rie.

Upon every other subject than that of treasure-seeking, their minds were
a perfect blank. For _them_, the varied resources of a land abounding
in the products of every clime, had no attraction. On the contrary, the
soil which grew the maize, indigo, cotton, the sugar-cane, coffee, the
olive, and the vine, seemed sterile and barren, since in such regions no
_gold_ was ever found. The wondrous fertility of that series of terraces
which, on the Andes, unite the fruits of the torrid zone with the
lichens of the icy North, had no value in the estimation of men who
acknowledged but one wealth, and recognized but one idol. _Their_ hearts
turned from the glorious vegetation of this rich garden to the dry
courses of the torrents that fissure the Cordilleras, or the stony
gorges that intersect the Rocky Mountains.

The life of wild and varied adventure, too, that they led was associated
with these deserted and trackless wastes. To them, civilization
presented an aspect of slavish subjection and dull uniformity; while
in the very vicissitudes of their successes there was the excitement
of gambling: rich to-day, they vowed a lamp of solid gold to the
"Virgin,"--to-morrow, in beggary, they braved the terrors of sacrilege
to steal from the very altar they had themselves decorated. What strange
and wondrous narratives did they recount as we wandered over that
swelling prairie!

Many avowed that their own misdeeds had first driven them to the life
of the deserts; and one who had lived for years a prisoner among the
Choctaws confessed that his heart still lingered with the time when he
had sat as a chief beside the war-fire, and planned stratagems
against the tribe of the rival Pawnees. To men of hardy and energetic
temperament, recklessness has an immense fascination. Life is so often
in peril, they cease to care much for whatever endangers it; and
thus, through all their stories, the one feeling ever predominated,--a
careless indifference to every risk coupled with a most resolute conduct
in time of danger.

I soon managed to make myself a favorite with this motley assemblage;
my natural aptitude to pick up language, aided by what I already knew of
French and German, assisted me to a knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese;
while from a "half-breed" I acquired a sufficiency of the Indian dialect
in use throughout the Lower Prairies. I was fleet of foot, besides
being a good shot with the rifle,--qualities of more request among m