these foot Indians, and are pursued both by the mounted Redskins and the white borderers like the most dangerous of wild beasts: on their account I have often spent the night without fire, and have been startled from my sleep by the whoot of the owl, which they imitate admirably, as a distant signal to one another. In the conduct of the horse Indians there is something open and chivalrous, and I never hated them for chasing me; we contended for the possession of the land, which they certainly held first, but which nature assuredly created for a better object than that a few wild hordes should use it for their hunting and war forages. It always seemed to me an honourable contest between civilization and savageness when I was attacked by these steppe-horsemen, and I never felt that blood-thirsty hatred which beset me when I noticed the Weicos and Tonkaways creeping about like vipers. I more than once all but fell victim to their cunning, and it is always a pleasant memory that I frequently punished them severely for it. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. A FIGHT WITH THE WEICOS. As I mentioned, my fort stood on the south side of the Leone river, and in front of it lay one of the richest and most fertile prairies, which ran to the bank of Mustang Creek, a small stream running parallel to the Leone, beneath the shade of lofty peca-nut trees, magnolias, cypresses, and oaks, to join the Rio Grande. The prairie between the Leone and this stream was about five miles broad; and often, when I had spent the day at home, I rode off to pass the night there, in order to shoot at daybreak as much game as my horse could comfortably carry, and be back to breakfast. I had found, in a coppice close to the stream, a small grassy clearing, where Czar was always comfortable. Around it stood colossal primæval oaks and magnolias, in whose shade many varieties of evergreen bushes, such as myrtle, laurel, and rhododendron, formed an impenetrable thicket, as they were intertwined with pendant llianas and vines the thickness of my body. In this thicket I had built a sort of hut of buffalo hides, in which I hid away a frying-pan, an old axe, and a coffee-pot. At this spot I passed many a hot summer night, for I found there a cool, quiet bed, which the sun never reached, for myself and my faithful companions, and ran no risk of being betrayed by my camp-fire and disturbed by the Indians.