280 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



We carried our lives in our hands or, what is in other words 

 the same thing our weapons. 



It added very much to my relish of the sense of being, the 

 consciousness that I could get myself shot at any time by 

 crooking my finger. It was a novel sensation the having 

 one's life so entirely at our command at least the holding it in 

 such complete dependence upon one's prompt right arm. And 

 then the occasional divertisement of quelling some red-handed 

 bully as cowardly as he was ferocious. It was a refreshing 

 exultation to unmask such villains, and see their white livers 

 paling through their cheeks. 



But the life in the cities and settlements was a mere fore- 

 taste. I must go to the frontier to meet the dusky chivalry 

 of the mountains on the " Debatable Ground" of the plains 

 What, with the open struggle with these wild warriors,^- 

 gaunt, half naked, subtle and guarding against the secret 

 and murderous treachery of the Mexican, I expected to find 

 employment enough, and glut my passions with the tumult 

 of strange perils ! 



Perhaps then my blood would grow cooler, the fever might 

 go off, and leave me thinking and feeling more as I once did ! 

 for I longed at times to get back to the ground I had left, but 

 could not now ! The disease must have its course. I was 

 plunging into all this madness to get away from my own con- 

 sciousness, to hide from the frightful realization of my own 

 doctrines ! 



I would say, parenthetically, that this recital is not in- 

 tended for the sleepy, lymphatic denizens of the "namby 

 pamby inane." Your "perfect people," who never had a 

 sinful thought, a passion above beef-steak, or a higher adven- 

 ture than overturning a poor woman's apple-stall, their very 

 blood would be congealed at the idea of reading a line from 

 the pen of so wicked a wretch as I have described myself to 

 have been. But men and women who have thought, felt, 

 analyzed, seen, acted and remembered, will recognize the 



