40 PBAIBIE AND FOREST. 



hood, for the occasional head of game I saw was so wary 

 that I concluded hunters had lately disturbed them One 

 thing was very much in my favour I was in the lightest 

 of marching order : no pack of peltries or well-stocked 

 kit had I ; for a few pounds of bullets, a pound of 

 powder, and my buffalo robe were all my beasts had for a 

 load. How independent a fellow feels when all his 

 worldly goods can be summed up in so few words, unless 

 he be in Bond Street or Broadway. To keep as much in 

 the nags as possible, in case speed might be required, ever 

 on the look-out for anything suspicious, with cautious, 

 slow steps, I pursued my route to the eastward. Nothing 

 occurred to increase my watchfulness ; in truth, I com- 

 menced to believe that I had unnecessarily alarmed myself, 

 when, crossing a small watercourse, on the edge of which 

 was a sandy margin, plainly I saw prints indicating that 

 three horses had lately passed. The fore feet of one of 

 them was shod a good sign. Still, they might have lately 

 been stolen from distant white settlements ; so all my 

 previous alarm and caution were again reverted to. 



Half an hour afterwards, I heard the report of a rifle ; 

 but, as there was a roll in the prairie between me and the 

 direction the sound came from, I could not see who had 

 fired the shot. In ignorance of what was to be seen 

 beyond, it would have been madness to have ridden to the 

 top of the bluff; so, turning off to the right into irregular, 

 broken ground, the effect of the previous year's heat, I 

 hobbled my animals, and started cautiously to stalk my 

 way to some elevated ground, from whence I might obtain 

 a view of the surrounding country, taking at the same 



