The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-23

Then, too, the Indian is doing won ders as stock raiser. The Crows have always had more horses than any other nation of Indians. Their reservation consists of many square miles of ideal grazing ground. But the scrub mustangs are being sold at $5 and $6 head, and their places are being taken by bigger and finer kind sand hills-and prime cattle at that every steer and cow and calf bearing the big brand, T. D." which means h. dian department
 There is hard work each spring and fall rounding up the colts and nave ricks and calves There are several Indian roundup outfits on the reser Vation and the red-skinned cowboys work hard and faithfully. Tn fact, the Crow Indian takes as naturally to sad dle work as a duck takes to water, as every member of the tribe Is born horseman. Even the squaws are gooi riders, though to see them bobbing along on their thickly padded "squaw saddles one would never imagine they could stay on anything less mild than saWhorSe.
 Like all the rest of his red-skinned brethren, the Crow Indian dearly loves the dance An Indian will drop his having in the face of thunderstorm to go to a dance, and squaW will forget all her hifalutin college educa-
 
 to the magic beating of those tom toms. The music of the dance repre- sents the summons of the ages-it Is the call of the wild which the Indian cannot resist. The best and most in- dustrious succumb to 1t swiles;. Old Plenty C'yuse, the big chief of the Crows, whose pride Is his farm, 'all same white man" cannot understand why the government will not allow the Indians to dance more. He has gone Nn ,1 {sxao.. to Oioo the call of his trbesmen for more dances. But his requests, with similar requests from many other tribes, have been turned down. The government is trying to stop Indian dancing on all the reservations, for the reason that an Indian will do nothing but dance when heis given free rein. Crops and blooded stock and all the higher ideals of civilization would soon go to smash on the reservation if the Indians were allowed to dance when and where they pleased. So, beyond few dances, glW- en at stated intervals, and big "dande fest" at the time of the annual fair, the Crows have very little of their fa- yorite enjoyment, unless one counts the dances that are held lon the sly"
 After his harvest is in there is little for the Indian to do. He may work little on a house, or build few fences, or ride out on the range to look after some stock, but in the main the long, golden days or autumn, and the bright, crisp days of winter are spent in an idylic. nomadic fashion. A little group of Indians will ride along the road that skirts the solemn hill that Is cap l ped by the Custer monument, and soon there will be magic city of tepees in a bend of the Little Big Horn Campfires glow through the dusk, and there is the barking of h. dian dogs andthe happy shouting Of care-free Indian children. Blanketed squaws stroll to the river side and dip water for the evening "bahroosh," or eat; buck in half garp, wild, unciv- l illzed, leads bunch of ponies down that the animals may drink In the 1 camp the old squaws are getting out | the jerked, or sundried meat, and the | young squaws are making biscuits in Dutch ovens. All is peace and content- ment There are no harsh voices---no notes of pessimism. In the morning the magic camp is gone. Its smoked brown tepee tops have vanished, but farther down the river you will find them and the note of happiness al- ways accompanies them.
 l There. are squaw men on the reserva- { tion-white men who have married In- dians. They, too, prefer to live in | tepees and put their horses in the | frame houses. They fit into the life, 1 half-civilized, half barbarian, and they seem to enjoy it, as though the blood | of the Absarokas pulsed in their velns ! And nobody can blame them, for there ! is a charm about reservation life in this land of the tepee--a charm that would soon prove nothing less than a ! magic spell to the man who let him. | self yield to it's influence.