n: men who were a part of
the woods; men whose music was the sighing of the wind, the rustling
of the leaf, the murmur of the brook; men whose simple joys were the
chase of the stag, and the light in the dark eye of a maiden.

If we wish to find the highest type of the American Indian we must
look for him before he was driven west by the land-seeking pioneer
and before he was degraded by the rum-selling French trader.

The French claimed all the land watered by the Mississippi River and
its tributaries. The French Canadian was a restless, roaming
adventurer and he found his vocation in the fur-trade. This
fur-trade engendered a strange class of men--bush-rangers they were
called--whose work was to paddle the canoe along the lakes and
streams and exchange their cheap rum for the valuable furs of the
Indians. To these men the Indians of the west owe their degradation.
These bush-rangers or coureurs-des-bois, perverted the Indians and
sank into barbarism with them.

The few travellers there in those days were often surprised to find
in the wigwams of the Indians men who acknowledged the blood of
France, yet who had lost all semblance to the white man. They lived
in their tepee with their Indian squaws and lolled on their blankets
while the squaws cooked their venison and did all the work. They let
their hair grow long and wore feathers in it; they painted their
faces hideously with ochre and vermilion.

These were the worthless traders and adventurers who, from the year
1748 to 1783, encroached on the hunting grounds of the Indians and
explored the wilderness, seeking out the remote tribes and trading
the villainous rum for the rare pelts. In 1784 the French
authorities, realizing that these vagrants were demoralizing the
Indians, warned them to get off the soil. Finding this course
ineffectual they arrested those that could be apprehended and sent
them to Canada. But it was too late: the harm had been done: the
poor, ignorant savage had tasted of the terrible "fire-water," as he
called the rum and his ruin was inevitable.

It was a singular fact that almost every Indian who had once tasted
strong drink, was unable to resist the desire for more. When a
trader came to one of the Indian hamlets the braves purchased a keg
of rum and then they held a council to see who was to get drunk and
who was to keep sober. It was necessary to have some sober Indians
in camp, otherwise the drunken braves would kill one another. The