A peril Roosevelt faced arose from his proximity to bad Indians. In
roaming through the uninhabited country surrounding his ranch there was
constant danger of meeting bands of young bucks. These redskins were
generally insolent and reckless, and if they met a white man when the
chances of their detection and punishment were slight they would take
away his horse and rifle, if not his life.
One morning Roosevelt had set out on a solitary trip to the country
beyond his ranch. He was near the middle of a plateau when a small
band of Indians suddenly rode over the edge in front of him. The
minute they saw him, out came their guns. Full tilt they dashed at
him, whooping and brandishing their weapons in typical Indian style.
Roosevelt reined up and dismounted. His horse, Manitou, stood steady
as a rock. When the Indians were a hundred yards off, Roosevelt threw
his rifle over Manitou’s back and drew a bead on the foremost redskin.
Instantly the party scattered, doubled back on their tracks and bent
over alongside their horses to shield themselves from Roosevelt’s
gun. Out of rifle range, they held a consultation, and then one came
forward alone, dropping his rifle and waving a blanket over his head.
When he was within fifty yards he yelled out: “How! Me good Indian.”
Roosevelt returned the “How,” and assured him that he was delighted
to know that he was a good Indian, but that he would not be permitted
to come closer. The other Indians came closer, but Roosevelt’s rifle
covered them. After an outburst of profanity, they galloped away in an
opposite direction from Roosevelt’s route. Later in the day Roosevelt
met two trappers, who told him that his assailants were young Sioux
bucks, who had robbed them of two horses.
In his account of this episode, Roosevelt takes care to point out that
there is another side to the Indian character, as indeed all America
has found out since the gallantry of our Indian brothers in the world
war. He illustrates this by telling how, while spending the night
in a small cow ranch on the Beaver, he lay in his bunk listening to
the conversation of two cowboys. They were speaking of Indians, and
mentioned a jury that had acquitted a horse-thief of the charge of
stealing stock from a neighboring tribe, though the thief himself had
openly admitted its truth. One of these cowboys suddenly remarked
that he had once met an Indian who was a pretty good fellow, and he
proceeded to tell the story.
A small party of Indians had passed the winter near the ranch at which
he was employed. The chief had two particularly fine horses. These so
excited the cowboy’s cupidity that one night he drove them off and
hid them in a safe place. The chief looked for them high and low, but
without success. Soon afterward one of the cowboy’s own horses strayed.
When spring came the Indians went away, but three days afterward the
chief returned, bringing with him the strayed horse, which he had
happened to run across. “I couldn’t stand that,” said the narrator, “so
I just told him I reckoned I knew where his own lost horses were, and I
saddled up my bronco and piloted him to them.”
Still another story is cited by Roosevelt in denial of the saying, “The
only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Once, on visiting a neighboring
ranch, he found waiting there three well-behaved and self-respecting
Sioux. The woman on the ranch told him that a white man had come along
and tried to run off with their horses. Running out, they had caught
him, retaken their horses, deprived him of his guns and released him.
“I don’t see why they let him go,” exclaimed Roosevelt’s hostess. “I
don’t believe in stealing Indians’ horses any more than white folks’ so
I told them they could go along and hang him--I’d never cheep.”
When, many years later, Roosevelt became President, his knowledge of
the condition of the Indians led him to become their stanch champion.
There was then an enormous amount of fraud practised by white men in
obtaining possession of Indian lands. Roosevelt used his executive
power to protect Indian rights and appointed as Indian Commissioner
Francis E. Leupp, one of the best friends the Indians ever had.