328 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



is generally ready to set him on his guard against the wicked 

 men he is about to encounter, and who — he assures him — will 

 "stick at nothing when there's any money to be made." The 

 tricks of the trade he will expose as freely and with as much 

 gusto as if he were a detective holding forth upon crimes that 

 he helped to bring to light — illustrating his warnings with 

 many a tale of smartness. Above all, it is a thousand to one 

 he will add, with the intensitj r of long and very practical 

 experience, " Believe no man when you are doing business ; and 

 when you trade, sir, trade always as if you were trading with a 

 rogue, till you have proved him otherwise ! " — the latter part 

 of the advice being about on a par with that of not taking the 

 water till you can swim, and the whole denunciation reminding 

 our newcomer of Epaminondas and his illogical assertion that 

 all his countrymen were liars. 



Altogether the emigrant man-of-the-old-world will encounter 

 many interesting and instructive companions on the cars that 

 carry him towards the Pacific ; and if he makes use of his 

 opportunities he can scarcely fail to accumulate some crumbs 

 of knowledge to add to the store from which he means to 

 make bread. The high opinion he has already formed of the 

 scrupulous sense of honour possessed by his new acquaintance, 

 may perchance be slightly shocked when he notes the uproarious 

 delight with which the latter hails a story at the mouth of a 

 nondescript business-man, anent the successful carrying through 

 of a recent flour contract for the Indians, which that worthy has 

 effected by passing off a compound of musty wheatflour and 

 indifferent " corn " as best rations. But it is quoted forthwith 

 that General Sheridan laid it down as an axiom that " the only 

 good Indian is a dead Indian ; " and so he feels bound to with- 

 hold any symptom of wonderment, if he cannot quite bring 

 himself to join in the general expression of appreciation. 



So will he find the stockgrowers, or stockowners, whenever he 

 meets them, which, after he has chosen a district for his own 

 " location " will more often be as occasion calls him to the 

 nearest town — for he will have but little time to leave his 



