A.U.S. MILITARY PARTY CUT OFF. 93 



remark, silently employed in taking 1 in every feature 

 of the country, down to its minutest details. * 



We shall trouble our readers' with but one other 

 anecdote of this remarkable man, given upon, another 

 and more solemn occasion, when a young lieutenant 

 of the U.S. Army, named Kidder, was missing, and 

 as subsequent events proved had been waylaid and 

 barbarously murdered with his whole command by a 

 war party of Sioux Indians. The scout stood by, 

 listening in silence to the opinions of the officers, 

 who we are told, 



"were grouped near head-quarters, discussing the subject 

 then uppermost in the minds of all. Finally Comstock spoke 

 as follows: 'Well Gentler*?;? (emphasizing the last syllable 

 as was his manner) before a man kin form any ijee as to 

 how this thing is likely to end, thar are several things he ort 

 or be acquainted with. For instance now, no man need tell 

 me any pints about Injuns. Ef I know anything, it's Injuns; 

 for you see Injun huntin' and Injun fightin's a trade all by 

 itself, and like any other bizness, a man has to know what 

 he's about ; or ef he don't, he can't make a livin' at it. My 

 experience among you army folks has allus bin that the 

 youngsters among ye think they know the most, and this is 

 particularly true ef they have just come from West Point. 

 Ef some of them young fellars know'd as much as they 

 b'lieve they do, you couldn't tell 'em nothing; but the fact of 

 the matter is this, they couldn't tell the diff'rence twixt the 

 trail of a war party, and one made by a huntin' party, to 

 save their necks. Half on 'em, when they first come here, 

 can't tell a squaw from a buck, because both ride straddle, 

 but they soon larn. But that's neither here nor thar I'm 

 told that the lootinent we're talking about is a newcomer, 



* Such instances too, make good what we have said as to the 

 uselessness of mere book-learning to help a man to guard against the 

 perils which beset him, when surrounded by the pathless wilderness. 



