MASSACRE OF CAPTAIN SMITH. 93 



liis skirmishings with the savages — ^his hair- 

 breadth escapes, etc. — ^he wotild surely be 

 entitled to one of the most exalted seats in 

 the Olympus of Prairie mjihology. But, 

 alas ! unfortunate Captain Smith ! after hav- 

 ing so often dodged the arrrow and eluded 

 the snare of the wily Mountain Indian, little 

 could he have thought, wliile jogging along 

 under a scorchmg sun, that his bones were 

 destined to bleach upon those arid sands ! 

 He had already wandered many miles away 

 from liis comrades, when, on turning over 

 an eminence, his eyes were joyfully greeted 

 with the appearance of a small stream 

 meandering tln-ough the valley that spread 

 before him. It Avas the Cimanon. He 

 hurried forward to slake the fire of his 

 parched hps — but, imagine his disappoint- 

 ment, at finding in the channel only a bed 

 of dry sand! With his hands, however, 

 he soon scratched out a basin a foot or two 

 deep, into which the water slowly oozed from 

 the saturated sand. While with his head 

 bent down, in the effort to quench his burn- 

 ing tliirst in the fountain, he was pierced by 

 the, arrows of a gang of Comanches, who 

 were Ijing in wait for him ! Yet he struggled 

 bravely to the last ; and, as the Indians them- 

 selves have since related, killed two or three 

 of their party before he was overpowered. 



Every kind of fatality seems to have at- 

 tended this Httle caravan. Among^ other 

 casualties, we also learned that a clerk in their 

 company, named Minter, had been killed by 



