WAPITI-RUNNING ON THE PLAINS 59 



fort, where we were most kindly and hospitably 

 received. 



Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack were as fine 

 specimens of their race and class as could anywhere 

 be found ; and that is saying a good deal, for 

 honest hearts and stalwart frames and handsome 

 features are not rare among the pioneers of Western 

 civilisation. It might be supposed that these 

 hunters, Indian-trackers, cattle-boys, and miners, 

 are disagreeable people to come across. That is 

 not the case at all. There are, of course, some 

 rough characters, regular desperadoes, among 

 them, and they occasionally shoot each other 

 pretty freely in gambling quarrels and drunken 

 sprees ; but to a stranger who knows how to 

 behave himself they are, as far as my experience 

 goes, most civil and obliging. If a man is civil to 

 them they will be civil to him, and if he does not 

 interfere about their affairs they won't bother 

 about his, unless he wants their assistance, and 

 then they will be ready and willing to give it. The 

 manly sense of independence, the self-respect, and 

 that feeling of respect for others engendered by 

 it, which so strongly characterise the American 

 people, are as deeply marked and have as good 

 an effect among the nomads of the West as in 



