Scouting and its Results—Caught Napping—Frantic with Terror—"Who have been Trimmed so Neatly"—My Fat Friend in a Pickle—Perspiration and Bullets—The Request to "swap" Trees—Virtue its own Reward—High Treason to Uncle Sam—Going out for Game—An Unpleasant Meeting—The Tussle for Life—Putting an End to an Oration—"A Tuff 'Un."

Orders were shortly after given to continue the ascent, and in a sufficiently brief space of time, we had mounted above the belt of dark clouds, which were now drifting along the mountain-side beneath us, into a fresh and warm sunshine.

The revulsion in our feelings was almost instantaneous. Those who had quaked before, were now inclined to jeer at their own fright. Lips that had been whitened with terror were now actually laughing. Indeed, I much doubt whether he, whose involuntary audible piety had announced its feelings a few moments since, would have thanked any of us for reminding him of the exclamation. Very certainly, none of us did. We had, at any rate, the grace, not, in our present security, to scoff at the thanks in which we had so cordially although quietly participated.

When we were thoroughly above the heavily wet mass of cloud, we paused to rest and dry our clothing.

Then, having examined our weapons and reloaded them, we continued our progress in the direction in which it was supposed the Indians were to be found.

Night at last overtook us, and orders were given for camping. After a brief sleep of some four hours, with Harry Arnold, Butch' Hasbrouck, and Brighton Bill, I started out to find the position of the Indians. After we had moved in almost complete silence for a distance of some three miles, the faint light of their camp-fires might be seen by us. Touching Butch' and Bill, I in a whisper ordered both of them to remain where we then stood, and with Arnold crept quietly in the direction of the dying embers. Here, in their presumed security, were slumbering the men who had slain nearly the whole of Major Ormsby's party.

As yet, we were unaware of this fact, and I had only the knowledge of old Pete's death, and those of my other three companions, to square with the red rascals, whether they had any hand in that affair or not.

In consequence of this, I and Harry took a good survey of their situation, and, as noiselessly as we had approached it, returned to our own camp, taking Butch' and Brighton Bill with us, on our way. There we speedily aroused all the boys, and telling them we had spotted the game, bade them make ready. The night was clear and cold, although cloudy overhead, and in five minutes more we were upon our way, with an imperative injunction, upon my part, of perfect silence. This was perhaps needless, as few of the Rangers or those who had volunteered with us were novices in Indian fighting.

When I had, with Arnold, made my reconnoissance, we had thoroughly examined the position of the Indian camp. It was placed upon the summit of a precipice some two hundred and fifty feet in height, which beetled over a cleft or ravine in the mountain of considerable width.

On the side which we had approached it, it had been entirely unguarded.

Had it not been for their defeat of the large party under Major Ormsby on the preceding day, they would, even in such a position, scarcely have neglected to keep a watch.

However, now, from our side of the mountain, they had not any suspicion of the possibility of an attack.

But, although unable to count their positive number, Harry Arnold and myself had seen that they were exceedingly numerous; at the very least, six or seven times outnumbering our own party. It was, therefore, a matter of absolute necessity for us, even in taking them by surprise, to secure every possible advantage of position, in order to counterbalance this disproportion. To the left of the camp, in the rear of the plateau occupied by the slumbering red men, the ground rose more precipitously than it did on the side from which, some three hours earlier, we approached them. A portion of the boys, under the command of Arnold, was therefore detailed to this spot, while the remainder crouched under cover where it, at the time, was.

After this we waited impatiently for the rapidly coming dawn. This was a necessity, that we might have sufficient light to catch the sights of our rifles. We dared not throw away a single shot.

A long red streak, like a band of flame, colored the eastern horizon when the Indians began to stir. The first of the unconscious savages had risen to his feet, when my order rung out sharp and clear:

"Fire!"

The red-skin fell, and in an instant all was terror and confusion in the doomed camp.

Startled and confused by the sudden volley which was delivered with slaughterously fatal precision, the scarcely awakened red-skins leapt to their feet. Then came a volley from the party of Rangers with Harry Arnold. It was followed by another from mine. I had taken the precaution of ordering every other man to fire with each discharge, so as to give the preceding marksmen time to reload. Like clock-work rang out our deadly rifles, each shot dropping a man.

