54 ON THE FEONTIEE. 



it, or by carrying it in pockets liable to have holes made in 

 them by the rough usage of frontier service, and not likely 

 to be carefully mended ; and because now this is personal 

 and confidential I suffer under a physical disability, or in- 

 firmity, or malformation, or whatever its name is, and can not 

 hold a pipe in the left side of my mouth and smoke comfort- 

 ably. I have a right-handed mouth for smoking. I have 

 seen plenty of smokers with left-handed mouths, some few 

 with double-handed mouths. I am not one of those kind of 

 men, and consequently, as a smoker and sportsman, lie under 

 a disability, the magnitude of which may be easily ascer- 

 tained by experiment. Fill a pipe, light it, put it between 

 your teeth on the right side, begin to take a serene smoke, 

 and then pick up as quickly as you can a heavy rifle, throw it 

 promptly to your shoulder, and simultaneously bring your 

 head down to catch the sights ; and if the experiment is suc- 

 cessfully performed the pipe's stem will be smashed, its bowl 

 fly into the air, the fire from it into your eyes, and a tooth or 

 two be broken. Possibly it may require practice on your part 

 to enable you to do so many things simultaneously and neatly, 

 but you will infallibly do most of them every time. And 

 what sort of a sight do you suppose you could take at a 

 running deer or hostile foe under such difficulties ? Now it 

 might easily happen, in an Indian country, that a shot re- 

 quired to be fired so suddenly there would be no time to get 

 an obstructive pipe out of the way, excepting by letting it 

 fall out of the mouth and losing it. Was I therefore to re- 

 frain from smoking on the line of march ? Certainly not, 

 while a string of any kind was to be got or made. 



My counsellor having received his charge, I sat down to 



