SOLDIER LIFE. 217 
strength, having been known to carry off a full-grown hog. 
It has a very ferocious appearance when in motion, crouches 
at the approach of an enemy, and bounds off with great swift- 
ness. It is seldom found as far north as Fort Belknap. 
At Fort Belknap we saw the boy who was so cruelly 
mangled by the Camanches when in company with Mrs, Wil- 
son, an account of whose sufferings and escape was published 
in the news of the day, during the fall of 1853. 
This boy had been scalped and left for dead, but reviving, 
managed to get into Fort Belknap, and, at the time we saw 
him, promised to recover entirely, a new cuticle having formed 
over his denuded scull, but an attack of dysentery carried him 
off after a few day’s illness. 
Though these officers bear with the most Spartan spirit 
their isolation and privations, and merge all other feelings in 
their zeal and devotion to their profession, gathering around 
them comforts and means for pursuits only to be acquired by 
highly refined and enlightened gentlemen, yet I would that 
some of our brawlers in Congress, and on the hustings, could 
visit these remote posts, and see a soldier’s life in its true 
colours. A sense of shame and injustice would cause them to 
blush for past misrepresentations, and not only shut their 
mouths for the future, but open their eyes to the true light of 
merit in these devoted men  Their’s is no carpet-knight ser- 
vice, but a stern reality, which, calling forth all the energies 
of their natures, tempers them with the Christian virtues of 
forbearance and philanthropy—forbearance towards their ene- 
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