104 



RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



Anglo-Saxon profanity. I then started to lead my horse out to the 

 prairie; and after hovering round a short time they rode off, while I fol- 

 lowed suit, but in the opposite direction. It had all passed too quickly for 

 me to have time to get frightened ; but during the rest of my ride I was 

 exceedingly uneasy, and pushed tough, speedy old Manitou along at a 

 rapid rate, keeping well out on the level. However, I never saw the 

 Indians again. They may not have intended any mischief beyond giving 

 me a fright; but I did not dare to let them come to close quarters, for 

 they would have probably taken my horse and rifle, and not impossibly my 

 scalp as well. Towards nightfall I fell in with two old trappers who lived 

 near Killdeer Mountains, and they informed me that my assailants were 

 some young Sioux bucks, at whose hands they themselves had just suffered 

 the loss of two horses. 



A few cool, resolute whites, well armed, can generally beat back a much 

 larger number of Indians if attacked in the open. One of the first cattle 

 outfits that came to the Powder River country, at the very end of the last 

 war with the Sioux and Cheyennes, had an experience of this sort. There 

 were six or eight whites, including the foreman, who was part owner, and 

 they had about a thousand head of cattle. These they intended to hold 

 just out of the dangerous district until the end of the war. which was evi- 

 dently close at hand. They would thus get first choice of the new grazing 

 grounds. But they ventured a little too far, and one day while on the 

 trail were suddenly charged by fifty or sixty Indians. The cattle were 

 scattered in every direction, and many of them slain in wantonness, though 

 most were subsequently recovered. All the loose horses were driven 

 off. But the men themselves instantly ran together and formed a ring, 

 fighting from behind the pack and saddle ponies. One of their num- 

 ber was killed, as well as two or three of the animals composing their 

 living breastwork ; but being good riflemen, they drove off their foes. The 

 latter did not charge them directly, but circled round, each rider concealed 

 on the outside of his horse ; and though their firing was very rapid, it was, 

 naturally, very wild. The whites killed a good many ponies, and got one 

 scalp, belonging to a young Sioux brave who dashed up too close, and 

 whose body in consequence could not be carried off by his comrades, as 

 happened to the two or three others who were seen to fall. Both the men 

 who related the incident to me had been especially struck by the skill and 

 daring shown by the Indians in thus carrying off their dead and wounded 

 the instant they fell. 



The relations between the white borderers and their red-skinned foes 

 and neighbors are rarely pleasant. There are incessant quarrels, and each 



