Doubtless Old Si Smith now and then indulges in reveries somewhat similar, but his retrospections would be of a minute and personal character. To warm up the average frontiersman, howeverand Old Si is no exceptioninto a style at once luminous and emphatic and embellished with all the richness of the border dialect, it is only necessary to suggest the Indian topic. However phlegmatically he may reel off his yarns, glowing though they be with exciting adventure, it is the red-skins that cause his eyes to flash and his rhetoric to become fervid and impressive. To him the Indian is the embodiment of all that is supremely vile, and hence merits his unmitigated hatred. Killing Indians is his most delightful occupation, and the next in order is talking about it. His contempt for government methods is unbounded, and the popular Eastern sentiment he holds in almost equal esteem. The Smith brothers have had a varied experience in frontier affairs, in which the Indian has played a prominent part. They hold the Western views, but with less prejudice than is generally found. They argue the case with a degree of fairness, and many of their opinions and deductions are novel and equally just. Said Stephen Smith to the writer: "We've got this thing reduced right down to vulgar fractions, and the Utes have got to go. The mineral lands are worth more to us than the Indians are"this with a suggestive shrug"and if the government don't remove them from the reserves, why, we'll have to do it ourselves. There's a great fuss been made about the whites going on the Indian reserves; and what did it all amount to? Maybe fifty or sixty prospectors, all told, have got over the lines, dug a few holes and hurt nobody. But I suppose the Indians always stay where they ought to! I guess not. Some of them are off their reserves half the time, and they go off to murder and kill. Do they ever get punished for that? Not much, except when folks do it on their own account. But let a white man get found on the Indian reserves and there's a great howl. I want a rule that will work both ways, and I don't give much for a government that isn't able to protect me on the Indian reserves the same as anywhere else. Some years ago Indian troubles were reported at Washington, and Sherman was sent out to investigate. Of course they heard he was coming, and all were on their good behavior. They knew where their blankets and ponies and provisions came from. Consequently, Sherman reported everything peaceful: he hadn't seen anybody killed. That's about the kind of information they get in the East on the Indian question.
"Misused? Yes, the Indians have been misused, badly misused. I know that. But who have they misused? This whole country is covered with ruins, and they all go to show that it has been inhabited by a highly-civilized race of people. And what has become of them? I believe the Indians cleaned them out long years ago; and now their turn has come. I find it's a law of Nature"and here the narrator's tone grew more reverent as if touching upon a higher theme"that the weak go to the wall. It's a hard law, but I don't see any way out of it. The old Aztecs had to go under, and the Indians will have to follow suit."
Whatever humanitarians and archæologists may conclude concerning these opinions, they are nevertheless extensively held in the Far West. The frontiersman, who sees the Indian only in his native savagery, who has found it necessary to employ a considerable part of his time in keeping out of range of poisoned arrows, and who must needs be always upon the alert lest his family fall a prey to Indian treachery, cannot be expected to hold any ultra-humanitarian views upon the subject. He has not been brought in contact with the several partially-civilized tribes, in whose advancement many see possibilities for the whole race. He cannot understand why the government allows the Indians to roam over enormous tracts of land, rich in minerals they will never extract and containing agricultural possibilities they will never seek to realize. His plan would be to have only the same governmental care exercised over the red man as is now enjoyed by the white, and then look to the law of the survival of the fittest to furnish a solution of the problem. The case seems so clear and the arguments so potent that he looks for some outside reasons for their failure, and very naturally thinks he discovers them in governmental quarters. "There's too many people living off this Indian business for it to be wound up yet a while." Thus does a representative man at the outposts express the sentiment of no inconsiderable class.
Next to the Indian himself, the frontiersman holds in slight esteem the soldiers who are sent for the protection of the border. The objects of his supreme hatred still often merit his good opinion for their bravery and fighting qualities, but upon raw Eastern recruits and West-Point fledglings he looks with mild disdain. Having learned the Indian methods by many hard knocks, he doubtless fails to exercise proper charity toward those whose experiences have been less extended; and added to this may be a lurking jealousywhich, however, would be stoutly disclaimedbecause the blue uniform is gaining honors and experience more easily and under conditions more favorable than were possible with him in the early days. "They be about the greenest set!" said an old Indian-fighter to whom this subject was broached, "and the sight of an Injun jest about scares 'em to death at first. I never saw any of 'em I was afraid of if I only had any sort of a show. Why, back in '59 I undertook to take a young man back to the States, and we started off in a buggya buggy, do you mind. When we got down the Arkansas a piece we heard the red-skins was pretty thick, but we went right on, except keeping more of a lookout, you know. But along in the afternoon we saw fifteen or twenty coming for us, and we got ready to give 'em a reception. We had a hard chase, but at last they got pretty sick of the way I handled my rifle, and concluded to let us alone for a while. They kept watch of us, though, and meant to get square with us that night. Well, we travelled till dark, stopped just long enough to build a big fire, and then lit out. When those Injuns came for us that night we were some other place, and they lost their grip on that little scalping-bee. They didn't trouble us any more, that's sure. And when we got to the next post there were nigh a hundred teams, six stages and two companies of soldiers, all shivering for fear of the Injuns. It rather took the wind out of 'em to see us come in with that buggy, and they didn't want to believe we had come through. But, like the man's mother-in-law, we were there, and they couldn't get out of it. And, sir, maybe you won't believe me, but those soldiers offered me seventy-five dollars to go back with them! That's the sort of an outfit the government sends to protect us!"
We have had frequent occasion since our frontier experiences began to ponder the untrammelled opulence of this Western word, outfit. From the Mississippi to the Pacific its expansive possibilities are momentarily being tested. There is nothing that lives, breathes or grows, nothing known to the arts or investigated by the sciencesnothing, in short, coming within the range of the Western perceptionthat cannot with more or less appropriateness be termed an "outfit." A dismal broncho turned adrift in mid-winter to browse on the short stubble of the Plains is an "outfit," and so likewise is the dashing equipage that includes a shining phaeton and richly-caparisoned span. Perhaps by no single method can so comprehensive an idea of the term in question be obtained in a short time, and the proper qualifying adjectives correctly determined, as by simply preparing for a camping-expedition. The horse-trader with whom you have negotiated for a pair of horses or mules congratulates you upon the acquisition of a "boss outfit." When your wagon has been purchased and the mules are duly harnessed in place, you are further induced to believe that you have a "way-up outfit," though, obviously, this should now be understood to possess a dual significance which did not before obtain, since the wagon represents a component part. The hardware clerk displays a tent and recommends a fly as forming a desirable addition to an even otherwise "swell outfit." The grocer provides you with what he modestly terms a "first-class outfit," albeit his cans of fruits, vegetables and meats are for the delectation of the inner man. Frying-pans and dutch-ovens, camp-stools and trout-scales, receive the same designation. And now comes the crowning triumph of this versatile term, as well as a happy illustration of what might be called its agglutinative and assimilating powers; for when horses and wagon have received their load of tent and equipments, and father, mother and the babies have filled up every available space, this whole establishment, this omnium gatherum of outfits, becomes neither more nor less than an "outfit."