a nation of marksmen can be lost to us. So far, there
is little evidence of this change. The deer and the wild-turkey are
nearly as abundant on the Atlantic slope of the Alleghanies as they
ever were. Probably there are more of both in Virginia than at the
time of the settlement of Jamestown. Like the quail and the bee, they
are favored by a certain advance of population and cultivation.

Another species of aborigine does not similarly thrive in the path of
the rifle. The Indian of the Plains is still troublesome occasionally,
but far less so than when blue-coats and blunderbusses joined forces
against him. The odds then were often on his side, for many of the red
men were armed with the rifle, while the troops had but the musket and
carbine. The appearance of the breech-loading rifle in the hands of
the United States dragoons on the frontier just fifteen years ago let
in new light upon the Camanche and Apache mind. Up to that period the
badgering of a detachment of "heavies" was a favorite pastime with
these gentry. They got up their "spring fights" with as much coolness
and regularity as the early patriarchs of Texas are related to have
done, and not merely, as in the case of the latter, in utter contempt,
but directly at the expense, of the constituted authorities. Tying
a bag of dried mule-meat and pounded corn to the peak of his saddle,
fashioning a small supply of arrows, or balls if he boasted the
spectre of a gun, coloring the inferior half of his frontispiece a
rich vermilion and the upper a delicate green, with ramifications of
lampblack coursing tastefully along the cheek-bones and the bridge of
the nose, twisting a crane's feather into the tail of his horse, and
giving his affectionate squaw a farewell kick, the cavalier of the
prairie was ready for a raid on the Long-knives. Making a rapid
night-march or two, he would carry the "latest intelligence from
the Indian country" to the border ranches of Texas or New Mexico.
Stampeding all the horses and mules that stood or ranged convenient,
and under favorable circumstances some cattle and sheep, and
"gobbling" on occasion some incautious Cyrion or Phyllis of the
Western Arcadia, the marauder made for the mountains. By the time he
had well passed the last outpost the hue-and-cry was at his heels,
followed, after an easy-going delay, by the lumbering dragoon. The
soldier, armed with ineffectual sabre and carbine, encumbered with
a variety of traps about as usefu