If, then, there is nothing inconsistent with national dignity or honor in thus temporizing with hostile savages, it certainly can be shown to be in a high degree compatible with the interests and the welfare of all the white communities which are, by their advanced position, placed at the mercy of the Indians. Thousands and even tens of thousands of our citizens are now living within reach of the first murderous outbreak of a general Indian war. Since 1868, when the trans-continental railroad was completed, population has found its way into regions to which the rate of progress previously maintained would not in fifty years have carried it,--into nooks and corners which five years ago were scarcely known to trappers and guides. Instead of exposing to Indian contact, as heretofore, a clearly defined frontier line, upon two or three faces, our settlements have penetrated the Western country in every direction and from every direction, creeping along the course of every stream, seeking out every habitable valley, following up every indication of gold among the ravines and mountains, clinging around the reservations of the most formidable tribes, and even making lodgement at a hundred points on lands secured by treaty to the Indians. Even where the limit of settlement in any direction has apparently, for the time, been reached, we learn of some solitary ranchman or miner who has made his home still farther down the valley or up the mountain, far beyond sight or call. It is upon men thus exposed, without hope of escape or chance of resistance, that the first wrath of a general Indian war would break. No note of recall would avert their doom. Long before friendly runners could reach them, the war-whoop would be in their ears; and alone, unfriended, undefended, unaided, they would perish, as hundreds and thousands of our countrymen have perished, at the hands of the infuriated savages. But it is not alone the solitary ranchmen who would be swept away on the first onset of Indian attack. Scores of valleys up which population has been steadily creeping would be instantly abandoned; streams that now, from source to mouth, resound the stroke of the pioneer's axe, would be left desolate on the first rumor of war; a hundred outlying settlements would disappear in a night, as the tidings of outbreak and massacre were borne along by hurrying fugitives. As the blood retreats, on the signal of danger, from the extremities to the heart, so would population retire, terror-struck and precipitate, from the frontier on the first shock of war. Towns, even, would be abandoned; and the frightened inhabitants, men, women, and children, cumbered with household stuff and overdriven stock, would crowd within the shelter of garrisons hardly adequate for their defence.