to her mirac'lous escape, we made up a
'pot' for her, collecting 'bout eight hundred dollars. The master of
Colonel St. Vrain's caravan, what had come out with us, told her he was
going back again to the river in a couple of weeks, and he'd take her
and Paul in without costing her a cent; besides, she'd be safer than
with any other outfit, as his train was a big one, and he had all
American teamsters.

"Next morning the caravan went on to Mora, and after we'd bid good-by to
Mrs. Dale and Paul, before which I give the boy two hundred dollars
for himself, me, Thorpe, and Curtis pulled out with our team north for
Frenchman's Creek, and I never felt so miserable before nor since as I
did parting with the kid that morning. I hain't never seen him since;
but he must be nigh forty now. Mebby he went into the war and was
killed; mebby he got to be a general, but I hain't forgot him."

Uncle John knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and without saying another
word went into the tent. In a few moments the camp was as quiet as a
country village on Sunday, excepting the occasional howling of a hungry
wolf down in the timbered recesses of the Washita, or the crackling and
sputtering of the signal fires on the hilltops.

In a few days afterward, we were camping on Hackberry Creek, in the
Indian Territory. We had been living on wild turkey, as before for some
time, and still longed for a change. At last one of my hunters succeeded
in bagging a dozen or more quails. Late that evening, when my cook
brought the delicious little birds, beautifully spitted and broiled on
peeled willow twigs, into my tent, I passed one to Uncle John. Much to
the surprise of every one, he refused. He said, "Boys, I don't eat no
quail!"

We looked at him in astonishment; for he was somewhat of a gourmand, and
prided himself upon the "faculty," as he termed it, of being able to
eat anything, from a piece of jerked buffalo-hide to the juiciest young
antelope steak.

I remonstrated with the venerable guide; said to him, "You are making a
terrible mistake, Uncle John. Tomorrow I expect to leave here, and as we
are going directly away from the buffalo country, we don't know when
we shall strike fresh meat again. You'd better try one," and I again
proffered one of the birds.

"Boys," said he again, "I don't tech quail; I hain't eat one for more
than twenty years. One of the little cusses saved my life once, and I
swore right thar and then that I would starve