rival there came in a Lieutenant
Hesselberger, bringing with him a Mrs. Box and her two daughters, one
about sixteen and the other twelve. The Indians had on the Texas
frontier murdered and scalped her husband before her eyes, burned their
home, and carried the three into captivity, where for six months they
were daily subjected to such _incredible_ outrages and cruelty that it
was simply a miracle that they survived. As it was, they looked exactly
like corpses. Lieutenant Hesselberger, with bravery beyond belief,
having heard of these captives, went alone to the Indians to ransom them.
Firstly, they fired guns unexpectedly close to his head, and finding that
he did not start, brought out the captives and subjected them to the
extremes of gross abuse before his eyes, and repeatedly knocked them down
with clubs, all of which he affected to disregard. At last the price was
agreed on and he took them away.

In after years, when I described all this in London to Stanley, the
African explorer, he said, "Strange! I, too, was there that very day,
and saw those women, and wrote an account of it to the _New York
Herald_." I daresay that I met and talked to him at the time among those
whom we saw.

Not far from our camp there was a large and well-populated beaver-dam,
which I studied with great interest. It was more like a well regulated
town than is many a western mining village. I do not wonder that Indians
regard _Quahbeet_, the beaver, as a human being in disguise. N.B.--The
beaver always, when he cuts a stick, sharpens it like a lead-pencil--which
indicates an artistic nature.

It was now resolved that a number of our party should go into the Smoky
Hill country to attend a very great Indian council, while the rest
returned home. So I joined the adventurers. The meeting was not held,
for I believe the Indians went to war. But we rode on. One morning I
saw afar a few black specks, and thought they were cattle. And so they
were, but the free cattle of the plains, or buffaloes. That evening, as
we were out of meat, Colton and others went out to hunt them, and had a
fine chase, but got nothing.

The next morning Colton kindly gave me his chance--that is, he resigned
to me a splendid black horse used to the business--and most of us went to
the field. After a while, or a four miles' run, we came up with a
number. There was a fine cow singled out and shot at, and I succeeded in
putting a ball in just behind the