328 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



We struck the track in the fast melting snow, and came 

 up to within one hundred yards of the wallow, which was 

 a small one not over fifty feet in diameter, and then con- 

 sulted in a whisper how we should form for the attack. 

 We had come up against the wind, and there seemed 

 ample time to consult, when a flash of gray bounded 

 out on the prairie from the other side of the wallow, 

 gathered its legs and leaped again as two rifles called 

 "Halt!" The buck halted and never went again. One 

 bullet nearly severed a hind hoof, and one plowed up 

 from below through his heart. Both rifles were of the 

 same calibre, and who it was that killed that deer remains 

 as obscure as "the mystery of Gilgal." 



We bought Indian ponies, cheap but serviceable, and 

 accustomed to any amount of abuse, for an Indian never 

 has a particle of regard for a saddle sore, but claps on 

 the saddle in the same old place in perfect indifference 

 to the suffering of an animal, and this trait has hardened 

 my heart against the red man; he has no sympathy for 

 suffering not even his own. He has served the pur- 

 pose for which he was placed here just as other created 

 things have, and he dies out before civilization and must 

 go, as we must when we have exhausted the coal which 

 was stored up for our advent, and our planet falls in line 

 with the dead worlds which have no Indian ponies. 



A little castile soap and water, with tallow afterward, 

 soon put our ponies in shape for travel, and as the winter 

 came on the troubled times increased. The bogus Legis- 

 lature of Lecompton had authorized a convention to 

 form a State constitution during the summer, and things 

 were getting red hot. Warren and I decided to go to 

 Lawrence, and offer our services to General Jim Lane. 

 At that time we thought Lane to be the best and greatest 

 living American. He could sway men by his impas- 



