ie merchant it is neither deep nor profound. Horrid
visions float before his rapt senses--scenes of red carnage--causing him
ever and anon to awake with a start, once or twice with a cry that wakes
his companion.

Otherwise Walt Wilder would have slept as soundly as if reposing on the
couch of a log cabin a thousand miles removed from any scene of danger.
It is no new thing for him to go to sleep with the yell of savages
sounding in his ears. For a period of over twenty years he has daily,
as nightly, stretched his huge form along mountain slope or level
prairie, and often with far more danger of having his "hair raised"
before rising erect again. For ten years he belonged to the "Texas
Rangers"--that strange organisation that has existed ever since Stephen
Austin first planted his colony in the land of the "Lone Star." If on
this night the ex-Ranger is more than usually restless, it is from
anxiety about his comrade, coupled with the state of his nervous system,
stirred to feverish excitement by the terrible conflict through which
they have just passed. Notwithstanding all, he slumbers in long spells,
at times snoring like an alligator.

At no time does the ex-Ranger stand in need of much sleep, even after
the most protracted toil. Six hours is his usual daily or nocturnal
dose; and as the grey dawn begins to glimmer over the tops of the shin
oaks, he springs to his feet, shakes the dew from his shoulders like a
startled stag, and then stoops down to examine the condition of his
wounded comrade.

"Don't ye git up yit, Frank," he says. "We mustn't start till we hev a
clar view all roun', an' be sure there's neery redskin in sight. Then
we kin take the sun a leetle on our left side, an' make tracks to the
south-eastart. How is't wi' ye?"

"I feel weak as water. Still I fancy I can travel a little farther."

"Wall, we'll go slow. Ef there's none o' the skunks arter us, we kin
take our time. Durn me! I'm still a wonderin' what Injuns they war;
I'm a'most sartint thar the Tenawa Kimanch--a band o' the Buffler-eaters
an' the wust lot on all the parairia. Many's the fight we rangers used
to hev wi' 'em, and many's the one o' 'em this child hev rubbed out. Ef
I only hed my rifle hyar--durn the luck hevin' to desart that gun--I ked
show you nine nicks on her timmer as stan' for nine Tenawa Kimanch.
Ef't be them, we've got to keep well to the southart. Thar range lays
most in the Canadyen, or round the head