f Indians of full blood will rapidly diminish, and the
race, as a pure race, soon become extinct. But nothing could be more
disastrous than this method of ridding the country of an undesirable
element. Not only would it be more cruel to the natives than a war of
extermination; but it would entail in the course of its accomplishment a
burden of vice, disease, pauperism, and crime upon a score of new
States, more intolerable than perpetual alarms or unintermitted war.

But if, on the other hand, the policy of seclusion shall be definitely
established by law and rigidly maintained, the Indians will meet their
fate, whatever it may be, substantially as a whole and as a pure race.
White men will still be found, so low in natural instincts, or so
alienated by misfortunes and wrongs, as to be willing to abandon
civilization, and hide themselves in a condition of life where no
artificial wants are known, and in communities where public sentiment
makes no demand upon any member for aught in the way of achievement or
self-advancement. Here such men, even now to be found among the more
remote and hostile tribes, will, unless the savage customs of adoption
are severely discountenanced by law, find their revenge upon humanity,
or escape the tyranny of social observance and requirement. Half-breeds,
bearing the names of French, English, and American employees of fur and
trading companies, or of refugees from criminal justice "in the
settlements," are to be found in almost every tribe and band, however
distant. Many of them, grown to man's estate, are among the most daring,
adventurous, and influential members of the warlike tribes, seldom
wholly free from suspicion on account of their relation on one side to
the whites, yet, by the versatility of their talents and the
recklessness of their courage, commanding the respect and the fear of
the purebloods, and, however incapable of leading the savages in better
courses, powerful in a high degree for mischief.

The white men, who, under the reservation system, are likely to become
affiliated with Indian tribes as "squaw men," are, however, probably
fewer than the Indian women who will be enticed away from their tribes
to become the cooks and concubines of ranchmen. One is surprised even
now, while travelling in the Territories, to note the number of cabins
around which, in no small families, half-breed children are playing.
However moralists or sentimentalists may look upon connections th