DUNFORD'S FARM TO MARQUETTE 313 



to come to an understanding. I could have no doubtful 

 characters about me while I was lodging in a respectable 

 house ; and though I am rather given to employing 

 what may be called " waifs and strays," as I have often 

 found these men, under proper treatment, far better 

 servants than your smoothed-speeched, kid-gloved gentry, 

 I had yet never engaged a major as " a help " ; and though 

 I gave Cornelius a trial, I will take remarkable good care 

 to never again have to do with disbanded mihtary gentle- 

 men of phantom corps, or Massachusetts Rangers, as 

 C. K. S. styled his late regiment when pressed to name it. 



As I needed a servant, and the major made a pitiful 

 appeal for " another chance," thereby tacitly admitting 

 that he had lost a chance or two in the past, I engaged 

 him, on the understanding that he gave up spitting, swear- 

 ing, pig-tail smoking, and shiny-six-shootering. All this he 

 faithfully promised to do, and promised only ; for as soon 

 as he received his first dollars he got drunk, bought a 

 fearful-looking weapon at second hand, killed a neigh- 

 bour's dog in trying " to flea him," and frightened my 

 landlady half out of her wits. His general beastly 

 conduct, and the trouble I had to get rid of him, I say 

 nothing about, for it would not be pleasant reading. 



I think I ought to record that the occasion narrated 

 above was the only one on which I was actually robbed 

 during the whole time of my sojourn in the States. As 

 I mentioned in my first book, I have frequently been 

 ''■ rounded up " by rascally cowboys and tenderfeet, and 

 eased of a few bottles of whisky ; but anything like a 

 deliberate and cruel robbery, such as that I have just told 

 about, happened on this one occasion only. Nevertheless 

 it is certain that there is a class of mean train-wreckers 

 and cunning thieves prowling about the outlying districts 

 of the States ; and this class seems of late years to be 

 greatly on the increase. As the land becomes more thickly 

 populated, and to obtain an easy living becomes more 

 difficult, certain classes of men take to dishoncbt courses. 



