30 ' NOTES TAKEN. 
Subsequent experience has proved to me that the invari- 
able rules for safety, that should be followed by single indivi-- 
duals or small parties, when away from camp, and meeting 
parties of Indians, is to give them a wide berth, and for this 
reason—if sheer plunder is not the object of attack, according 
to their custom, young men cannot hold any position in their 
tribe, until they can show a scalp, and have stolen a number 
of ‘horses. In consequence of this, two or three will start 
together, and sometimes be absent for a year, until they can 
return with these evidences of their manliness. 
The best plan is either to make the escape to camp, or else 
preserving a bold front, take care to have the first shot. 
Had young H——n observed these directions, so often 
impressed upon him by his experienced commanding officer, he 
might now be living, an ornament to the service, to which he 
was a great loss, as he was mounted upon a horse remarkable 
_ for fleetness, and was a crack shot with the rifle. 
A few miles travel brought us to the deserted Council 
House of the nation, at the time occupied by an Indian 
mitted with his own rifle. Hastily stripping him, they scalped him, threw his 
body into a ravine, and taking eee but one boot and his saddle, made ~ 
Bom miles farther the amen and lighting a fire, had prepared 
th and the fire smoul, 
d spitted 
— ‘They left here very hastily, ana pel of moccasins, a lariat, and some - 
41. 
by hearing the 
report of the indian which iis Mk: Rteewraeey: 9h asian tb gis 
Minute as these details are, they are true,as the murderers are wage: _. 
will sooner or later be brought to justice. All the Indian h 
‘was the signs in the grass, &e. 
