THE INDIAN BOW. 423 



but, as my finances did not permit me to hire many men, 

 and time and circumstances did not enable me to associate 

 myself with personal friends, why, I went to the plains 

 with ten servants, nine of whom were hired on the edge 

 of the desert, many of whom could scarcely be depended 

 on, and all of whom, except the servant I brought with 

 me, were badly or insufficiently armed ; at a time, too, 

 when the Indians had assumed their war paint, and were 

 attacking all the white men that came within the scope of 

 their revenge. This on account of the death of the petty 

 Indian chief, Pawnee, whom Mr Bayard, of the United 

 States Army, had slain in the strict performance of his 

 military duty. 



As far as my short experience goes, the chief danger to 

 be apprehended at the hands of the Indians is a surprise. 

 Like the tiger, they will not attack a man unless they think 

 they have him at advantage, and they are terribly afraid 

 of the rifle in white men's hands. From all I could learn, 

 the shooting of the red men is a farce as compared with 

 that of the whites, and of course their fire-arms, as well as 

 their ammunition, are for the most part damaged or in very 

 inferior order. The bow and arrow, as used by savages, 

 is in England much overrated ; novelists, in regard to the 

 rifle and the bow in red hands, as well as with reference 

 to the personal appearance and habits of the savages, have 

 beautifully gulled their readers; nor has Mr Murray in any 

 way fallen short of inflammatory description, when in the 

 book he published of his travels he so much descanted on 

 the romantic pleasure of his association and life on the 

 prairies with the Pawnees. As my excellent friend now, 

 alas ! no more the late Lord Kennedy, used to say, 

 when a man told a most wonderful thing that he had done, 

 that " he would bet him ten thousand to one he would 



