98 THE ADVENTURES OF 



violent exercise. He thought that such ad- 

 ventures were frightful, and said he wouldn't 

 stay for five hundred dollars a month. I told 

 him that such little brushes were nothing 

 when one got used to it. "But,'- he replied, 

 "I would never get used to such. Why, here 

 are snakes, lightning skunks, centipedes, tar- 

 antulas and Indians." I tried to console and 

 reassure him, by telling him that if he wasn't 

 born to be killed by an Indian he never would 

 be, and if he was he couldn't escape it anyhow. 

 But he said, "Born or not born, they would 

 have gotten me if it hadn't been for you." 

 I told him that unless it was God's will he 

 would not have allowed them to hurt him, but 

 he said he would rather depend upon me than 

 God when the Indians were after him. But 

 he was such a coward that I could not get any 

 satisfaction from him, and I verily believe that 

 his cowardice made his life a misery to him. 

 It would be hard to find anything that he was 

 not afraid of One day as we were driving 

 along we saw some antelopes near, and he 

 asked me to let him take my gun and kill one. 



