In my now maddening suffering, I actually prayed that it might end. Heaping every species of opprobrium on the red demons, that I could, in my own tongue, I added to them such galling Indian terms as I had been able to pick up during my life in the West. These were not over-numerous, but they would have been more than sufficient to have inspired the incarnate devils with a greater fury, and, in a few moments more, I should have been quit of all the trouble and suffering of the world in which I had been a dweller. As this desire was surging incontrollably above my bodily agony, I heard the crack of a dozen rifles. The same number of the Indians dropped in the very places on which they had been sitting or standing, and I knew that I was saved. CHAPTER X. BETWEEN TORTURE AND SAFETY--THE VALUE OF POPULARITY--UNCLE SAM'S BLUE-COATS--A TRAPPING EXPEDITION--IN FOR IT--THE CAPTURE OF MY FIRST PET GRIZZLY--SKINNING AND CARVING--"PROSPECTING" FOR SILVER--A LIVING BLANKET--DARKNESS AND THE SURPRISE--CARRIED OFF AS A CAPTIVE--OUT OF THE THONGS--THE BUTT AND THE MUZZLE--WHO IS THE REAL HERO? It seemed, that when I had not returned to the camp by dusk, the boys had begun to be somewhat uneasy on account of my prolonged absence. Butch' Hasbrouck then volunteered to hunt me up. Ben Painter was the only one with him. Although uneasy, none of them really believed I was in a serious difficulty. If they had, as Butch' subsequently said, when, some weeks later, talking the matter over with me, they would have had me "out of the tight place I war in, a good hour sooner." It was not long ere they heard the noise made by the howling and yelling devils. "There war something up," as Painter whispered to Butch'. Then they crept nearer. On discovering the light of the camp-fires, and recognizing through the trees the forms of the red-skins moving rapidly amongst them, they instantaneously concluded that I had been killed, and that the savages were celebrating the event in their own fashion. "By sheer luck," as Painter expressed it, they did not come near enough the _Campoody_ or Indian camp to discover me. Had they done so, they were two men only, and could not have saved me, although they might, or rather would, beyond any doubt, have made my death a somewhat costly one to the Indians, who would most certainly have finished me before their two rifles could have settled enough of the scoundrels to prevent their doing so. They returned to the camp and told Arnold and the rest what they had seen. If I had previously any doubt of my popularity with the boys, the result of the information thus given would have dispelled it. In an instant every man was on his legs, and in another half-minute, armed with their rifles and revolvers, they were following the two scouts who had located the red-skins. On drawing sufficiently near, they had discovered me.