300 BUFFALO LAND. 



kill for the love of it, but only to steal. I 'm going 

 to ask them, if I can catch them, did they do it, and 

 if not, I know who did. I 've a bow, Abe, and an 

 arrow too, and I hope his blood is n't on yom' hands." 



" I did n't do it, Ann. I do n't shoot no man in the 

 dark," replied our hostler guide, with a sullen de- 

 fiance, which among that class stands equally well 

 for innocence or guilt. We looked at the two, as 

 they sat for an instant facing each other. The pict- 

 ure was a weird one — a wildcat, fronting the ob- 

 ject of its chase, but undecided whether to spring 

 or not. We felt that the dark maniac had been 

 hovering around us, and that this meeting was not 

 altogether accidental. Her disordered brain was yet 

 undecided in which direction vengeance lay, and, like 

 a tigress, she was watching and waiting. 



Our policy developed, on the instant, into a non-com- 

 mittal and a safe one. As she wheeled her horse, and 

 left us without a word, we remarked to our guide that 

 crazy folks were often suspicious of their best friends. 



" That 's so," he replied, and rode off to urge on the 

 wagons. We shrank from the idea of living with a 

 murderer, and acquitted him of the crime on the spot. 



We are moving out over the grand, illimitable 

 plain again. Reader, ride with us awhile by the side 

 of that big bison bull, which we have just stirred up 

 from his noonday dream. You see his broad nostrils, 

 reddish just under the dark skin at the end, and 

 sensitive as the nose of a pointer. They have caught 

 the air which we tainted, while passing for a moment 

 across the breeze. 



