Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/446

 *tured too near the charmed circle was in danger of being seized by stout-armed viragoes, and compelled to prance about with them until his comrades had contributed a ransom of two dollars.

Neither were we altogether ignorant of the strange wonders of the "Bad Lands," which began near by, and are, or were, filled with the skeletons of mammoth saurians and other monsters of vanished seas. "Old Paul"—I don't think he ever had any other name—the driver of General Mackenzie's ambulance, had much to relate about these marvellous animal cemeteries. "Loo-o-tin-int," he would say, "it's the dog-gonedest country I ever seed—reg'lar bone-yard. (Waugh! Tobacco juice.) Wa'al, I got lots o' things out thar—thighs 'n jaw-bones 'n sich—them's no account, th' groun's chock full o' them. (Waugh! Tobacco juice.) But, pew-trified tar'pin 'n snappin' torkle—why, them's waller-*ble. Onct I got a bone full o' pew-trified marrer; looks like glass; guess I'll send it to a mew-see-um." (Waugh! Tobacco juice.)

The slopes of the hills seemed to be covered with Indian boys, ponies, and dogs. The small boy and the big dog are two of the principal features of every Indian village or Indian cavalcade; to these must be added the bulbous-eyed pappoose, in its bead-covered cradle slung to the saddle of its mother's pony, and wrapped so tightly in folds of cloth and buckskin that its optics stick out like door-knobs. The Indian boy is far ahead of his white contemporary in healthy vigor and manly beauty. Looking at the subject as a boy would, I don't know of an existence with more happiness to the square inch than that of the young redskin from eight to twelve years old. With no one to reproach him because face or hands are unclean, to scowl because his scanty allowance of clothing has run to tatters, and no long-winded lessons in geography or the Constitution of the United States, his existence is one uninterrupted gleam of sunshine. The Indian youngster knows every bird's nest for miles around, every good place for bathing, every nice pile of sand or earth to roll in. With a pony to ride—and he has a pony from the time he is four years old; and a bow—or, better luck still, a rifle—for shooting: he sees little in the schools of civilization to excite his envy. On ration days, when the doomed beeves are turned over to each band, what bliss to compare to that of charging after the frenzied steers and shooting them down on the dead run? When