mong the Indians
of to-day. You seek in vain for Logan or Pocahontas, for Uncas or
Minnehaha. The real Indians are cruel and treacherous, lazy and filthy,
crafty and ungrateful. Many of them live upon ants and grasshoppers, and
at the best only know enough to preserve in the rudest manner a few of
the commonest roots and berries.

These tribes have no history and no growth. They live a mere animal
life. Even their few traditions are rude and disgusting enough. I am
indebted to Mr. Stuart for a fair example of the Bannack superstitions,
from which not even Longfellow could glean any poetry or beauty. Among
the caves in the rocks dwells a race of fairy imps, who, with arrow and
quiver, kill game upon the mountains, and sing boisterous songs on the
cliffs in summer evenings. Whenever an Indian mother leaves her infant,
one of these pleasant cannibals devours it straightway, and takes its
place, crying piteously. When the poor woman returns and seeks to pacify
her child, the little usurper falls ravenously upon her. Fire-arms,
knives, and stones are all powerless; and when the screams of the woman
bring the men to her help, the destroyer runs away and leaves her in a
dying condition. She always dies before morning. When little children
play at a distance from camp, these fairies seek to sport among them.
Lucky is it for those timid few who, frightened at the long tail,
scamper away from the intruder; for, when allowed to mingle in the
sport, he suddenly seizes the fairest child, and hurries away to make a
dainty meal off him with his little wives in elfin-land. To the Indian
men the fairies profess a real friendship; and when they meet one near
their dwellings they invite him in and feast him, and press him to stay
all night. He invariably declines the polite invitation with his thanks,
and his regrets that he has killed an elk and must take it home before
the wolves can eat it.

Beyond the main chain of the Rocky Mountains are the Deer Lodge and
Bitter Root Valleys, celebrated for their great grazing capabilities. I
rode through these valleys in June, passing up the Pipestone Creek,
whose waters flow into the Missouri, and down the Silver Bow, whose
waters flow into the Columbia. At the highest point we could almost see
the springs of either river, flowing on one hand to the Atlantic, on the
other to the Pacific. How widely are these children of the same mother
separated! Summer sprinkles all the ravines with innumerable