Fright had almost maddened the Indians, from the first intimation we had given them of our presence. Some ran from side to side of the plateau, looking vainly for a chance to escape. Others attempted to scale the declivity on which my portion of the boys were posted, and the rocks above which Harry held his position, in the very face of our fire. A few stood and endeavored to return us what we were giving them. However, they were considerably below either party; consequently, their shots rattled on the rocky sides of either slope short of us.

Again and again our untiring volleys rang out on the no longer quiet dawn.

Then, actually frantic with terror, many of the doomed savages leapt from the brink of the precipice. Others contrived to scramble over the broken edge of it, on the precarious and jutting portions of which they would scarcely, even in mid-day, under other circumstances, have trodden. In less than probably ten minutes from our first fire, not a living Indian remained in the camp where they had lately been sleeping. On examining this—for it would have been useless and, perhaps, dangerous for us to follow the runaways—we found enough to convince us that the white men had lately been severely punished. Scalps, shot-pouches, and carbines, with other tokens, were hurriedly left behind in their flight, to testify to this.

"We were not quick enough after the red devils, Mose!"

Arnold said this, as, with a positively qualmish sensation in my throat, I was standing upon that stony stretch of level ground which was now reekingly slippery with blood.

"We had better leave at once for the place where our horses are."

"I'd like to know who the whites were the darned scoundrels have trimmed so neatly?"

While saying this, he was meditatively turning over two scalps which lay on the gore-stained rock, beside a motionless red-skin, now as scalpless as the bodies from which he had taken them.

"P'raps," ejaculated Brighton Bill, whose feelings had in the last few years marvellously changed in regard to the legitimate manner of fighting the red-skins, "they be some o' Hormsby's chaps."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Harry.

"Bill!" I said, "do you think the Major would have been such an idiot as to get trapped by the red skunks?"

"Why not? 'E mightn't be h'as thundering cute as you h'are, Cap!"

Unfortunately, as we soon discovered, my English friend was right in his supposition.

The sun had just risen when we started on our return, and before we reached the place where we had picketed our horses under guard the preceding day, we fell in with two of the survivors of the ill-fated party, and learned from them the details of the massacre, for which we had unwittingly just taken so large and wholesale a vengeance. This information completely obliterated every trace of compunction, for the morning's even more wholesale slaughter, which I had previously felt.

Crossing over to the south side of Honey Lake Valley, we followed it up to Captain Bird's old ranche.

After passing it, we found every house and farm empty and stripped of all that was in any way portable. The whole of the stock had also been driven off. But for the tramp of our hoofs, this portion of the valley would have been as silent as a desert.

"I'd say, Cap!" exclaimed Butch', "the cuss'd red devils had been here, too—only there are no dead men, laying round promisc'ous like."

Upon reaching Epstine's Ranche, we discovered the meaning of this. The owner, Joe, here informed us, the news of Ormsby's death, and that of most of the men with him, had reached the upper end of the valley on the day before. A complete terror had seized upon the whole of those then dwelling in it, and a general stampede had taken place amongst them for Dr. Slater's Ranche, above what is now the town of Janesville.

"Howev'r I guess'd I'd wait a bit, and see what turn'd up."

He was fingering his rifle, as he made the last observation. But on receiving the information of our retaliation his face brightened, and he gave utterance to a guttural exclamation of fierce and somewhat blasphemous delight, to which it will be needless for the pen to do justice.

On arriving at the ranche where he had told us his brother settlers had taken refuge, we found the men hard at work building a regular stockade around a cabin, which had the year previous been erected for the double purpose of a school-house and Masonic Hall. In spite of the joy with which our intelligence was received, they did not however desist from their labors. And, possibly, they were right, as the Indian troubles continued, and though the savages refrained from positively besieging the stockade while the Buckskin Rangers were around, they on one or two occasions ran off large quantities of the stock.

During the remainder of the season, we were occupied in a continuous scouting through this entire section of the country.

It was during one of our expeditions that Tom Harvey, one of us, was the subject of a good joke.

Human nature, in whatever situation it may be placed, has always a ludicrous side. Commonly, indeed, humor would almost appear to be the twin-sister of sorrow. They would, indeed, seem to walk through life, leaning upon each other, and hand in hand, to the very edge of the grave. The marvellous creations of Shakespeare's genius partake well-nigh equally of Tragedy and Comedy. Even so was it with the Buckskin Rangers, and their leader may be pardoned if he presumes to recall one of those creations (without the remotest hope of rivalling the intellect he has just called attention to) with the view of justifying himself.

