" Peter was a good deal
surprised at this doctrine, and it was nearly a minute before he
resumed the discourse. He had recently heard it several times, and
it was slowly working its way into his mind.
"Such are our traditions, and such are our laws. Look at me. Fifty
winters have tried to turn my hair white. Time can do that. The hair
is the only part of an Injin that ever turns white; all the rest of
him is red. That is his color. The game knows an Injin by his color.
The tribes know him. Everything knows him by his color. He knows the
things which the Great Spirit has given him, in the same way. He
gets used to them, and they are his acquaintances. He does not like
strange things. He does not like strangers. White men are strangers,
and he does not like to see them on his hunting-ground. If they come
singly, to kill a few buffaloes, or to look for honey, or to catch
beaver, the Injins would not complain. They love to give of their
abundance. The pale-faces do not come in this fashion. They do not
come as guests; they come as masters. They come and they stay. Each
year of my fifty have I heard of new tribes that have been driven by
them toward the setting sun.
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