y.

At daylight I unsaddled my mount and made a hearty breakfast of bacon
and hardtack. Then I lighted my pipe, and, making a pillow of my
saddle, lay down to rest.

The smoke and the fatigue of the night's journey soon made me drowsy,
and before I knew it I was fast asleep. Suddenly I was awakened by a
loud rumbling noise. I seized my gun instantly, and sprang toward my
horse, which I had picketed in a hidden spot in the brush near by where
he would be out of sight of any passing Indians.

Climbing a steep hill, I looked cautiously over the country from which
the noise appeared to come. There before me was a great herd of
buffalo, moving at full gallop. Twenty Indians were behind it, riding
hard and firing into the herd as they rode. Others near by were cutting
up the carcasses of the animals that had already been killed.

I saddled my horse and tied him near me. Then I crawled on my stomach
to the summit of the hill, and for two hours I lay there watching the
progress of the chase.

When the Indians had killed all the buffalo they wanted they rode off
in the direction whence they had come. This happened to be the way that
I hoped to go on my own expedition. I made up my mind that their camp
was located somewhere between me and Glendive Creek. I was not at all
eager to have any communication with these gentlemen. Therefore, when I
resumed my journey at nightfall, I made a wide detour around the place
where I believed their camp would be. I avoided it successfully,
reaching Colonel Rice's camp just after daybreak.

The colonel had been fighting Indians almost every day since he
encamped at this point. He was anxious that Terry should know of this
so that reenforcements might be sent, and the country cleared of the
redskins. Of course it fell to my lot to carry this word back to Terry.

I undertook the mission willingly enough, for by this time I was pretty
well used to night riding through a country beset with perils, and
rather enjoyed it.

The strain of my recent rides had told on me, but the excitement bore
me up. Indeed, when a man is engaged in work of this kind, the
exhilaration is such that he forgets all about the wear and tear on his
system, and not until all danger is over and he is safely resting in
camp does he begin to feel what he has been through. Then a good long
sleep usually puts him all right again.

Many and many a time I have driven myself beyond what I believed was
the point of physical