THE LATE GEORGE FREDERICK RUXTON. xi 



Poor fellow ! he spoke lightly in the buoyancy of youth and 

 a confident spirit, of the fate he little thought to meet, but 

 which too surely overtook him — not indeed by Indian blade, but 

 by the no less deadly stroke of disease. Another motive, besides 

 that love of rambling and adventure, which, once conceived and 

 indulged, is so difficult to eradicate, impelled him across the 

 Atlantic, He had for some time been out of health at intervals, 

 and he thought the air of his beloved prairies would be effica- 

 cious to work a cure. In a letter to a friend, in the month of 

 May last, he thus referred to the probable origin of the evil :— i 



" I have been confined to my room for many days, from the 

 effects of an accident I met with in the Rocky Mountains, 

 having been spilt from the bare back of a mule, and falling on 

 the sharp picket of an Indian lodge on the small of my back. I 

 fear I injured my spine, for I have never felt altogether the 

 thing since, and shortly after I saw you, the symptoms became 

 rather ugly. However, I am now getting round again." 



His medical advisers shared his opinion that he had sustairfed 

 internal injury from this ugly fall ; and it is not improbable that 

 it was the remote, but real cause of his dissolution. From what- 

 soever this ensued, it will be a source of deep and lasting regret 

 to all that ever enjoyed opportunities of appreciating the high and 

 sterling qualities of George Frederick Ruxton. Few men, so 

 prepossessing on first acquaintance, gained so much by being 

 better known. With great natural abilities and the most daunt- 

 less bravery, he united a modesty and gentleness peculiarly 

 pleasing. Had he lived, and resisted his friends' repeated soHci- 

 tations to abandon a roving life, and settle down in England, 



