sped over the country: my steed trotting, Shem's
mustang galloping, for Spanish-American horses
have but one pace when urged beyond a walk.
Shem was much more kind and even polite in
his manner than on the previous day. He told
me, bluntly, that he respected a fellow that
proved himself a man, but that what he hated
worse than copperhead snakes was a Broadway
dandy giving himself adventurous airs. My
horsemanship had won Shem's esteem, and he
sympathised heartily with me when he saw
that I was really bent on crossing the desert at
any risk.

"Your hoss is a good bit of stuff, mister,"
said he, "but I'm afraid he's pretty nigh used
up for one while. Now you listen to me. The
best thing you can do, is to buy a mustang fust
chance you get. There'll be hunters passing
south, and p'raps they'll trade. When you get
right out among the plains, you stick to the
trail well, and if a grass fire blinds it, you take
your compass and bear up for east by north.
Keep that pistol of yourn ready, and if you do
see Injuns, keep cool. Don't waste a shot.
Every round bit of lead is worth a life on the
parara. Good-by, wish you luck."

Shem headed his horse for one of the
Express stations, a little lonely block-house, with
a stockaded yard, which was garrisoned by
a few of his comrades, and where a relay of
fresh horses was kept. I looked wistfully at
the block-house and the well-stocked corral, and
then turned away with my tired steed to resume
my weary travel. I knew that early in the
afternoon I should reach another station of the
same kind, and there I meant to apply for
refreshment and shelter, in case my horse should
knock up altogether. Before I had gone a mile,
I saw my friend Shem, on a fresh steed, scouring
the plain. He waved his hand, and gave me
a cheer of recognition, and I looked after him
enviously as he flew like an arrow up the
slope, and vanished in the distance. By good
luck, however, I almost instantly encountered a
party of white men, the first travellers I had
seen. These turned out to be three trappers
returning from Oregon, with a fair stock of
peltry loaded on two mules. They were all
well mounted on "Indian ponies," and one of
them led by a lariat a powerful and shapely
mustang, whose bright eye and wide nostrils
matched well with his wiry limbs. He had been
captured on the plains, not two months before,
one of a wild herd; but he was sufficiently
broken in to be useful in prairie fashion. I
struck a bargain with the trapper, by which my
exhausted but more valuable quadruped was
bartered for the half-wild mustang; the trapper
also receiving four gold eagles. The arrangement
was mutually satisfactory, and as the tall
Kentuckian helped me to shift my saddle and
bridle to the spotted nag I had just acquired, I
saw his eyes twinkle with self-congratulation.

"One word of advice, colonel," said the
trapper, as I placed the gold in his hard brown
hand; "keep your eyes skinned as you go along,
and don't let the cussed Redskins double upon
you. There's Indian sign about, there is. I
saw the print of a moccassin, down yonder by
the spring, where the Indians never come for
any good, mister. You mind—Utahs ain't to
be trusted, and Shoshonies are worse. As for
Rapshoes, Heaven help you, colonel, if they
ketch you alone! There's Indians about. I
smell 'em."

"I wish you'd got a good rifle on your
shoulder, mister," said another, as I mounted;
"six shooters is very handy tools, but nothing
sickens the Indians like a good five-foot bit of
holler iron, that air true."

I took leave of these good fellows, who
wished me a safe journey in the heartiest way,
though evidently disbelieving in the likelihood
that a "greenhorn" could carry his property and
scalp safe across the desert. The mustang was
fresh, and darted along at that untiring though
not very speedy gallop which animals of that hardy
race can maintain for a very considerable time.
We made capital progress: the country grew
drier, and the grass shorter, and the swampy
bottoms and trickling brooks were fewer. I met with
no adventure, except that my new purchase put
his foot into an outlying burrow, as we skirted
a "village" of prairie dogs, and gave us both a
roll on the turf; but we were unhurt, and I had
luckily kept my grasp of the bridle, or I should
have lost my horse. Once I thought I saw
something hovering on the edge of the horizon,
but whether savages, buffaloes, or wild horses, I
could not determine. After riding several miles
I came to a place where the trail dipped suddenly
into a low tract of alluvial earth, intersected by
a stream of some magnitude, and shaded by a
belt of lofty cotton-wood trees. I traced here the
fresh footprints of a horse which must just have
passed, for the bruised grass had but partially
risen around the edges. "Crack, bang!" went
the sharp report of fire-arms ringing from the
thicket below, and with the reports mingled the
horrid war-whoop of the savage. Grasping my
pistol, I dashed in among the trees, and beheld
poor Shem Grindrod, bleeding, reeling in his
saddle, and beset by a party of six or seven
Indians, mounted, and in their hideous panoply of
war. Shem had been pierced by three arrows: he
was fainting with loss of blood; but he fronted
the savages boldly, and one Indian lay at his
feet, rolling in the agonies of death. My arrival
changed the current of the fight; two rounds
from my revolver, the second of which laid low
a muscular barbarian, smeared with yellow
ochre, who was pressing on Shem with an
uplifted tomahawk, sufficed for their discomfiture.
Probably they took me for the advanced guard
of a party of whites. At any rate, they fled at
speed across the plain.

I was just in time to break Shem's fall, as the
poor fellow dropped from his saddle, feebly
murmuring, "Thank ye, mister. You've saved my
scalp, any way, if 'twas just too late to save—"
His voice was hushed here, and he fainted in my
arms.

There was a metal flask of whisky dangling
at the mail-bag rider's saddle-bow, along with his