." For one thing, drilled and well-armed Indians would very soon put a stop to cow-boy disturbances in Arizona, or anywhere else. Or, again, if Indians had been on his track, James, the terror of Missouri, would certainly not have flourished so long as he did.