s it would
pass through the territory of the Comanches, whose villages, etcetera,
if unprotected, would, in all probability, have been plundered, and
their women and children murdered, induced the Comanches to break up
their camp, and return home as speedily as possible.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

During my convalescence, my tent, or I should say, the lawn before it,
became a kind of general divan, where the warrior and elders of the
tribe would assemble, to smoke and relate the strange stories of days
gone by. Some of them appeared to me particularly beautiful; I shall,
therefore, narrate them to the reader. One old chief began as
follows:--

"I will tell ye of the Shkote-nah Pishkuan, or the boat of fire, when I
saw it for the first time. Since that, the grass has withered fifteen
times in the prairies, and I have grown weak and old. Then I was a
warrior, and many scalps have I taken on the eastern shores of the
Sabine. Then, also, the Pale-faces, living in the prairies were good;
we fought them because we were enemies, but they never stole anything
from us, nor we from them.

"Well, at that time, we were once in the spring hunting the buffalo.
The Caddoes, who are now a small tribe of starved dogs, were then a
large powerful nation, extending from the Cross Timbers to the waters of
the great stream, in the East, but they were gamblers and drunkards;
they would sell all their furs for the `Shoba-wapo' (fire-water), and
return to their villages to poison their squaws, and make brutes of
their children. Soon they got nothing more to sell; and as they could
not now do without the `Shoba-wapo,' they began to steal. They would
steal the horses and oxen of the Pale-faces, and say `The Comanches did
it.' When they killed trappers or travellers, they would go to the fort
of the Yankees and say to them, `Go to the wigwams of the Comanches, and
you will see the scalps of your friends hanging upon long poles.' But
we did not care, for we knew it was not true.

"A long time passed away, when the evil spirit of the Caddoes whispered
to them to come to the villages of the Comanches while they were hunting
and to take away with them all that they could. They did so, entering
the war-path as foxes and owls, during night. When they arrived, they
found nothing but squaws, old women, and little children. Yet these
fought well, and many of the Caddoes were killed before they abandoned
their lodges. They soon found us o