AFRAID OF INDIANS. 51 
fore-feet of one of them was shod—a good sign. Still, 
they might have lately been stolen from distant white set- 
tlements; so all my previous alarm and caution were again 
reverted to. 
Half an hour afterward, I heard the report of a rifle; 
but, as there was a roll in the prairie between me and the 
direction the sound came from, I could not see who had 
fired the shot. In ignorance of what was to be seen be- 
yond, it would have been madness to have ridden to the 
top of the bluff; so, turning off to the right into irregular, 
broken ground, the effect of the previous year’s heat, I 
hobbled my animals, and started cautiously to stalk my 
way to some elevated ground, from whence I might obtain 
a view of the surrounding country, taking, at the same time, 
care to keep myself between the*suspicious direction and 
my beasts. Ihad not traversed over one hundred and fifty 
yards, and was halting, the better to notice the most avail- 
able cover for future progress, when first the head and 
shoulders, then the entire figure of a man, loomed over the 
top of the swell. Comanche or Arrapaho I knew at once 
he was not — perhaps Osage or Pottawatomie; but what 
the deuce would bring them so many hundred miles from 
’ their own hunting-lands? - However, as every thing in the 
shape of redskins is to be dealt cautiously with, I changed 
my caps and got into most convenient and unconspicuous 
shooting attitude, determined not to throw away a shot, or, 
much less, give my supposed foe a chance of returning the 
compliment. That he was alone, being dismounted, I knew 
could not be the case; and as he was coming in the very 
direction of my fresh trail, which, if he was permitted to 
cross, he could not fail to discover, and, with the discovery, 
bring his whole party in pursuit of me, there was but one 
alternative to adopt. Last year, in this very locality, the 
Indians had been unusually active; scarcely a gang of emi- 