"Falstaff" was most undeniably, as he has been drawn by the great dramatist, a fat man. Wherever fat can be found, the spirit of Fun almost invariably selects it as the subject or perpetrator of a joke. Now Tom was a man of enormous dimensions, if not in length, very certainly in width. Brighton Bill once said of him, that:

"Hif 'e was 'ammered hout, 'e would be long henough to reach the Nor' Pole, hand find Sir John Franklin."

If he had not been slenderer than Tom, I think his scalp, the moment after Bill had uttered this observation, might very possibly have been in the possession of Harvey.

However, this is a digression.

On one of our numerous scouts we had left our horses, guarded as usual, and were passing up a small valley, covered with a scattering growth of diminutive and remarkably lean trees, when some Indians, concealed in a small grove immediately in front of us, pulled trigger. Luckily their fire drew no blood. But, as in such cases, it is natural for him who is the subject of such an unexpected attention to jump behind anything which may be at hand, to shelter himself, we, each of us, made for the largest and nearest tree. None of them were sufficiently broad to make any of us a tolerably good cover.

In this situation, Tom also made for a tree.

Its exaggeratedly narrow trunk, merely concealed his head and the centre of his prodigious frame. Butch', who was nearest to him, could not help crying out.

"Look out, Fattee, or we shall only have the middle of yer left."

"Hold your darned tongue, you infernal fool!" roared out Harvey.

While saying this he had dodged to the one side of the tree, to escape an arrow which whistled by the other. With commendable judgment, he lost no time in leaping to the side he had left. This exertion of agility saved him from a bullet.

Butch' had drawn a bead on the head of the red-skin who had fired the last, and with a yell of agony, he toppled over, struck by the Ranger's unerring ball.

"I forgive you, old boy," panted out Tom, as he leapt back once more.

"'I forgive you, old boy!' panted out Tom, as he leapt back once more."—Page 119.

This time he was scarcely quick enough, as another ball passed through the flying portion of his Buckskin upper garment.

"Why don't yer hide yer fat carcass," sung out Butch' in fierce wrath. There was no more time for jesting. "If yer don't, we shall have to bury yer."

"How can I?"

As the perspiring Harvey screeched out this amidst a general chorus of laughter, he took another wild leap, which was not one bit too soon.

All this had taken place in considerably less time than I have occupied in recounting it, or I fear all would have been up with the too fat Tom. The tree which I had been fortunate enough to secure was a fairly large pine. From behind it, I had the luck of picking off an incautious red-skin, and was already sighting another, when I heard our fat companion's voice. He had (how he dared to look round, I never knew) moaned or rather barked out, in a plaintive way:

"For God's sake, Mose! swap trees with me."

The irrepressible scream of laughter with which this pathetic appeal was received by me, caused my shot to be useless. It missed the Pah-ute I was aiming at.

Temporary inability on the part of our boys, from the painfully absurd position of Harvey, to maintain a continuous fire, now induced the red-skins to show themselves more boldly. They quickly found the mistake they had made in doing so. A general although scattering volley stretched a third of them upon the earth. They then evidently changed their opinion, and once more getting under cover, rapidly scattered.

We pursued them a short way, when we were overtaken by the remainder of our party, which we had left in charge of our animals.

Remounting them, we again started in pursuit. The red rascals had met, however, with too warm a reception to wait for any further attention at our hands. They had cleared out, and made good their escape across the mountains.

For many days the luckless Harvey did not hear the last of his offer "to swap trees" with me. At length, I, who had refrained from cutting any of the tolerably coarse witticisms which were uttered at his expense, was obliged to remonstrate warmly with Butch' and Brighton Bill.

"Yer are right, Cap!" exclaimed the former. "But I sware, it war too good a joke."

"Wouldn't it be better to split 'im down, and splice 'is two hends?"

As Bill said this they both burst into a peal of laughter, loud enough to be called Homeric, by any but a backwoodsman. They were, however, two good fellows, for they spoke to the other Rangers, and after this, fat Tom Harvey was left in peace. How he discovered the hand, I had, in easing him off, it would be impossible to say, as I never knew. But some two days afterwards he came up to me and Harry Arnold, as we were riding along slightly in advance, and said:

"Mose! you're a darned good fellow, and I'll be blamed if I ever forget it."

"What do you mean, Tom?"

"For stopping the chin-music of them fellows. What on airth else, should I mean?"

At the same time, he jerked his thumb across his shoulder in the direction of the rest of the party, who were at some little distance in our rear, very significantly.

