being cooped up in this darned vessel; how I
long for a gallop in the Brazos perary !"

Now fresh talk about the Indians. Amos
describes the Comanchees, who are the special
foes of the Texan settlers, as fine stalwart men,
though often bandy-legged from perpetual
riding, rather narrow across the back, and
sometimes slim in form. " They paint their
faces vermilion when on a war party, and look
as ugly as the devil does in a tail-coat," said
Amos. They were skilful throwers of the
tomahawk, and could split a man's skull with their
axes as a boy would crack a hickory-nut. Their
howl was unearthly— it was something between
a bull's roar and a wolf's howl. They were
excellent shots too, with bow and arrow at
twenty or thirty yards. He had seen their
arrows go plump through a horse's neck (for
they shot very strong); and they had a way of
swinging down under their horse's belly and
firing from there, leaving only the top of the
knee for the stranger to fire at. They would let
the Yankees go, but they never gave a Texan
quarter, and hated him worse than the devil
hates holy water. They luckily had no revolvers
yet among them, except those they had taken
in war, and kept, hung round their necks as
ornaments, not knowing how to use them. But
what skeared the Texans was, the fear that some
darned Yankee runaway would get among the
Indians, and just to get buffalo robes out of
them go and tell them how to use the revolvers.
Je-rewsalem! how they would larrup him if
they did catch such a fellow! When the six
shooters were first used against the Comanchees
they were kinder skeared, yes—siure, they were
that. They told the Yankee that now when they
met a Texan Ranger, and he had used his bowie-
knife and emptied, his rifle, and they thought he
was ready for wiping out, he pulled out a pocket-
knife and fired it off six times; and they
supposed, if they had turned their horses, he would
have pulled out a comb or something else—
perhaps a tobacco-box—and fired off that six times.

Here the first mate passed on his way, to
put up the card with our days marked on it
in the glass-case outside the door of the grand
saloon.  We had run two hundred and fifty-four
miles since noon yesterday. If we went
on like that, we should be off the Banks Sunday
at dinner time.

Some accidental remark of mine brought out
some fine traits of Amos's character, he was
such a generous extoller of his young brother.

When the Indians sent up their "smokes,"
no Ranger slipped on his red shirt, and got his
pannikin and bullets together smarter than
Ichabod, and at a rough-and-tumble fight, where
a little gouging was going round, he was a
regular snorter, that's true: for if ever there was
a lad raile grit, it was Ichabod. As for a
bar-room fuss, when there were shots round
(he alluded to a fair general fight) , that child
was all thar—yes, siure —and had no more fear
about him of injuns than a tree toad has want
of a side-pocket. In only one thing he had to
stop him, and that was playing at monte with
Spaniards for a drink. For, if he lost, his dander
was sure to rise, and then there were awkward
times in the house. Sure at corn-shuckings,
musses, and camp meetings, there never was such
a lad—innocent as a mad dog; but when he
did rile, or once got kinder mad, he rose thunder.
Yes, he did that.

It was to me very pleasant to look on the
great blue moat that still severed me from
America, to hear Amos ramble on about a life so
wild and so new to me. Now he broke into a
scrap of one of the Texan Ranger war-songs:

   " On our mustangs grey we took our way
    With the Rangers' merry band,
   And our camp-fires shone, when the sun had gone,
    On the banks of the Rio Grande.
   Through the Indian pass, on the perary grass,
    By our fires we cheerful slept,
   Ere day began, each Texan man,
    On his mustang grey had leapt.
   Then the trail all night, and at sundown light
    We halt our Ranger band,
   'Mid the perary vast, or best of all
    On the banks of the Rio Grande."

Nor was this song, though the wretched
doggrel from some penny American song-book, at
all too high-flown for Amos, who, like most
Texans, was rather fond of sentiment, and would
talk of The Lone Star, the anthem of Texas,
for hours.

But what Amos particularly delighted to
dwell upon was Ichabod's first fight with the
Indians. He watched him very close as he rode
among the Red Shirts, and the Indians came on
whooping, tossing their feathered heads, and
whistling in their arrows. He saw Ichabod
turn very white, and the next moment he was
in among them. Three Camanches beset him,
but he killed two of them, and the third turned
tail. " Lordee, I was as proud as Julius
Cæsar that day," said Amos, his eyes sparkling.
And " as for myself," continued Amos, " I was
kinder broken in to fighting, for I had been in
fusses at San Antonio among the Greasers, where
the clicking of the knives opening, sounded
like winding up clocks. Then I had taken
reglar lessons in the knife-school at St. Louis,
where I once saw two Frenchmen fight for half
an hour with bowie-knives—cut and parry—
and all the harm done, was, that one of them
lost his little finger by a clean slash, and the
other bit the first man's thumb off, after missing
gouging him." Here Amos became reflective
and regretful at being so many hundred
miles from this same St. Louis, and sang,

   "Beautiful star, in the heavens so bright,"

to the sailors' great enjoyment. Ending this,
he asked me abruptly if I had money down on
the match between the bang-tailed grey and
Flora Temple, on Tuesday week, on Long Island.
Here he gave me a steady look, the result of
which his crafty smile seemed to imply was not
complimentary as to my sharpness, and said:

"So, mister you raly are going to post yourself
up about the Yankees ? Going to see the
elephant, and talk to Barnum. Now, blue
Flewjens! if you don't keep your weather eye open,