230 AN INSOLENT BLACKSMITH. 



three hundred warriors to the Caddo's seventy, and that it 

 would be folly in him to attempt it. The Caddos immediately 

 left the Comanche camp, and formed a separate one on a small 

 hill in the neighbourhood, and in the morning sent a runner to 

 ask what the Comanches had decided to do, and on hearing 

 that they meant to keep the horses the seventy Caddos 

 attacked their camp, and after a desperate fight, lasting some 

 hours, utterly routed them, killing seventeen and capturing 

 most of their horses as well as those stolen from the fort. 

 They then went back to Arbuckle and returned the stolen 

 horses, giving a pony to everyone who had temporarily been 

 deprived of his horse. This attack on the Comanches meant a 

 great deal to the Caddos, for from this time they could no 

 longer go hunting to get buffalo-robes and deer-skins, which 

 are to Indians what money is to white men being exchanged 

 for everything they require. 



Having got leave to have our horses shod, we sent them in 

 charge of one of our men to the forge, from which they 

 returned in the evening, nothing having been done to them. 

 This happened again next the day, so on the third day I rode up 

 to the forge and saw the smith, a brawny negro, who said in a 

 very insolent manner that he had enough to do without 

 shoeing the horses of everyone who came along. The smithy 

 was a high one and the door large, so I rode in to remonstrate 

 with him, telling him that whereas the order entitled us to have 

 our horses shod for nothing, we meant to pay him what we 

 should have paid an ordinary smith. This had no effect on him, 

 and he ended by ordering me out of the smithy, enforcing his 

 words with an iron bar with which he advanced on me, but the 

 muzzle of a revolver made him think better of it, and he con- 



