Now, each creature, even of human species, must adjust itself to
its environment. Having done so, commonly it is disposed to love
that environment. The Eskimo and the Zulu each thinks that he has
the best land in the world: So with the American Indian, who,
supported by the vast herds of buffalo, ranged all over that
tremendous country which was later to be given over to the white
man with his domestic cattle. No freer life ever was lived by any
savages than by the Horse Indians of the Plains in the buffalo
days; and never has the world known a physically higher type of
savage.
On the buffalo-range--that is to say, on the cattle-range which
was to be--Lewis and Clark met several bands of the Sioux--the
Mandans and the Assiniboines, the Blackfeet, the Shoshones.
Farther south were the Pawnees, the Kaws, the Otoes, the Osages,
most of whom depended in part upon the buffalo for their living,
though the Otoes, the Pawnees, the Mandans, and certain others
now and then raised a little corn or a few squashes to help out
their bill of fare. Still farther south dwelt the Kiowas, the
Comanches, and others.
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