The other had strong sporting proclivities, and never went a journey by coach or rail without his sixteen-shooter rifle in his hand, for the chance of an antelope, or wolf, or whatever might cross his path. The year before last he had found, on this very road and coach, his practice of never moving unaccompanied by his rifle of use. A party of about a hundred Indians came down from the hills yelling, and firing on the coach. The gentlemen who were in it—they were all armed—got out to meet them, as they could do little when huddled together inside, and the horses and driver would soon have been shot. After the second volley, the driver finding that the Indians were not scared, got scared himself, and insisted on their all getting into the coach again, and his being allowed to drive off. They got in, leaving two of their number dead. The Indians followed for some little distance, and killed one more. The gentleman who told us this incident of travelling in summer on the plains—in winter the Indians are never troublesome—received in the skirmish a wound from an Indian bullet, in the back of his left hand. The ball passed through, shattering the bone. The hole remains as a memento of the day. [Sidenote: _Californian Sixteen-shooters._] Such are the kind of persons one meets in a coach on the plains; and such is the way in which they while away the time. On my return from the Rocky Mountains we found a Californian waiting for the train at North Platte. He had just come over the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges in a sleigh, in mid-winter. For the greater part of the way he had been alone. One of his feet was frostbitten. He was a little man, but appeared capable of daring anything, and of going through a great deal. His eye was quick, and very unlike that of men bred in towns or quiet farms. At this very point, many years ago, he had tried to carry his waggons across the Platte when the waters were out, and the river ten miles wide; but, having failed in the attempt, he had gone up the stream till he headed the freshet. His rifle was never out of his hand. I asked him, seeing that the barrel was somewhat short, at what distance it would kill an antelope. ‘It was not made,’ he said, ‘for antelope hunting, but it would kill one at eight hundred yards. It was the rifle used against the Indians. It was a sixteen-shooter.’ I asked him if it had ever been used in that way. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a few years ago the Indians were very troublesome, and thirty of us went out after them with these sixteen-shooters. They came on to meet us. There were four hundred of them, all mounted. At the first volley we fired, many of their saddles were emptied; still they persevered in attacking us, for a day and a night; but as they always had to retire to reload, and we had not, we had a great advantage over them. At last, when we had killed eighty of them, and they had killed nine of us, we got towards morning upon the top of a hill, where there