THE KIDNAPPER. oT. 
and luxuriance of the,sun-flower, a plant widoh always flour- 
ishes best in a locality suitable for these crops. 
During our stay, many Indians came in to trade at the 
sutler’s store. They were Caddos, Chickasaws and Witchi- 
tas, a dirty, squalid and uninteresting set. 
A party of Kickapoos also passed one morning, with pack- 
mules. They were on their way down to Red River to barter 
for whiskey, the bane of the red man, but which he will 
have, despite of law and at the risk of starvation, a melan- 
choly depravity, to our shame be it said, entailed upon him 
by the white man, against which no curse can be too loud 
or too bitter, no effort too strenuously exerted to eradicate. 
An old Chickasaw chief came in one cee: with three of 
his negroes, who had been kidnapped. 
He related to us a singular incident connected with this 
affair. These negroes were kidnapped during his absence 
from home, and upon following them up, with a chosen party, 
armed to the teeth, and prepared for any emergency, he over- 
took them aid found that the kidnapper had just died sud- 
denly by the road-side, so that his property was recovered 
without any resort to knives or pistols, the usual “ argumen- 
tum ad hominem” in this country. 
We had now passed one hundred and eighty miles through 
the Choctaw and Chickasaw Reserve, as fertile a country as 
ever the light of day rested upon, and yet every days’ 
experience and observation had only served to increase my 
feelings of depreciation of ~ character and habits of the 
