under
the settlers, and return to the protection of the agents. Tracked to the
reservations, the agents refused to surrender them. The red tape here
interposed and red handed murderers were saved, that more murders might
be committed. Instead of the Government and the agents being a
protection to the settlers, they were the protectors of the Indians, and
as sometimes happened, troops were called upon to lend a helping hand.
Such conditions could not last--such outrages could not be endured.
Hence when bands were caught off the reservations they were destroyed
like dangerous, noxious beasts.

Apologists of murder and rapine have held up their hands in holy horror
at such acts on the part of the settlers. The "poor, persecuted people,"
according to them, were foully wronged, massacred and exterminated. They
saw but one side, and that was the side of the savages. With the close
of the Rogue River war, the Indian question west of the Cascade
mountains was settled forever. John and Limpy had made a heroic struggle
for the hunting grounds of their fathers and incidentally for the goods
and chattels, and the scalps of the white invaders. But, moralize as you
may, the fiat of God had gone forth; the red man and the white man could
not live peaceably together; one or the other must go. And in obedience
to the law of the survival of the fittest, it was the red man that must
disappear. It was, in my opinion, merely a continuation of the struggle
for existence--a struggle as old as man, which began when "first the
morning stars sang together," and will continue till the end of time.
That law applies to all creatures. Take for instance, the lower order of
animals. In the tropics the deer is small, not much larger than a
coyote. The weakling as well as the strong and vigorous can survive.
Further north, where conditions are harder, the deer is larger.
Continuing on north, where only the strong and vigorous can survive the
rigors of winter, we find the caribou.

It may be pointed out that the largest animals of earth are found in the
tropics, where the struggle for existence is least severe. Yet in the
frozen mud of Siberia and Alaska we find the remains of animals the
elephant and the mastodon--compared to which old Jumbo was but a baby.
And imbedded in the asphalt of Southern California is found the remains
of the sabre toothed, tiger, by the side of which the royal Bengal is
but a tabby cat. But I am getting into deep water, and w