ally understood. Whenever the Indians successfully raided the
stages the mail sacks were no longer torn to pieces or thrown aside
as worthless, but every letter was carefully scrutinized for possible
bills.

I well remember, when the small copper cent, with its spread eagle
upon it, was first issued, about the year 1857, how the soldiers of a
frontier garrison where I was stationed at the time palmed them off
upon the simple savages as two dollar and a half gold pieces, which they
resembled as long as they retained their brightness, and with which
the Indians were familiar, as many were received by the troops from
the paymaster every two months, the savages receiving them in turn for
horses and other things purchased of them by the soldiers.

I have known of Indians who gave nuggets of gold for common calico
shirts costing two dollars in that region and seventy-five cents in the
States, while the lump of precious metal was worth, perhaps, five or
seven dollars. As late as twenty-eight years ago, I have traded for
beautifully smoke-tanned and porcupine-embroidered buffalo-robes for my
own use, giving in exchange a mere loaf of bread or a cupful of brown
sugar.

Very early in the history of the United States, in 1786, the government,
under the authority of Congress, established a plan of trade with the
Indians. It comprised supplying all their physical wants without profit;
factories, or stations as they were called, were erected at points
that were then on the remote frontier; where factors, clerks, and
interpreters were stationed. The factors furnished goods of all kinds to
the Indians, and received from them in exchange furs and peltries. There
was an officer in charge of all these stations called the superintendent
of Indian trade, appointed by the President. As far back as 1821,
there were stations at Prairie du Chien, Fort Edward, Fort Osage, with
branches at Chicago, Green Bay in Arkansas, on the Red River, and other
places in the then far West. These stations were movable, and changed
from time to time to suit the convenience of the Indians. In 1822 the
whole system was abolished by act of Congress, and its affairs wound up,
the American Fur Company, the Missouri Fur Company, and a host of others
having by that time become powerful. Like the great corporations of
to-day, they succeeded in supplanting the government establishments. Of
course, the Indians of the remote plains, which included all the
vast region w