It is alleged that Indians on reservations have been compelled to kill some of their ponies to feed their families. We do not personally know this to be so, but we can well believe it. We do know that not three years ago the Kiowas and Comanches were without flour for months; that the beef issued to them was miserable. We have seen it stated and have been told time and again that rations have been drawn for numbers greatly exceeding those actually at the agencies; and, with the developments made through the honesty and courage of Professor Marsh still fresh in our memory, we can well believe it also. Is it a subject of special wonder that, being the victim of such a system, in addition to his peculiar training, the Indian should look upon deceit and robbery as not only justifiable but laudable? WHAT WE ASK OF THE INDIAN. All men are naturally tenacious of their rights of property; the more civilized the community the more sacred those rights. The Indian has the instinct of property very strongly developed. After we have subdued, swindled, and reduced him to the verge of starvation we say to him: “You must now surrender your horses and your arms.” The earliest ambition of an Indian is to possess a fire-arm. He will pay thirty to forty ponies for a good rifle. Ponies are his currency. If the government sells this rifle by auction, it will bring perhaps five to ten dollars. It is hard for the Indian to see his rifle carried off and his horse ridden away by some white hunter, “wolfer,” or trapper. He is very fond of his ponies. No consideration of value will induce him to part with a favorite horse. A friend of the writer saw a squaw, with tears in her eyes, cut a lock from the mane of her favorite pony before surrendering the animal to the representative of the government. Thus, we starve the Indian; we deprive him of his arms, with which he might kill game to eke out a subsistence; we take away his ponies, which furnish him food when he is reduced to extremity through our fault or failure. What Christian people would be content under such treatment? Can we be surprised that an untutored savage, who cannot understand our clashing of bureaus, our shifting of responsibility, or our red-tape refinements of official morality, should look upon the white man as the liar of liars and the thief of thieves, and, when he is on the war-path, should execute the wild justice of revenge on any of the race who happens to come within reach of his rifle? Can we be surprised if he leaves his reservation and chooses to fight to the last rather than be the patient victim of such a system of injustice and spoliation? It is not astonishing that the Indian should surrender only his poorest animals, should hide his magazine guns and rifles and give up only rusty old smooth-bores or arms for which he cannot procure fitting ammunition. In our every transaction with him we strengthen by example the lessons of deception he was taught in his childhood.