INDIAN LIFE AT AN AGENCY. An Indian agency is not usually a school of morality. Interpreters, traders’ clerks, “squaw-men,” have what are euphemistically termed “Indian wives.” It is scarcely necessary to say that these are nothing more than concubines. These poor red slaves are usually purchased from their savage sires for a blanket, a cheap trinket, a pony, or a few cartridges. Sometimes they are presents given for the purpose of making interest with influential underlings. Agency life has no tendency to elevate the Indian. He lives in idleness and inaction. He has nothing to do and nothing to hope for. He has no future. He must occupy his time in some way, and he becomes a slave to gambling and sexual indulgence. Occasionally the young men, wearied by the monotony of such a life and ambitious of distinction, seize upon the first real or fancied wrong as a pretext for revolt, fly the agency, and go upon the war-path. OUR INDIANS IN CANADA. Why is it that the Indians who give us so much trouble become peaceable, and remain so, when they settle on the Canadian side of the border? There they receive no governmental aid, and are able to procure their own subsistence. We read of no outrages or robberies there. It is simply because the Indian’s rights are respected. He has been protected in his rights even against the greedy nephews of English statesmen who cast covetous eyes upon his lands. If he is guilty of offence, he is promptly and sternly punished. The arm of the military is not held back when offending Indians are within reach of punishment because a million or so has been appropriated to be expended for their benefit as soon as they can be reported peaceable, and because the vultures of the ring are a-hungering for the spoil. THE FRONTIERSMAN AND THE INDIAN.