BROWN MOOSE A CELEBRATED MOHAWK CHIEF WHEN the white man discovered America, he found a great, primeval wilderness of fertile valleys, high mountains and deep forests. Tall trees had grown for centuries and their towering tops, reaching up to the blue sky, shut out the sunlight from the gloom of the forest solitude. In the deep recesses of this wilderness the red man, or Indian, lived in wild freedom. Skilled in woodcraft and the art of savage warfare, he was lord and master of this vast domain,

ON THE WAR-PATH WAR-CLUB AND HATCHET FOLLOWING the advice of Owayneo, the Indians received the white explorers and settlers with great kindness and hospitality. But the white men were cruel and crafty and took advantage of the friendly red men because they wanted the Indian land and schemed by dishonest methods to obtain possession of large tracts. Soon the Indian saw his hunting grounds taken and his wigwam threatened with destruction. This injustice roused his warlike and cruel nature, and rel

INDIANS TRYING TO SET FIRE TO A BLOCK-HOUSE EVERY ship sailing from Europe brought new colonists, and as the settlements grew and thrived on the sea coast civilization advanced further and further into the great wilderness. The Indians became more ferocious and warlike, and day and night the settlers were in constant fear of attack. Men built strong palisades of logs around their homes and at each corner of the enclosure they placed block-houses, which were simply square buildings two stories hi

A CROW CHIEF OFFERING A CHALLENGE STEP by step the Indians were pushed out of the land that was theirs by just right. The white man made treaties with them, but did not keep them, and on every hand the strong force of advancing civilization drove them toward the land of the setting sun. Any attempt at resistance by the Indians was usually met by conquest and the most relentless punishment. “There is not one white man who loves an Indian,” said Sitting Bull, the warlike chief of the Ogollalas, “a

THE Indians of the Plains, bold and desperate horsemen, were great hunters. Their chief game was the American bison or buffalo, which roamed over the wide prairies in vast herds, seemingly placed there by the Great Spirit for the special use of the red man, who lived upon their flesh and clothed himself with their skins. Mounted on small, fleet ponies, the Indians could readily kill them in great numbers. When pursuing the herd, the Indian used to ride close in the rear while he selected just th

THE great American prairies were the final gathering place of the Indians. What was left of the once powerful tribe, the Mohicans, and the Delawares, of the Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees, all found refuge here. At this period they dwelt in open hostility not only toward the white man, but among themselves. Wonderful and powerful alike in the chase and on the trail, their conquest was not an easy task. INDIANS SIGNALING With the American Indian war was the one end and aim of living. Tribesmen w

THE spring of 1846 was a busy season on the western frontier. Not only were emigrants from every part of the country preparing for the journey to California and Oregon, but a great number were making ready for Santa Fé. These adventurous people fitted out their wagon trains at St. Louis, and from there traveled up the Missouri River by boat to a place called Independence. This was the usual starting place, although occasionally trains went out from Fort Leavenworth. THE LEADER OF A WAGON TRAIN T

INDIANS LYING IN WAIT FOR THE “PONY EXPRESS” TWO thousand miles of waste land lay between the western frontier and California and the long wagon trains sent out by the various companies did very well for carrying freight. But as the settlements grew in number there came a demand for a speedier method of communication by which letters and money might be sent to the Pacific Coast and other points. The long journey of the slowly moving wagons did not interfere very much in matters of freight, but t

ALTHOUGH the United States Government had maintained frontier forts, it was forced finally to undertake important aggressive campaigns against the Indians. The white settlements encroached more and more on the Indian territory, and the red man seeing nothing ahead but the destruction of his cherished hunting grounds by these intruders, aimed to destroy every white man he saw, but inch by inch the savages were crowded back from the land that was rightfully theirs into a cramped and limited area.

A PLAINSMAN AND CATTLE RANGER OF EARLY DAYS IT did not take long for men to learn that the great western country was a valuable grazing land. The section of the West which includes New Mexico, part of Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the western part of Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and Dakota, became a great cattle range. There were neither fences nor boundaries on this gigantic unbroken pasture, and here there grew up and flourished a great cattle raising industry. A traveller seeing this la