182 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 



are, nevertheless, the degenerate descendants of those 

 tribes which once overran that portion of the continent 

 of North America now comprehended within the 

 boundaries of Mexico, and who have left such startling 

 evidences in their track of a comparatively superior 

 state of civilisation. They now form an outcast tribe 

 of the great nation of the Apache, which extends under 

 various names from the Great Salt Lake along the table- 

 lands on each side the Sierra Madre to the tropic of 

 Cancer, where they merge into what are called the 

 Mexican Indians. The whole of this nation is charac- 

 terised by most abject cowardice ; and they even refuse 

 to meet the helpless Mexicans in open fight unlike the 

 Yuta or Camanche, who carry bold and open warfare 

 into the territories of their civilised enemy, and never 

 shrink from hand-to-hand encounter. The Apaches and 

 the degenerate Diggers pursue a cowardly warfare, 

 hiding in ambush, and shooting the passer-by with 

 arrows ; or, dashing upon him at night when steeped 

 in sleep, they bury their arrow to the feather in his 

 heaving breast. As the Mexicans say, " Sin ventaja, no 

 salen ; " they never attack without odds. But they 

 are not the less dangerous enemies on this account; and 

 by the small bands of trappers who visit their country, 

 they are the more dreaded by reason of this cowardly 

 and wolfish system of warfare. 



To provide against surprise, therefore, as the hunters 

 rode along, flankers were extended en guerilla on each 

 side, mounting the high points to reconnoitre the 

 country, and keeping a sharp look-out for Indian sign. 



