After 1875 Indians became very scarce in Western Texas. They had been removed to the Indian Territory, north of Texas, partly by the United States soldiers and the Rangers, and partly by the gradual and inevitable advance of civilization. They were located on reservations in the Territory, and a strenuous endeavour was made by the Indian Agents and the United States troops to keep them there, but it was impossible to prevent small bands from crossing the border and descending suddenly and unexpectedly upon the scattered settlements in Texas to steal horses, loot stores, burn houses, and murder defenceless women and children. As the number of Indians grew smaller, however, they confined themselves more and more to prowling around on dark nights and stealing horses. Ostensibly they were now at peace with the white men, but having been run out of Texas mainly by the Rangers, the grievance rankled in their bosoms, and they occasionally came back in small squads and straggling parties on horse-stealing expeditions. If they could get away with a man's saddle-horse without fighting the owner they preferred to do so, but if necessary they were ready to fight. The white settlers were so aggravated by having their horses stolen that they resorted to all sorts of expedients to keep the Indians from getting them. The savages, however, kept up their thieving excursions till there were no horses left in some neighbourhoods, especially near rivers, down which the Indians came from the north and north-west, under cover of the timber along the waterside. If they could not get away with a horse, they would kill it rather than leave it alive to its owner. The settlers built strong log stables, with stout doors, which they fastened from the inside, climbing out themselves through a hole in the roof. Still, with wonderful cunning, the Indians got the horses, or killed them by shooting them with arrows through the cracks between the logs. A friend of mine with whom I often stopped in South-West Texas told me how, on one occasion, the Indians got two fine horses from him when there seemed absolutely no chance for them to be stolen. He had a stable made of heavy oak logs, with a stout door fastened by a strong wooden pin, which one of his grown sons drove in with a maul on this particular evening, having seen Indian signs in the neighbourhood that day. Then the settler and his sons went to sleep in the hay-loft, under the same roof, with their loaded guns beside them. Not a sound disturbed them during the night, but when morning came the stable door was open and the horses gone. The Indians had found how the door was fastened and, by steady perseverance, succeeded in working the pin out. Probably the job took them hours, but they had plenty of time.