CHASED BY INDIANS. 191 



an' agin ; but then yer sees we never thort o' thur bein' 

 anything about 'ceptin the varmint we wur arter. 



" Now an' agin I kinder thort I heerd a nize o' some 

 sort behint us; but 'twur some time afore I tuck a 

 glisk around to see what it wur. Jehoshaphat ! I feels 

 queery even now when I thinks o' that minute ! Arter 

 us, an' as hard as thur ponies cud go, kem a band o' 

 Injuns. I gev the wink to Jack, an' he looked back, 

 an' you bet what he seed didn't please him any more 

 than it did me. 



" Thur wur nothin' to be did 'ceptin to keep on, an' 

 we gev whip an' spur to our hosses. But I guess the 

 critturs wur blown already wi' thur quick burst arter 

 the buffler, an' so we both felt our beasts wur givin' 

 out fast. The Injuns, when they saw we spotted 'em, 

 raised all creation wi' thur yells ; an' Jack, who under- 

 stood a leetle o' thur gibberish, med out that they wur 

 tellin' us we mout as well stop, as anyhow they meant 

 to hev us and make griskins o' our gizzards. 



"By this time we'd left the valley whur we'd fust 

 seed the buffler, and wur a-streakin' it over a peraira 

 that stretched torst another range o' hills seven or eight 

 miles off. We wur well out on this peraira, and wur 

 hopin' we mout yet reach the other side an' dodge the 

 varmints among the chapperal we cud see growing on 

 the hills, or mebbe hide in a cave, when all at once, 

 'ithout any warnin', we found our hosses stopped short 

 as ef the critturs wur shot. 



" At our feet wur one o' them all-fired gulches (bar- 



