IN THE OLD WEST 145 



On the fourth morning the men looked wolfish, 

 their captives following behind in sullen and per- 

 fect indifference, occasionally stooping down to 

 catch a beetle if one presented itself, and greedily 

 devouring it. A man named Forey,* a Canadian 

 half-breed, was the first to complain. " If this 

 lasted another sundown," he said, " some of them 

 would be rubbed out; that meat had to be raised 

 anyhow; and for his part, he knew where to look 

 for a feed, if no game was seen before they put 

 out of camp on the morrow; and meat was meat, 

 anyhow they fixed it." 



No answer was made to this, though his com- 

 panions well understood him: their natures as yet 

 revolted against the last expedient. As for the 

 three squaws, all of them young girls, they fol- 

 lowed behind their captors without a word of 

 complaint, and with the stoical indifference to 

 pain and suffering which alike characterizes the 

 haughty Delaware of the North and the miserable 

 stunted Digger of the deserts of the Far West. 

 On the morning of the fifth day the party were 

 seated round a small fire of pinon, hardly able 

 to rise and commence their journey, the squaws 

 squatting over another at a little distance, when 

 Forey commenced again to suggest that, if noth- 

 ing offered, they must either take the alternative 

 of starving to death — for they could not hope 

 to last another day ' — or have recourse to the 



*Also known as Furey. (Ed.) 



