“While we were securing our horses for the night,” the story runs, “we saw two men approaching on foot. They were both armed with rifles and hunting-knives, and I must say they were about the roughest samples I had ever seen. One was a man about fifty years old, tall and raw-boned. He was dressed in a sailor’s round jacket, with a tarpaulin hat on his head. His whiskers nearly covered his face, and there was a deep scar across his forehead. His companion, considerably younger, was bareheaded, and clad in a deer-skin dress made after our fashion. Though he was not much darker than the old man, I perceived that he was an Indian.” These men were on the way to the front, and they agreed to accompany Davy’s little party. The Indian surprised them by producing a brace of rabbits from his bag, and a good supper was soon prepared, consisting of fried bacon and rabbit, with onions. Thimblerig, for some unaccountable reason, objected to eating with the bewhiskered party, who had been, so the Bee-Hunter said, at one time a pirate. Overhearing some of his talk to this effect, the old salt fixed his eye on Thimblerig, drew his long hunting-knife from its sheath, and placed it by his own plate, saying, “Stranger, I think you had better take a seat and have some supper.” The gambler looked at the Pirate, then at the knife, and his scruples were put aside. The next day they saw a large drove of buffalo, and the whole party, with the exception of the Pirate, followed them. At the end of two hours Davy found himself alone on the prairies, his tiny mustang nearly dead with exhaustion, and himself little better off. Too tired to think of going on, Davy prepared to camp near a stream where a fallen tree offered shelter from the wind. As he was inspecting the place, he saw a great mountain lion about to spring upon him. A shot from “Betsy” failed to settle the creature, and it was only after a desperate fight that Davy succeeded in killing the savage animal with his hunting-knife. By this time he wanted sleep, and it was just before the first streak of dawn that he awoke, stiff with cold and sore from the clawing he had received from the lion, that now lay near him upon the ground. The night was clear and the stars bright, and over in the east was the magnificent spectacle of Halley’s comet, sweeping the skies for thirty degrees with its luminous train――a grand forerunner of the great events to follow.