380 INDIANS. 



suppose that cover, rocks, thickets, &c., would be the 

 safest place for a small party attacked by an over- 

 whelming force. Unless the thicket is large, no more 

 fatal mistake can be made. In stealth, cunning, and 

 patience the Indian is the white man's superior. 

 However closely the fugitive may hide himself, the 

 Indians will find some means of getting at him without 

 exposing themselves. His only hope is darkness, when 

 the Indian's superstition renders him timid, and under 

 its favourable cover he must put as many miles as pos- 

 sible between himself and that party of Indians. 



A party of railroad surveyors at work on Lodge 

 Pole Creek were suddenly attacked by a large force, one 

 or two killed, and the survivors took refuge in a dense 

 thicket of sage brush, three or four feet high and about 

 150 yards in diameter. The thicket, though commanded 

 by a bluff about 200 yards off, was otherwise very 

 favourably situated, the ground around it being smooth 

 and bare, affording no cover. The whites had run in 

 on the side nearest the bluff, and were congratulating 

 themselves on their good position, when a pony carrying 

 two warriors came at full speed across the open towards 

 the farther side of the thicket. As he passed the edge 

 the rearmost rider threw himself to the ground and 

 crawled into the thicket. Another and another Indian 

 was dropped in the same way, the whites firing at the 

 flying horseman, but failing to hit, either from the speed, 

 the distance, or from not daring to expose themselves 

 sufficiently for a good shot Several Indians, having got 

 on the bluff, were harassing them with a hot fire ; 

 whilst those Indians who were dropped from the horses 

 crawled into the thicket, and surrounded on three 

 sides the wretched men. Scarcely moving a twig 

 themselves, any movement of a bush by the whites was 

 immediately followed by a shot. The protruded barrel 

 of a rifle, or the exposure of the smallest portion of the 

 person, was the target for a volley. When night came 



