The Last of the Plainsmen 



wranglers, what few ever get by here in a hundred 

 years, never saw these things. Beats anything I ever 

 saw on the Mackenzie, or anywhere else.&quot; 



The meaning of some devices was as mystical as 

 that of others was clear. Two blood-red figures of 

 men, the larger dragging the smaller by the hair, 

 while he waved aloft a blood- red hatchet or club, 

 left little to conjecture. Here was the old battle of 

 men, as old as life. Another group, two figures of 

 which resembled the foregoing in form and action, 

 battling over a prostrate form rudely feminine in 

 outline, attested to an age when men were as suscep 

 tible as they are in modern times, but more forceful 

 and original. An odd yellow Indian waved aloft a 

 red hand, which striking picture suggested the 

 idea that he was an ancient Macbeth, listening to 

 the knocking at the gate. There was a character 

 representing a great chief, before whom many figures 

 lay prostrate, evidently slain or subjugated. Large 

 red paintings, in the shape of bats, occupied promi 

 nent positions, and must have represented gods or 

 devils. Armies of marching men told of that blight 

 of nations old or young war. These, and birds 

 unnamable, and beasts unclassable, with dots and 

 marks and hieroglyphics, recorded the history of a 

 bygone people. Symbols they were of an era that 

 had gone into the dim past, leaving only these marks, 



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