"You see, Cap!" exclaimed Harry with a slight chuckle, "what the copy-book tells us, is right, after all."

"What are you driving at?"

"It says, Virtue is its own reward."

We had retraced our steps, passing Eagle Lake into Willow Creek Valley, on the far side of the range of hills which divide it from Honey Lake, until we arrived at the stockade built by the settlers, which has earlier been alluded to.

A few days subsequently, we struck into Long Valley, and having crossed Pea-vine Mountains, reached the Truckee River. Here we encamped, and on the next morning, following it for some distance, struck across the hills, towards the Sink of the Carson River. Passing this stream below Fort Churchill, we continued in a southerly direction until we came to the Walker River. Near it, we had a little brush with the Walker Indians, which did not detain us very long. During this, one of our boys received a slight flesh wound from an arrow. Why these red-skins have received this name is matter of question, as they are certainly a branch of the Pah-ute tribe. However, it had been given the savages in this small portion of the country, and while I was living in that section, of which it forms part, it stuck to them.

On the west fork of Walker River, we were met by a company of United States cavalry.

The officer in command inquired for our leader, and I presented myself.

He behaved very courteously in manner, although his orders, given to me with a degree of imperative sharpness, which was scarcely as courteous in reality, were by no means agreeable. His instructions were to make peace with the Indians, and he commanded us to return homewards. If we would not desist from our present employment, he told us, he should be obliged to arrest us and take us down to Fort Churchill. These peremptory orders were unpalatable to the last degree. But what could be done. He was Uncle Sam's servant in blue-coat, brass buttons, and shoulder-straps. We were children of the aforesaid Uncle Sam.

Like obedient boys, although most unwillingly, we concluded, after a brief hesitation, to bend our steps homewards.

With a cordial grasp of the hand—for, on finding we had so frankly accepted the compulsory situation, the officer unbent himself considerably—I bade him "Farewell," and we silently, for some time, rode along the course of the stream. The first words I heard subsequently, were some ten minutes after this. They came from the lips of Brighton Bill.

"Huncle Sam his nothing but a blasted hidiot."

Possibly, I might have been valuing some of his servants at much the same weight, but I was too good an American to stand such an expression of opinion from a Britisher. Turning in my saddle, I roared out:

"None of that. It's high treason. I'll be hanged if I haven't half a mind to ride after the blue-coats, and hand you over to them."

When I said this, there was a general laugh, and the whole of us recovered, in some measure, our good humor.

After continuing about twenty miles along the road the soldiers had just traversed, we encamped about two o'clock in the afternoon, turning our horses out to graze, as there was good pasture in the neighborhood. Portion of the boys commenced cooking. Butch', having a somewhat more dainty tooth in his head on this occasion than usual, felt it crave for fresh meat, and said to me:

"'Spose I go out, and kill yer something to eat."

"All right," was my answer. "You may find a Jack or two," meaning a Jack rabbit, "down the valley. I'll go up the caÑon, and see whether I can't find some grouse."

Saying this, I had pointed to a small caÑon on one side, stretching irregularly from the vicinity of our camping ground. At the same instant, Brighton Bill, who had been stretched on the cool turf with his eyes closed, leapt to his feet.

"You're hawful smart, hain't you, Mose? Hi'll 'ave some hof that fun myself. If hi don't, blow me."

He, however, thought fit to try another caÑon to the left.

For the first time since I had been an inhabitant of the Plains, I neglected to arm myself, as I had constantly been accustomed to, when scouting. The good servants of Uncle Sam, whom we had met earlier in the day, had travelled up the road. Of course they had sharp eyes. Besides, if the red-skins had seen them, they would certainly have got out of their way as quickly as possible. How should they know our Uncle wanted to be theirs, too? Peace would be the very last thing they thought of, when they set eyes upon his uniform. So, thinking there could be no danger, I placed my sheath-knife in my belt, and taking my Kentucky rifle with me, started.

Walking carelessly up the caÑon, now examining the trees for game, then scaling the declivity to the right, or pushing through the chapparal and the heavy timber, I had wandered on, for more than an hour.

Suddenly, in one of the thick and tangled clumps of chapparal, I fancied I heard the familiar note of one of the birds I was in search of. At once, I stopped to listen.

While standing there silent and motionless, it could scarcely have been more than fifty seconds, I heard a noise almost immediately behind. Instinct or experience, one or both, told me what that sound was. The red-skins had not been so scared by the advance of Uncle Sam's servants, as necessarily to refrain from a dash for one of his children, if the chance was given them. I felt the chance was now.

