Let me say that this work was not undertaken with out serious thought and many misgivings. Not that I had no story to tell, but that I doubted my capacity to put into readable form the things I have seen or had a part in, and the conclusions I have drawn from my observations. For thirty-eight years I have lived among, or had official dealings with, a race of people little understood by the whites who have displaced them in carrying out the immutable law of the sur vival of the fittest. It is not the least of my possessions that I hold the confidence of these people. I may say now that in the following pages I have said nothing that will jeopardize the relation that is as a bond be tween the red men of the West and me.