When the impartial historian reviews the beauties and attractions of this country, the ease with which the Indian could subsist, the sport of hunting and fishing, of paddling his frail bark canoe across lakes and on the streams, running the rapids of the swift rivers upon whose banks their villages were usually situated, where their children, in the limpid waters, sported like dolphins in the long summer days, and the hunter slaked his thirst at the bubbling spring of pure, cold water that could be found bursting from the banks, and the thousand attractions natural to the civilized or savage man, who would not contend for such a country ? Would not civilized and cultured man ? Surely the North American Indian might be pardoned, if not exonerated for fighting for his home, his council fires and the graves of his fathers, that had not been already desecrated by the foot of the stranger.