WILDERNESS LIFE. 209 



WILDEEIS^ESS LIFE. 



Circumstances had caused me to attach myself to 

 a trader, wlio, with about twenty teamsters, was en 

 route for uortliern Mexico. My duties were to liuut and 

 supply the ])arty with game, a pleasant enough occupa- 

 tion but not without danger, for the greater portion of 

 the country we traversed l)elonged to the much-dread- 

 ed Comanche, the most reckless race of freebooters and 

 horsemen proba1)ly on tlie face of the earth, \<\\o are 

 at war with every one, and prize nothing more than 

 a white man's scalj). Knowing such to be the case 

 it behooved me to keej) my weather eye open when 

 separated from my newly-formetl acquaintances, but 

 for all my watchful ner.s I several times had narrow 

 escapes. Still time fled pleasantly onward, and as 

 I write this I look back with delight to the happy, 

 free, thoughtless liours passed either in the saddle or 

 Avatching the movements of the wild animals that 

 knew no bounds to their demesne. The Indians sel- 

 dom troubled my thoughts, for I had a mare, that 



