Be this as it may, it is quite clear that the extinction of the bison worked a hardship not only to the Indians, but was a great monetary loss to our own nation. The frontier element responsible should have been controlled. Canada has not been cursed with the class of Bills and Dicks who roamed at will the Great Plains in our own country between 1850 and 1880. Canada had, and has, a great many Indians in her northwestern possessions. Her white population was, numerically, far weaker than our own between these periods of time. Such a united band as Red Cloud led against Fort Fetterman in 1866 could have utterly destroyed all the white settlers in western Canada were the chiefs so inclined. The very fact that they never attacked the Canadians, and that immediately south of the boundary between the two countries, bloodshed was rampant from 1850 to 1880, indicates that the Canadian authorities adopted a much wiser policy than that followed by our easy-going officials at Washington. If we possessed a mounted police service such as that long ago established in the Canadian northwest, roving hunters, and undesirable citizens responsible for most of the Indian wars, could have been held in check. As time passes, and men view dispassionately the events of the Plains, our historians will record that most of the wars had their origin with ourselves. The Indians never began them. ----- Footnote 54: Pages 71–6. Footnote 55: U. S. National Museum Report, 1887, page 478. Footnote 56: Page 182. Footnote 57: Handbook of American Indians. Vol. I, page 169. CHAPTER XXX. THE PLAINS INDIANS FIFTY YEARS AGO AND TODAY Robert M. Wright, Esq., of Dodge City, Kansas, located in that State when a boy, in the early ’50’s. There are few men living at the present time who have had a more varied and interesting career. In Mr. Wright’s recent book, “Dodge City The Cowboy Capital”, I was struck with its frankness. The book presents a true picture of life among buffalo-hunters, scouts, gamblers, stockmen and others. I wrote to this aged frontiersman and asked him to give me an absolute, frank opinion as to the cause of the Indian wars, and his views upon our Indian policy. In return he sent me a lengthy communication which illuminates events on the Plains between the years 1855 and 1890. Mr. Wright is one of the few living men who observed Indians from the pioneer point of view. Mr. Wright’s observations, which he kindly furnished me, are the more important in that they are offered by one who has not held Indians in very high esteem. Mr. Wright saw some of his warmest friends shot down during Indian raids. His narrative, if anything, should be rather prejudiced against the Indians. Yet it is not so, as will be observed by perusal of the following pages.