280 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
We carried our lives in our hands—or, what is in other words 
the same thing—our weapons. 
It added very much to my relish of the sense of being, the 
consciousness that I could get myself shot at any time by 
crooking my finger. It was a novel sensation—the having 
one’s life so entirely at our command—at least the holding it in 
such complete dependence upon one’s prompt right arm. And 
then the occasional divertisement of quelling some red-handed 
bully—as cowardly as he was ferocious. It was a refreshing 
exultation to unmask such villains, and see their white livers 
paling through their cheeks. 
But the life in the cities and settlements was a mere fore- 
taste. J must go to the frontier to meet the dusky chivalry 
of the mountains on the “ Debatable Ground” of the plains 
What, with the open struggle with these wild warriors,— 
gaunt, half naked, subtle—and guarding against the secret 
and murderous treachery of the Mexican,—I expected to find 
employment enough, and glut my passions with the tumult 
of strange perils ! 
Perhaps then my blood would grow cooler, the fever might 
go off, and leave me thinking and feeling more as I once did! 
for I longed at times to get back to the ground I had left, but 
could not now! The disease must have its course. I was 
plunging into all this madness to get away from my own con- 
sciousness, to hide from the frightful realization of my own 
doctrines ! 
I would say, parenthetically, that this recital is not in- 
tended for the sleepy, lymphatic denizens of the “namby 
pamby inane.” Your “perfect people,” who never had a 
sinful thought, a passion above beef-steak, or a higher adven- 
ture than overturning a poor woman’s apple-stall,—their very 
blood would be congealed at the idea of reading a line from 
the pen of so wicked a wretch as I have described myself to 
have been. But men and women who have thought, felt, 
analyzed, seen, acted and remembered, will recognize the 
