THEIR COURAGE EVAPORATES. 135 



people had succeeded in exciting them for a time, by an 

 account of the outrage, but that their courage had now all 

 oozed away at their finger ends. Nothing we could say was of 

 any use, and they ended by mounting and returning the way 

 they had come. 



My horse " Jeff " was by this time so thin, being unused to 

 doing without corn, that I determined to start the next 

 morning, and to take him to a ranche which we knew of, about 

 ninety miles north-west of our present camp, and about thirty 

 miles from Fort Kearney, to which place we had directed 

 letters to be sent, so that I could kill two birds with one stone. 

 I meant to leave the horse at this ranche till the end of our 

 hunt, when I could fetch him, buying a pony at Kearney to 

 replace him and to ride back on. The ranche was owned by 

 an Englishman,* whose name was Martin, who we knew would 



feed the horse up and keep him till I came for him. F 



and the men were to remain in the present camp, unless game 

 became scarce, when they were to leave a paper at a certain 

 spot, telling me in which direction they had gone, as I 

 expected to be back again in eight days at latest. 



