The diplomatic qualifications of the position are by no means inconsiderable. A copious official correspondence is required with the Indian office at Washington, and must be conducted with due formality and dignity. All matters of importance are submitted to the Indian Office for action, and it often requires skilful presentation of a subject to make a clerk at Washington take a view that seems self-evident to the agent on the frontier. Great tact and patience are requisite in dealing with the various outside influences that embarrass the agent, and often bring him to grief. Frontier settlers are continually having difficulties with the Indians that require attention. Liquor-sellers, claim-agents and swindlers lie in wait for the Indian, who must be protected. Scheming half-breeds and “squaw-men” create dissension among the natives. Then there are the contractor and sub-contractor; the man who failed to get the contract he wanted, and the man who is planning to get the next contract. There is the ex-agent, who corresponds with the employés and Indians, and criticises his successor, and the man who wants to be agent, and watches for a lever to oust the incumbent. (There are always twenty of them!) There is the dissatisfied employé, who corresponds with outsiders about agency affairs, and the meddlesome clerk at Washington, who gives him private assistance. The agents are few who meet all these difficulties without serious trouble. Especially, high moral character is a prime requisite, not only on account of the agent’s influence upon a people just rising from barbarism, but to enable a man to maintain his integrity under the extraordinary temptations that surround the place. Said an ex-agent of unimpeachable integrity: “I know of no service that tries a man’s principles so severely as the Indian service.” In spite of all precautions, opportunities for peculation, direct and indirect, are frequent, and present themselves in the most seducing forms possible. Having shown the requirements of the position, we may consider some of the obstacles in the way of securing agents who are thoroughly competent for the work. First comes hard work. No branch of our civil service draws more heavily on a man’s time and strength. The agent is involved in a constant round of wearisome details, varied only by frequent hard journeys by wagon or stage, or worse, by frontier railroads.