A SUSPICIOUS HORSEMAN. 271 



that in all probability my horse had gone back there. The 

 pony I had borrowed was foundered from too hard work and 

 could only raise a slow canter, going as if his legs were 

 wooden and had no joints. As I passed the first ranche we 

 had come to, I found all the cowboys in it and their horses in 

 the corral. They told me that the evening before they had been 

 out rounding up some cattle, when they were run in by about 

 forty Indians, and had got in only just in time. Fortunately 

 these southern Indians never dismount to fight, so that they 

 were safe when once inside. It was not probable that the 

 Indians would hang about in the neighbourhood, as they 

 would know that the cowboys would not leave the ranche, so I 

 determined to go on, and saw nothing but some antelope, till 

 about five o'clock, when it was getting dark, and then I 

 discovered a man riding along the top of a parallel ridge to the 

 one 4 I was on. It was too dark to see whether he was an Indian 

 or a white man, so I hailed him several times but got no 

 answer, and as I expected to have to camp out, Henrietta being 

 still some miles away, I fired two shots at him, aiming very 

 high, my double rifle being only sighted for two hundred 

 yards, and the distance appeared to be far more than that. 

 He at once disappeared, riding, I presume, down the other side 

 of the ridge. This made me feel rather uncomfortable about 

 camping out, so I determined to reach Henrietta that night if 

 possible, and I blundered on, my pony nearly coming down 

 over every inequality in the ground, till long after dark, when 

 finding that I was lost I camped in some brush, without any 

 water, made a miserable supper of some crackers, and turned in, 

 having nothing but an old saddle-blanket for covering and not 

 daring to light a fire. Before daylight I was off again and 



