We ride night and day, passing through the land of the Piute Indians.  Reports reach us that fifteen hundred of these savages are on the Rampage, under the command of a red usurper named Buffalo Jim, who seems to be a sort of Jeff Davis, inasmuch as he and his followers have seceded from the regular Piut organization.  The seceding savages have announced that they shall kill and scalp all pale-faces [which makes our face pale, I reckon] found loose in that section.  We find the guard doubled at all the stations where we change horses, and our passengers nervously examine their pistols and readjust the long littering knives in their belts.  I feel in my pockets to see if the key which unlocks the carpet-bag containing my revolvers is all right--for I had rather brilliantly locked my deadly weapons up in that article, which was strapped with the other baggage to the rack behind.  The passengers frown on me for this carelessness, but the kind-hearted Ryder gives me a small double-barrelled gun, with which I narrowly escape murdering my beloved friend Hingston in cold blood.  I am not used to guns and things, and in changing the position of this weapon I pulled the trigger rather harder than was necessary. _______________ When this wicked rebellion first broke out I was among the first--to stay at home--chiefly because of my utter ignorance of firearms.  I should be valuable to the Army as a Brigadier-General only so far as the moral influence of--my name went. _______________ However, we pass safely through the land of the Piutes, unmolested by Buffalo James.  This celebrated savage can read and write, and is quite an orator, like Metamora, or the last of the Wampanoags.  He went on to Washington a few years ago and called Mr. Buchanan his Great Father, and the members of the Cabinet his dear Brothers.  They gave him a great many blankets, and he returned to his beautiful hunting grounds and went to killing stage drivers.  He made such a fine impression upon Mr. Buchanan during his sojourn in Washington that that statesman gave a young English tourist, who crossed the plain a few years since, a letter of introduction to him.  The great Indian chief read the English person's letter with considerable emotion, and then ordered him scalped, and stole his trunks. Mr. Ryder knows me only as "Mr. Brown," and he refreshes me during the journey by quotations from my books and lectures. "Never seen Ward?" he said. "Oh, no." "Ward says he likes little girls, but he likes large girls just as well.  Haw, haw, haw!  I should like to see the d--- fool!" He referred to me. He even woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me one of Ward's jokes. _______________ I lecture at Big Creek.