Turning immediately, I had barely time to see two Indians.

In another instant, before I could lift my gun to my shoulder, one of them had bounded towards me and wrenched it from my grasp, while the other sprung at me with the evident intention of clinching me. If I had then the time to think, I fear, loyal American as I might be, my thoughts might have corroborated Brighton Bill's opinions touching the sanity of Uncle Sam. Fortunately, I had no time to become critically disloyal. My hunting-knife had been drawn, and at the very moment when his hot and vindictively fierce breath came searingly to my face, was buried to the very hilt in his heart.

As he fell, the other of my assailants, with my own rifle clubbed, struck me a heavy blow upon the shoulder. It nearly felled me to the earth.

Then, dropping the weapon, he sprang upon me, making a desperate clutch for the hand in which my knife was grasped. As he seized my wrist, I threw the knife from me as far as I could, and grappled with him. He attempted to draw his own. I, however, had grasped him by a peculiarly tender portion of his person, which modesty prevents me from naming. The pain of this prevented his using his knife, and in the contest we both fell on the sloping side of the caÑon, clinched together firmly.

Now, commenced the struggle for life.

Rolling over and over, now on the short turf, and again amidst the dense and tangled chapparal—at one moment the red-skin would be above me, and in the next I would be stretched on his writhing body. Whenever I got the chance, and one of my hands free, I would seize a handful of sand, if it was within reach, and thrust it in the mouth and eyes of the Indian.

He was not slow in taking the lesson I gave him. He began to follow suit.

After rolling down the side of the caÑon for some hundred yards or more, panting with the desperate struggle, he opened his mouth to gasp for breath. At the time I was above him, and grasping a handful of sand, I forced it into his gaping mouth.

"He opened his mouth to gasp for breath; I was above him, and grasping a handful of sand, I forced it into his gaping mouth."—Page 125.

It had its effect. Literally choking with the enforced dose, he loosened me. At the same time, he violently threw up his hands, as a man might do in the agony of strangulation.

Then, with a supreme effort, I groped for his knife. Having found it, I drew it from its sheath, and, at last, the terrible struggle which had been forced upon me was over.

When, at occasional times, I recall it now, it seems to my recollection as if that brief contest for existence had nearly maddened me. Scarcely did I appear to possess consciousness of any of my actions. And yet, I know that I inflicted on him some fifteen to twenty wounds, any one of which might or must have been a fatal one.

As I found myself once more upon my feet, it was a tolerably difficult matter for me to realize that I was still living.

While engaged in attempting to do so, the whole landscape seemed to quiver vaguely under my fading eyes. Its lines and colors fairly danced before me. I felt that I was falling, and everything around settled into a dense blackness.

I knew no more.

On, after some time, recovering my senses, I found that I was lying by the side of the Indian, literally drenched with the blood flowing from his wounds. Sitting up, after a few minutes, I was enabled to recall my lagging senses and realize the struggle I had gone through. Yes! there it lay, stark and motionless in the shadow thrown across it from the rocky side of the caÑon, by the sun which was now far beneath it. As for the corpse beside me, it was stabbed and hacked in a frightful manner. But for the fearful strife I had been engaged in with it, when living, and the danger I had, as it seemed to me, so unaccountably escaped, I should positively have sickened at the sight. The memory of this strung my nerves once more to endurance, although my garments were dripping with its blood, and absolutely soaked through with my own sweat.

Staggering to my feet, I re-collected my senses, which had, for a short space, again wandered. Then, with some difficulty, I again ascended the rough hill, until I reached the space on which the first Indian, I had made an end of, was lying. His teeth were forced together—his eyes staring unconsciously up to the blue sky. My knife was at some distance from the spot. The rifle was close to him. Its barrel was bent and its stock broken with the heavy blow I had received.

Let me squarely own that never, either before or since, have I raised the hair of any Indian, with a more secure feeling of angry joy than I felt in taking those two scalps.

I had now to return.

The position of the sun, low beneath the western summit of the caÑon, testified to the fact that some two hours must have elapsed since the two Pah-utes had leapt upon me.

