42 IN THE OLD WEST 



warrior, who, being out on his first expedition, 

 desired to strike the first coup, and thus signalize 

 himself at the outset of the campaign. After 

 waiting some few minutes, expecting a renewal of 

 the attack, the mountaineers in a body rose from 

 the ground and made towards the animals, with 

 which they presently returned to the camp ; and 

 after carefully hobbling and securing them to 

 pickets firmly driven into the ground, mounting 

 an additional guard, and examining the neighbor- 

 ing thicket, they once more assembled round the 

 fire, relit their pipes, and puffed away the cheer- 

 ing weed as composedly as if no such being as a 

 Redskin, thirsting for their lives, was within a 

 thousand miles of their perilous encampment. 



" If ever thar was bad Injuns on these plains," 

 at last growled Killbuck, biting hard the pipe- 

 stem between his teeth, " it's these Rapahos, and 

 the meanest kind at that." 



" Can't beat the Blackfeet, anyhow," chimed 

 in one La Bonte, from the Yellow Stone country, 

 a fine handsome specimen of a mountaineer. 

 66 However, one of you quit this arrow out of my 

 hump," he continued, bending forwards to the fire, 

 and exhibiting an arrow sticking out under his 

 right shoulder-blade, and a stream of blood tric- 

 kling down his buckskin coat from the wound. 



This his nearest neighbor essayed to do ; but 

 finding, after a tug, that it " would not come," 

 expressed his opinion that the offending weapon 



