they wished to have a message taken to the Great Father in
the East, and, after satisfying myself that their complaint was well
grounded, I promised to do for them what I could. I accomplished what they
desired, and since that time I have taken much active interest in this
people, and my experience with them has shown me very clearly how much may
be accomplished by the unaided efforts of a single individual who
thoroughly understands the needs of a tribe of Indians. During my annual
visits to the Blackfeet reservation, which have extended over two, three,
or four months each season, I see a great many of the men and have long
conversations with them. They bring their troubles to me, asking what they
shall do, and how their condition may be improved. They tell me what things
they want, and why they think they ought to have them. I listen, and talk
to them just as if they were so many children. If their requests are
unreasonable, I try to explain to them, step by step, why it is not best
that what they desire should be done, or tell them that other things which
they ask for seem proper, and that I will do what I can to have them
granted. If one will only take the pains necessary to make things clear to
him, the adult Indian is a reasonable being, but it requires patience to
make him understand matters which to a white man would need no
explanation. As an example, let me give the substance of a conversation had
last autumn with a leading man of the Piegans who lives on Cut Bank River,
about twenty-five miles from the agency. He said to me:--

"We ought to have a storehouse over here on Cut Bank, so that we will not
be obliged each week to go over to the agency to get our food. It takes us
a day to go, and a day to come, and a day there; nearly three days out of
every week to get our food. When we are at work cutting hay, we cannot
afford to spend so much time travelling back and forth. We want to get our
crops in, and not to be travelling about all the time. It would be a good
thing, too, to have a blacksmith shop here, so that when our wagons break
down, we will not have to go to the agency to get them mended."

This is merely the substance of a much longer speech, to which I replied by
a series of questions, something like the following:--

"Do you remember talking to me last year, and telling me on this same spot
that you ought to have beef issued to you here, and ought not to have to
make the long journey to the agency