horrid performances to
satisfy his curiosity, left with his companions, "without waiting to
see the dance through." The dance, with its bloody orgies, lasted three
whole days. This Sun Dance is not as common as formerly, and as the
Indians settle on reservations, it is wholly done away with. The origin
of the custom is uncertain.

JULESBURG.

My experience on the plains dates from September, 1867. The government
ordered me to report to Fort Sedgwick, a post on the south side of the
Platte River, three hundred and seventy-seven miles west of Omaha. This
post lies four miles south of Julesburg, then the end of the Union
Pacific Railroad. There were five thousand people there, and it was
said to be the most wicked city in the world. Thieves and escaped
convicts came here to gamble and lead bad lives, as they had done in
Eastern cities, until driven away for fear of punishment; and often
three or four would be shot down at night in drunken rows with their
companions in vice and crime.

A mammoth tent was erected for a dance-house and gambling purposes. It
was called "The King of the Hills," and was filled up with handsome
mirrors, pianos, and furniture, and was the scene of all kinds of
wickedness. It rented for six hundred dollars a day!

Here hundreds of men, engaged as freighters, teamsters, and
"bull-whackers,"--as they were called, and who were in the employ of
Wells, Fargo & Co. in freighting goods in large wagons to Idaho,
Montana, Salt Lake, and California,--would congregate at night and
gamble and carouse, spending all their three months' earnings, only to
go back, earn more, and spend it again in this foolish and wicked
manner.

One day I came over to the city, and while driving from the express
office, heard pistol-shots, and soon saw the men, women, and children
running in every direction. I got out of the way, fearing danger, and
listened, till I had heard at least twenty shots, and then all was
still. I went round to ascertain the cause, and soon found myself among
a crowd of excited persons. I learned that a bad young man had robbed a
poor negro boy of one hundred and thirty dollars he had earned at the
railroad station, and had laid it by to go to his home in Baltimore.
The fellow denied it, and said "he'd shoot any one who tried to arrest
him." A police officer followed him into a saloon, when the thief at
once turned and fired at the officer, wounding him in his right elbow,
so he could not