CAMP. 99 



The officer bitten is now (1875) in perfect health, 

 having never experienced any ill effects beyond the 

 ordinary pain of the wounds. 



The evidence as to frequency of rabies in wolves comes 

 entirely from Indians, and, with all due respect and con- 

 sideration for their veracity, I. doubt it. 



For nearly thirty years the army has been as con- 

 stantly a resident of the plains as the Indians themselves, 

 and with equal opportunity for witnessing all the phe- 

 nomena of plains life ; yet the instance given above is the 

 only one on record. Eabies is not a plains malady. 



No description of life on the plains can now be given 

 which will be more than a special record of a particular 

 time and place. But a few years ago the journey across 

 the plains was the work of a whole summer. From the 

 time of leaving the Missouri Eiver the party was lost to 

 the world, and lived only in and for itself: no mails, no 

 news, no communication of any kind with civilisation. 

 Surrounded on all sides by treacherous savages, by danger 

 of every kind, each man became a host in himself. 



To a fascination of a life of perfect freedom from all 

 conventional restraints, of constraint and adventure, was 

 added that other fascination, far stronger to many natives 

 the desire to penetrate the unknown. 



Now all is changed. There is no longer an unknown. 

 Eailroads have bared the silent mysteries of the plains 

 to the inspection of every shopboy. Civilisation, like a 

 huge cuttlefish, has passed its arms of settlements up 

 almost every stream, grasping the land, killing the game, 

 driving out the Indian, crushing the romance, the poetry, 

 the very life and soul out of the 'plains,' and leaving 

 only the bare and monotonous carcass. 



