their wives, who dreaded a sanguinary struggle,
in which even victory must be fatal.

"The dollars were reluctantly told out, and
the doctor received the entire remuneration for
his services, while yet Columbia was far remote.
I do not know, I never shall know now, what
was the original project of this unscrupulous
man.

"After another tedious day's march we had
encamped on a plain of short crisp herbage, nearer
to the rolling range of the Blue Mountains than
we had previously attained. The guides had
brought in a quantity of bull meat; they had
fallen in, I believe, with a disabled buffalo that
had been lamed by an Indian arrow, and which
had been an easy prey. For once, we had
supped well, and we settled ourselves to sleep,
some under the waggon-tilts, the rest around
the fires, the horses being picketed, and the
care of keeping watch being left, as usual, to the
sharp-eared Indian guides. The dews were
heavy, lying in big beaded drops on buffalo-robe
and blanket, and I gladly accepted an invitation
to sleep under the waggon-roof of one of the
Indiana farmers, big Simon Davis, a very good
specimen of his sturdy class. Davis was a
widower, having lost his wife but a short time,
and his whole affections centred in his only child,
a fine dark-eyed boy of six years old, over whom
he watched with a care and patience wonderful
in so rugged and bluff a man. The farmer had
been for a fight when Dr. Smith extorted the
second moiety of our payment from us, and
he was by far the most resolute and
respected member of the caravan. Well, we
were all asleep, when I was awakened by the
neighing and snorting of a beautiful coal-black
horse, a mustang, which the farmer had bought
from a trapper at Fort Boisé, and which had
been captured out of a wild herd far south.
This animal, kindly used, had become very
affectionate and docile, and Davis had picketed it
close to his waggon. He generally rode it for a
short time every day, merely to pace it, meaning
it for the riding of his young son, little Lafayette
Davis, when he should be a couple of years
older: for it was unfit to bear the father's
weight.

"The mustang neighed and snorted, and I
awoke with a sense of danger, and thrusting my
head out, saw by the light of the expiring fire a
dark form hovering around Snowball's heels, and
apparently trying to reach the picket-ropes: a
task rendered difficult by the furious way in
which the gallant horse lashed out at the
intruder.

" 'Hulloa!' I cried, ' who are you, there?
What do you want?'

"No answer was returned, until I called out
that I would fire unless my challenge were
replied to. Then the guttural voice of the half-
breed Indian called out, cautiously,

"'Hist! no harm. Rising Sun walk sentry.
Him tink hoss get loose from heel ropes, dat all.
Good night!'

"And off the semi-savage went with his noiseless
mocassined tread. Davis awoke, and sleepily
asked what was amiss, then growled, and sank
back into slumber.

"In the morning there was a great outcry.
Treachery had been at work. We had been
basely abandoned by our precious Mentor, his
confederates from Missouri and Georgia, and the
Indians. More than this, the beasts of draught
were gone, every hoof of them had vanished.
Horse and mule had been stolen away, not
merely those animals which belonged to the
contractor, but the teams which the richer
among us had brought from distant farms.
Only Simon Davis's beautiful black horse
remained in camp, preserved, no doubt, by my
opportune wakefulness on the previous night;
but some distance off we saw a spotted mustang
quietly cropping the short grass, and this, by
the broken lariat about his neck, had probably
escaped from the 'caballada' which I. F. Smith
and his accomplices carried off with them.
Further scrutiny showed that the store waggon had
been stripped of clothes, medicines, arms and
ammunition, and, in fact, of all that could be easily
packed up and carried away. The trail of the
deserters, trending due south, was plainly to be
seen, but pursuit was hopeless, even had there
been any use in overtaking so hardened a set of
villains as our false allies.

"The screams, passionate outcries, and
sorrowful forebodings that now resounded among
us, made a perfect Babel of confusion. The
women were loud in their wrath and fear, the
men angry and perplexed, the children querulous
and hungry. We had very little food—a few
pounds of sorry flour and worse biscuit, and a
small quantity of meat. What was to be
done? Could we return on foot to Fort
Boisé? The strong men might do so, but the
feeble, the young, and the sick, must perish on
the way.

"Big Simon Davis took no part in the idle
clamour of the rest. He sidled quietly up to
me.

"'Britisher,' said he, 'I don't think you're
no chicken-hearted chap, an' so I'll tell you
truth. I'm kinder skeared.'

"I stared at this confession, for my burly
companion was a person of tried courage.

" 'Kinder skeared,' repeated Davis, dropping
his voice, 'and that not so much because the
rascal Smith has skedaddled with the teams, as
for what I see, jest now, when I took a turn
round the outside of camp. Mister, I seed the
print of a mocassined foot stamped into a bit of
soft mould, clear as if 'twas the American eagle
in the sealwax on a lawyer's letter.'

"'What of that?' said I, surprised. ' Our
scoundrel guides wore mocassins, and—— '

"'Stranger, I ain't a blind mole,' interrupted
Davis; 'our guides war Osage Injuns, warn't
they? and strapping redskins as all their nation?
Their mocassins war soled with burner parflêche,
and all stitched up with porkypine quills and
beads, smart as a squaw could work 'em. This
foot war small; the leather mout have been
deer, or mout have been pronghorn, but 'twar
plain and hairy, raw hide, I guess. I tracked it