94 A RACE FOR LIFE. 



ride for one's life on grass-fed horses. Ours were certainly 

 much faster than those of the Indians, but these last, though 

 small, are used to hard work and poor fare, and to being ridden 

 long distances without resting, and we knew that the Indians 

 would not hesitate to use the points of their knives to drive 

 them along. We were going from two o'clock in the afternoon 

 till nearly seven in the evening, when we were able to take a 

 rest, as the moon rose late and it was very dark. 



The Indians, though wonderful trackers, could not follow us 

 until morning, as the moon did not give sufficient light for 

 tracking, so we determined to throw them off the scent if 

 possible, and after Badger had bound my arm across my chest 

 with strips cut from my leather hunting-shirt, we started again 

 at midnight and rode about two miles due north, choosing a 

 hard rocky ridge, as it would not leave much trail, and then we 

 again rode in the proper direction, which was due east. 



Up to this time my arm had not been very painful, having 

 been apparently numbed by the blow ; but it had been swinging 

 about for five hours, and when we came to examine it we found 

 that the bone had come through the skin in one place. Badger 

 bound it up very well and fastened it firmly ; but the pain was 

 now very great, and nothing but the certainty of being tortured 

 if caught kept me going. Up to about nine o'clock the next 

 morning we thought that our ruse had been a success, but 

 then the Indians appeared again, running the trail like blood- 

 hounds. We had, however, fully three miles start and 

 managed to keep it all day, though we had to make frequent 

 halts to breathe our horses. That night we passed in some 

 heavy timber, where I remember that the noise made by insects 

 was so great as to resemble that made by a threshing-machine 



