AFRAID OF INDIANS. 39 



to believe that I had unnecessarily alarmed myself, 

 when, crossing a small watercourse, on the edge 

 of which was a sandy margin, plainly I saw prints 

 indicating that three horses had lately passed. The 

 fore feet of one of them was shod a good sign. 

 Still, they might have lately been stolen from distant 

 white settlements ; so all my previous alarm and 

 caution were again reverted to. 



Half an hour afterwards, I heard the report of a 

 rifle ; but, as there was a roll in the prairie between 

 me and the direction the sound came from, I could not 

 see who had fired the shot. In ignorance of what was 

 to be seen beyond, it would have been madness to have 

 ridden to the top of the bluff ; so, turning off to the 

 right into irregular, broken ground, the effect of the 

 previous year's heat, I hobbled my animals, and stalled 

 cautiously to stalk my way to some elevated ground, 

 from whence I might obtain a view of the surrounding 

 country, taking at the same time care to keep myself 

 between the suspicious direction and my beasts. I had 

 not traversed over 150 yards, and was halting, the 

 better to notice the most available cover for future 

 progress, when first the head and shoulders, then the 

 entire figure of a man, loomed o'er the top of the 

 swell. Camanche or Arrapaho I knew at once he 

 was not perhaps Ossage or Potowatamy ; but what 

 the deuce would bring them, so many hundred miles 

 from their own hunting-lands ? However, as every- 

 thing in the shape of redskins is to be dealt cautiously 

 with, I changed my caps and got into most convenient 

 and unconspicuous shooting attitude, determined not 

 to throw away a shot, or, much less, give my supposed 

 foe a chance of returning the compliment. That he 



