Still, again, we count out several powerful tribes, able to bring five hundred or a thousand warriors each into the field, which, by reason of traditional friendship and their frequent alliance with our troops in campaigns against hostile Indians, are sure to remain the friends of the government under any tolerable treatment. Indeed, neglect and abuse seem insufficient to alienate these allies. Their faith once pledged, and friendship cemented by sacrifices and sufferings, they cling to the fortunes of the whites with romantic fidelity. Such are the Arickarees,[C] Mandans, and Gros Ventres of the Upper Missouri; such the Pawnees of Kansas; such the Flatheads, Kootenays, and Pend d'Oreilles, whose boast is that their tribes never killed a white man; such, in a degree, the Crows of Montana. These tribes, and others of less consequence, are not only sure, in the event of kindly treatment by the government, to remain its fast friends, but they may be relied upon in the future, as in the past, to do much to check the audacity of their hostile neighbors, and, in the last resort, to furnish re-enforcements of the most effective and economical sort to the troops operating against predatory bands. Having excluded all tribes and bands of the character, or in the position, indicated under the three heads above, we make up the list of the potentially hostile Indians somewhat as follows: of the Sioux of Dakota,--tribes, bands, and parties, to the number of fifteen thousand; of the Indians of Montana,--Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans, Assiniboines and roving Sioux, to the number of twenty thousand; of the Indians in the extreme south-western part of the Indian Territory and on the borders of Texas,--Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, to the number of seven thousand; of the Indians of Arizona,--Apaches of several tribes, to the number of nine thousand; of the mountain Indians of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, to the number of five thousand; of the Indians of New Mexico, to the number of two thousand; and of the Indians in Oregon and Washington Territory, to the number of six thousand. The sixty-four thousand Indians thus enumerated comprise substantially all the tribes and bands with which the government is obliged to contemplate the possibility of war. It is in the highest degree improbable, however, that the United States would, even in the event of what might properly be called a general Indian war, be called on to fight more than one-half of these Indians at any one time; while, with a reasonable policy of concession, the number of actually hostile and depredating bands may be steadily reduced, and the whole body of dangerous Indians held in check until the advance of population shall render them incapable of mischief. The measures by which this is to be effected must be considered candidly, in the light of the alternative presented, and not as if they were proposed as measures wholly agreeable to the tastes or the temper