afoot with the purpose of punishing these offending tribesmen,
who knew nothing of the higher laws of war and who committed atrocities
that have never been equalled in history; unless it be by one of the
belligerents of the Great War in Europe, with whom we are at this
writing engaged--once more in the interest of a sane and human
civilization. The last great struggle for the occupation of the frontier
was on. It involved the ownership of the last of our open lands; and
hence may be called the war of our last frontier.

The settler who pushed West continued to be the man who shared his time
between his rifle and his plough. The numerous buffalo were butchered
with an endless avidity by the men who now appeared upon the range. As
the great herds regularly migrated southward with each winter's snows,
they were met by the settlers along the lower railway lines and in a
brutal commerce were killed in thousands and in millions. The Indians
saw this sudden and appalling shrinkage of their means of livelihood.
It meant death to them. To their minds, especially when they thought we
feared them, there was but one answer to all this--the whites must all
be killed.

Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Roman Nose, American Horse, Black Kettle--these
were names of great Indian generals who proved their ability to fight.
At times they brought into the open country, which as yet remained
unoccupied by the great pastoral movement from the south, as many as
five thousand mounted warriors in one body, and they were well armed
and well supplied with ammunition. Those were the days when the Indian
agents were carrying on their lists twice as many Indians as actually
existed--and receiving twice as many supplies as really were issued to
the tribes. The curse of politics was ours even at that time, and it
cost us then, as now, unestimated millions of our nation's dearest
treasures. As to the reservations which the Indians were urged to
occupy, they left them when they Iced. In the end, when they were
beaten, all they were asked to do was to return to these reservations
and be fed.

There were fought in the West from 1869 to 1875 more than two hundred
pitched actions between the Army and the Indians. In most cases the
white men were heavily outnumbered. The account which the Army gave of
itself on scores of unremembered minor fields--which meant life or death
to all engaged--would make one of the best pages of our history, could
it be written today.