Slowly, and with great difficulty, I commenced my way towards the camp. While looking on the scene of my danger, I had been kept up by the remains of the excitement I had experienced. I had felt no pain, and been unconscious of fatigue. Now, my dead enemies lay unconsciously on the earth. The exhaustion consequent on my fierce struggle for life, and the suffering from the blow upon my shoulder, became apparent to me. Scarcely, was I able to walk. Frequently was I obliged to lean on a jutting boulder of rock, or steady myself for a minute or two against the trunk of a tree, before I could again persistently renew my progress. Not yet had I reached the mouth of the caÑon, when some of the boys met me.

It seemed that Butch' and Brighton Bill had long since returned, and, although scarcely alarmed, had grown in some slight degree uneasy at my not putting in an appearance. Consequently, with some of the others, they had come out to seek for me.

No sooner was I seen by them, than they shouted out to me. My lips strove to frame a shout in reply. But even to myself, my voice sounded a long way off. It was so faint and low that they did not hear a word.

Rushing towards me, Bill cried out:

"What his the matter, Mose?"

Butch' demanded:

"Have yer got any game?"

The only answer I could give them was to hold out the two scalps I had taken.

Startled by this and my struggling silence, for they knew I was attempting to speak, they looked at my dress, and in spite of the fading light, saw its torn and dilapidated condition, and the blood with which it was smeared and streaked almost in every part. Bill gave a groan, and said:

"Get Mose to the camp, Butch'! Hi'll go hand look hafter 'is rifle, before some hother thieving Hingin cusses find hit."

In an another instant Ben Painter had lifted me, and throwing me, gently enough, although it caused me frightful suffering in my shoulder, across his own, strode down the caÑon. Indeed, so great was the pain from the merciless blow I had received, that I remember little beside it, until I found myself sitting on the ground, leaning against Painter's knee. The whole of the upper portion of my dress had been stripped off, while Butch' was bathing the black and swollen flesh which had been struck with the clubbed rifle. How it happened that no bones were broken by it, is, even now, a marvel to me.

When they found me again able to speak, the boys began to ply me with questions. But while I was answering them, Brighton Bill appeared on the scene.

His search of the ground on which I had run such a risk of being completely chawed up, must have been a pretty thorough one. He brought in, not only two rifles, but two United States blankets, several unopened boxes of caps, two cans of powder, and, in addition to these, a small keg of Uncle Sam's whiskey. This had already been opened, and may possibly account for the red rascals having forgotten the reason for which they had so liberally partaken of his bounty.

The whiskey was a veritable God-send, for we were out of the article. A tincupful (this time I did not ask for a second before eating) did more to put me to rights, and enable me to forget my pain, than the care which the Rangers had been bestowing on me.

"If ever there was a good Samaritan, Bill, you are one."

Let me here record the fact that Bill knew nothing about Samaritans, for good or evil. Nor, indeed, am I inclined to think, had any of the others a very correct idea of my meaning. Even the teaching of a New England Sunday-school had been forgotten, as I deeply regret being obliged to say one of the boys hailed from the classically Methodist locality of New Bedford.

But, if Brighton Bill was not well versed in Scripture, he displayed himself this evening in a new light—that of an orator. No sooner had he served round the whiskey which he had captured from the already slaughtered enemy, than he produced from one of the blankets in which he had wrapped it, my twisted and broken rifle.

"Jist look 'ere, boys," he said, "hat the popper of hour Cap. This h'is the harticle with which 'e smashed ha couple of Hingins. Hi'm blowed h'if you didn't, Mose! H'it's no huse 'iding your light hunder a bushel, when H'i 'ave the hevidence in my hown 'and, and show hit." Here I endeavored to put in a word, but it was drowned in the general applause, and seizing on the instant of its cessation, he continued: "H'if you 'ad only seen those blarsted Hingins. Wun of 'em stood seven an a 'alf foot 'igh in 'is stocking-feet, and the h'other—"

I could no longer refrain, but cried out:

"It's quite clear who tapped the whiskey keg, before we had a chance of looking at it."

The Britisher gazed in pathetic wonder on his partially maimed leader, as he heard this ungenerous insinuation against his sobriety. Then with a sadly melancholy smile, he said:

"H'i forgive you, Cap! But, may H'i be blamed if you harn't a tuff 'un."

That night, guard being kept by Butch' and Ben Painter, I slept well and soundly. On the next morning I was up by daylight, and we returned to Honey Lake through Carson City.

When we arrived there it was to hear that another treaty had actually been made with the Indians. Once more they were to be allowed to re-enter the valley. The settlers were to resume possession of their ranches, and what stock was left on them, or could be found. How long it would continue, the Devil and the red men themselves, only, could form an opinion.