MY FIRST FLINTLOCK 21 
have called it by a short word of four letters. The 
Frenchman was more polished. 
Crossing the brow of the last roll in the prairie, before 
reaching the river, we discovered a band of Ute Indians 
encamped. We drove three hundred yards up the river, 
above them, and made camp for the night. 
They were a hunting party, and had squaws along 
to dress the game. The warriors did no menial work. 
Being at war with the plains Indians, they did not dare 
to go far from the mountains, their native home. They 
had only killed a few antelope. The buffalo were all 
in the enemies’ country. That evening the Indians, 
squaws and all, called on us. They sat on one side of 
the fire and we on the other. We gave the warriors 
tobacco and two cups of sugar to the squaws. No one 
said anything for some time, but the Indians’ black 
eyes took in everybody and everything about the 
camp. 
Finally one Indian said: 
‘‘You have heap game.”’ 
One of our men answered, ‘‘Not much, little.’’ 
Then the Indian said, ‘‘ Your pony good?” 
‘‘No, pony no good, played out.”’ 
The Indian asked, ‘‘Ha! you run horse race?”’ 
Our man would not take a dare from an Indian and 
replied. 
‘‘Yes, morning, run horse race.’’ 
After the Indians left the question was, ‘‘What horse 
shall we run?’’ Bill Fessenden had perhaps the fastest 
pony, but Bill had ridden him the entire trip and this 
work with only grass to eat had weakened him down 
considerably. Tom Foster had the best-conditioned 
pony in our bunch. All the horses but his were turned 
loose every night to graze, their front legs hobbled to 
