204 A PLUNDERED WAGGON. 



Indians in the country horse-stealing. He said that he always 

 had mounted troopers round the horse band, and yet some 

 months afterwards we heard that the Comanches had run off 

 every head from the post without losing a man, and not a 

 single animal was recovered. 



From Buffalo Springs our course was almost due north, our 

 next resting-place being Fort Belknap, a distance of about a 

 hundred and forty miles. We got all the directions we could 

 from the guides attached to the post, not one of them 

 thinking we should get through ; and they told us to look out 

 for wood roads, which, as Belknap was an old post and wood 

 was scarce near it, extended for thirty miles or more round it. 

 We should, they said, pass the deserted posts " Phantom 

 Hill " and " Camp Cooper " which would serve to show us 

 that we were in the right direction. 



Nothing of any consequence happened for some days ; the 

 country was alternately prairie and wooded, and game was fairly 

 plentiful, and we were obliged to kill a few deer for food, as 

 we did not find any cattle. About the fifth day we came across 

 a plundered waggon and broken boxes lying round it ; but there 

 were no signs of a struggle having taken place, so we supposed 

 that the men must have escaped. There had been rain lately, 

 consequently all tracks had been washed out, so there was no 

 way of telling how long ago it had happened. In one of the 

 boxes we found some corn meal and part of a jar of syrup, 

 which the Indians had probably left fearing poison, as it was a 

 common thing in those days to poison any food which had to be 

 abandoned. We tried them, and as they seemed all right we 

 appropriated them. 



The same evening we reached an abandoned post, which, 



