Feliciana sentinel. [volume] (St. Francisville, La.) 1877-1892, 1891-12-05
SAVAGE AND sUTLEA.


The Former . Fairly Good Custoaasp ss
Iimes-The Latter Lives Like Prince.
A traders store at an army post fur.
nishes . good deal of study. It is al.
ways sure to have Indians about 1t,
and their gay. barbaric colors make
some striking bits Of light and shade.
Women with babies in wicker baskets,
their hands bound down, and only the
faces of the patient brats showing; men
with the lightest of garments and
children with the most unkempt and
unwashed appearance linger indolently
about with the utterly taskless air of
persons who need nothing and hope for
nothing. Darwin says that man every
where has passed through three suc-
cessive stages: First, hunter; second,
pastoral; third, agricultural. But the
Indian seems not yet to have entered
the first; or, at the most, to have passed
through one of them and not yet to
have arrived at the next. He NAV have
been a hunter in better days, but he
has fallen even from that honorable
occupation to thesmean estate of q
loafer. The government keeps him in
idleness, rays him aregular a annuity
if the Indian agent does not steal it
and provides him with blankets and
other clothing. He needs very little to
eat It is wonderful how healthy and
strong a man will keep on the little
quantity Of food those fellows eat
They will not farm on the lands the
government sets apart for them or up
on any other lands. They do not like
to work we'll enough to do that They
have nothing to hunt The desert
lands never were good places for game.
and the buffalo that once visited them
occasionally have been exterminated
by the white men. But they are not
overnice in their selections, and those
who hang about the stores get an oc-
casional bit of food that better men do
live in tolerable comfort Such thing
as regular meals would drive the In
dian out of his status
But the post trader finds him not al
together a useless animal. The Indian
hanger-on really buys good many
things AS q matter of course he pays
cash for what he buys He is not a
good customer on the credit system.
He is sure to forget payment But you
would be surprised to see the money
one of these lazy fellows will some
times show up when he gets ready to
buy. He may sit about in the shade
with his wife and children for half a day
with desolate look upon his face, but
finally get up and buy a load of goods,
which he promptly puts upon his wife's
head where it will best shade the face
Of the baby, no doubt, and disappears
in the sagebrush plain. From tribes of
any size the traders always draw a
good deal of custom. If the store also
be located in fort with three or more
companies OF men the stock is of kind
to surprise the visitor from tho east
There will, of course, be good many
things the eastern stores would only
need in the character of curiosities,
Mexican saddles, strings of peppers,
rude earthenware; but besides them
the stock is of the best, and usually the
latest novelties in the market get into
the post traders store. Prices are high
enough to warrant carrying the fancy
lines, though on staple goods post
traders prices at places like Fort De-
fiance are as low as in the states It is
the large sales that make money for the
trader. He is, if successful a man of
contracts, of big estimates and judicious
bids. Given these qualities and the
post trader is a man to win the respect
of the Indian, for he gradually accumu-
lates fortune. He lives in the country,
spends what he cares to, and seldom
goes to the larger cities Mr.. Nc
Langhlin, the trader at Fort Wingate,
n. NJ, is very rich man, but he has
never been to San Francisco, and for
many years has not visited even a
second-class city of the west or south.
He is bachelor and lives like prince,
dresses like a nabob and travels at a
gait that keeps refreshing breeZes all
about him.-Chicago Herald.