7.  I base this number on a careful examination of the tribes named above, discarding such of the northern bands of the Chippewas, for instance, as were unlikely at that time to have been drawn into war with us.

8.  The expressions generally used by them in sending their war talks and peace talks to one another or the whites.  Hundreds of copies of these “talks” are preserved at Washington.

9. Do.

10.  Smith, “Remarkable Occurrences,” etc., p. 154.  Smith gives a very impartial account of the Indian discipline and of their effectiveness, and is one of the few men who warred against them who did not greatly overestimate their numbers and losses.  He was a successful Indian fighter himself.  For the British regulars he had the true backwoods contempt, although having more than the average backwoods sense in acknowledging their effectiveness in the open.  He had lived so long among the Indians, and estimated so highly their personal prowess, that his opinion must be accepted with caution where dealing with matters of discipline and command.

11.  The accounts of the Indian numbers in any battle given by British or Americans, soldiers or civilians, are ludicrously exaggerated as a rule; even now it seems a common belief of historians that the whites were generally outnumbered in battles, while in reality they were generally much more numerous than their foes.

12.  Harrison (loc. cit.) calls them “the finest light troops in the world”; and he had had full experience in serving with American and against British infantry.

13.  Any one who is fond of the chase can test the truth of this proposition for himself, by trying how long it will take him to learn to kill a bighorn on the mountains, and how long it will take him to learn to kill white-tail deer in a dense forest, by fair still-hunting, the game being equally plenty.  I have known many novices learn to equal the best old hunters, red or white, in killing mountain game; I have never met one who could begin to do as well as an Indian in the dense forest, unless brought up to it—­and rarely even then.  Yet, though woodcraft is harder to learn, it does not imply the possession of such valuable qualities as mountaineering; and when cragsman and woodman meet on neutral ground, the former is apt to be the better man.

14.  To this day the wild—­not the half-tame—­Indians remain unequalled as trackers.  Even among the old hunters not one white in a hundred can come near them.  In my experience I have known a very few whites who had spent all their lives in the wilderness who equalled the Indian average; but I never met any white who came up to the very best Indian.  But, because of their better shooting and their better nerve, the whites often make the better hunters.

15.  It is curious how to this day the wild Indians retain the same traits.  I have seen and taken part in many matches between frontiersmen and the Sioux, Cheyennes, Grosventres, and Mandans, and the Indians were beaten in almost every one.  On the other hand the Indians will stand fatigue, hunger, and privation better, but they seem more susceptible to cold.