The train now encamps. The unpacking of the kettles and mess-pans, the unyoking of the oxen, the gathering about of various camp-fires, the frizzling of the pork, are so clearly expressed by the music that the most untutored savage could readily comprehend it. Indeed, so vivid and lifelike was the representation that a lady sitting near us involuntarily exclaimed aloud at a certain passage, "Thar, that pork's burning!" and it was truly interesting to watch the gratified expression of her face when, by a few notes of the guitar, the pan was removed from the fire, and the blazing pork extinguished. This is followed by the beautiful _aria_, "O marm, I want a pancake," followed by that touching recitative, "Shet up, or I will spank you!" To which succeeds a grand _crescendo_ movement, representing the flight of the child with the pancake, the pursuit of the mother, and the final arrest and summary punishment of the former, represented by the rapid and successive strokes of the castanet. The turning-in for the night follows; and the deep and stertorous breathing of the encampment is well given by the bassoon, while the sufferings and trials of an unhappy father with an unpleasant infant are touchingly set forth by the _cornet à piston_. Nomadic habits, slight contact with anything human that is permanent, and freedom from the restraint which would be caused by the propinquity of neighbors, have fortified these people in self-conceit. Although they will in a few months desert all their acres for something more distant, yet the traveller who stops at their cabin and pays for bad food is required to "allow" that he has never seen a finer "claim" or tasted better victuals. In truth, never was good food so spoiled. The best venison of the country is sliced thin, put on cold grease in a frying-pan (they never think of first boiling the grease), and fried until it is as tough as a chip and as full of grease as an Englishman's crumpet. Once in Colorado a request to have an egg boiled was encountered by the statement that "the lady knew how to cook eggs--she fried 'em." And fried they were, being put in cold lard in proportions of three of lard to one of egg. Another "lady", at the hint that a gridiron might be used instead of the frying-pan for the venison, seeing an army officer present, remarked, "If you can't eat what we eat, you can go without. Don't see the use of troops anyhow. We pay for you. Understand Sitting Bull is going to Canada to fight Fenians. He will find somebody to fight there--never did here!" As the woman was paid five times the worth of her victuals, and as she, her "par" and her "mar" could not have remained twelve hours in their cabin had the military post near by been withdrawn, her sarcasms were a little ill-considered. These much-isolated people look upon themselves as Nature's aristocracy.