A QUESTION CONCEEXIXG CIRCULATIOX. 179 



some rations given them. They manifested an 

 especial fondness for sugar, but took any thing they 

 could get, their ponies j) roving capable of carrying 

 an unlimited number of sacks. It seemed as difficult 

 to overload these animals as it is a Broadway omni- 

 bus; and their riders, perhaps in order to avoid be- 

 ing top heavy, took freight for the inside whenever 

 opportunity offered. As they came back through the 

 town, we all turned out to see them off. The band 

 promised us peace, notwithstanding which it was no 

 small satisfaction to discover that they were poorly 

 armed. Bows and arrows were the only weapons 

 which all possessed, and while a few had revolvers, 

 the chief alone sported a rifle, a rusty-looking old 

 breech-loader. 



As our late cavalry escort rode off, their attitudes 

 plainly bespoke that they had been raiding upon 

 more than the flesh-pots of Egypt. Sons of the sandy- 

 complexioned desert, w^e saw several of them kiss 

 their mother before they got out of sight. The most 

 serious question with us now was whether or not these 

 red gormandizers had been uttering peace notes not 

 properly indorsed by their hearts. The trouble is 

 that when one discovers a circulation- of this kind, 

 his own ceases about the same instant, and his bones 

 become a fixed investment in the fertile soil of the 

 plains. 



One of the officers of the fort told us an amusing 

 instance of the impudent treachery of which the 

 western Indians of to-day are sometimes guilty, A 

 year or tw^o before, when Hancock comn^anded the 

 Department and was encamped near Fort Dodge, on 



