When we resumed our climb the poet got talking of the Indians. Curiously enough Flat Top Mountain marks the entrance to the country of the Flat-Heads, the Flat-Heads being so called because they press their babies’ heads to obtain a flat-headed type of beauty. The mountain has imitated the Indians and grown up flat-headed too. We were presently to meet, when we crossed the Canadian line, a considerable number of Indians of various tribes. Vachel facetiously observed that he wouldn’t mind taking an Indian bride if he could find one that walked thirty-five miles a day and took a bath every morning. I held that it was very snobbish on his part. The disqualifying point, however, proved to be the chewing of tobacco. When the poet saw these young Amazons rolling their quids he was confirmed in bachelordom. “Great people, the Indians,” said Vachel. “I was brought up on their orations. So was mother, I believe. Did you ever see M’Gaffey’s reader with Black Hawk’s ‘Oration’ and the ‘Defence of Spartacus,’ and other wonderful studies in popular oratory? I wouldn’t mind voting for an Indian to be President of the United States.” “What! A red Indian? I should have thought America was too prejudiced against colour.” “Not against the Indians. Against the Negroes. You and I don’t think a Negro could rise to Presidency. But an Indian is different. There is a great romance connected with the Indians; there are the traditions of the battles with them; there is the personal grandeur of the braves. Every American boy has longed to be an Indian chief. And then there is the strain of Pocahontas, the Indian princess, married into the pride of Virginia. I believe an Indian President is just what we want to root us in America and give us a genuine American inspiration. It would bring poetry into politics. It would bring all the glamour of the West.” “But it is not a practical possibility,” I urged. “I believe it could be put over,” said the poet. “You see, the Indians are a hunting people, a sporting people. They’ve refused to bow the knee to the sordid side of life.” We agreed that they were such good hunters that it was in vain the United States Government protected game in these parts. The Flat-Heads seemed to have swept off everything. You may go for days and see nothing more edible than marmots and porcupines. On the other hand, I have heard it said that the animals know the difference between the reservations of the Indians and the preserved regions of the Rockies, and at sight of an Indian on the horizon they rush to safety. Lindsay recounted to me the story of the political campaigns of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too!” and how the wild tokens of Western life invaded the East and moved the imagination of America. Every American politician is aware of this motive force. Even Roosevelt, a pure New Yorker, played the Western game--as Colonel of the Rough Riders.