I knew it would not do to show the white feather. I leaped on my horse, whom I had still been leading, and rode toward the savage, hallooing with all my might. He stopped for a minute, eyed me curiously, took down his gun, thought better of it, and left for the neighboring timber. Upon this I put spurs to poor Nig, who met the exigency with all his reserve capital of speed. In five minutes more I was on the brink of the river.

Directly opposite, on the northern bank, stood a snow-white tent, and above it floated St. George's Cross!

If Robinson Crusoe, in one of his goat hunts, had suddenly come to the office of the British consulate, he could not have been taken more aback by that sight than I by this!

I rubbed my eyes to make sure that it was not a dream of exhausted nerves and an empty stomach. But my horse gave a joyful neigh, which was quickly answered by several of the same sort, in the tent's immediate neighborhood. I knew horses were not given to nervous hallucination, and, without any attempt to explain a verdict which could not be impugned, plunged Nig into the Republican, and forded to the opposite shore. A bluff, jolly Englishman, of undeniable Pall Mall flavor, hailed me as I touched the bank, and pointed out the access to his camp. This was pitched on high ground, surrounded by a slough except at one narrow point, which was covered with the densest forest and undergrowth. If an Englishman's house is his castle, his camp in this instance was still more so. Twenty resolute white men could have defended it against a thousand Sioux. Nothing in the defenses of Washington was stronger

by natural position. If the Rev. Clarence FitzPotts, with his love of the Medieval had been there, he would have erected a ruined donjon keep upon it immediately.

With all the aid of friendly showing, I spent a full half-hour in getting round to shake the hands I had seen extended to me on my landing. I never knew that the sight of a British flag, and the sound of the British accent, could make me as glad as I was when I reached the camp. I was received with a genuine cordial welcome, which made me forgive Liverpool and the "Morning Post." My new acquaintance and his comrades were members of Lord Lyons's embassy, out on a buffalo hunt like myself. They had come all the way from Washington to see a herd, but as yet had not sighted a single bull. I was able to give them cheering news, and encourage them with the prospect of approaching reward for a difficult journey. They had turned off in the wrong direction from the high northern divide, and found a series of bad draws and rough hammocks, which much hampered their progress. It was as John Gilbert had said. His unerring eye had not failed him. I now saw what a good thing for me it had proved that they went astray. Such a happy providence is not vouchsafed to one man in a thousand as this discovery of white friends and civilized shelter, when lost in the wild heart of the Continent.

It is hardly necessary to say that the Indian I had seen proved to be an attaché of the party. He had gone out hunting, and, when he returned, had a story as interesting as my own, about a savage figure starting from the grass.

My horse was picketed. I had made amends for

the day's inanition by a hearty supper of Yarmouth bloaters, Scotch marmalade, toasted pilot-bread, canned beef, and English breakfast tea. There was a dreamy quiet over the whole twilight landscape, and I sat in it smoking my pipe, with a sense of perfect rest, only broken by my appreciation of the anxiety which would be felt for me by my party.

I had finished my pipe, and sat chatting with one of the party, when another member came from the tent with a troubled face, and asked me if I knew anything about medicine.

"Too much," I replied: "who is sick of it now?"

"Mr. has just been attacked with terrible distress in the epigastrium. He is suffering from wretched cramps, and I don't know but he may be in serious danger."

I saw that his trouble was only one of our ordinary Western summer affairs, and, knowing that it would presently cure itself, set to work to relieve the immediate pain. I had one of the servants build a roaring fire, and set on it a camp-kettle full of water. In about five minutes this was scalding hot, and I kept a steady express-train of towels, freshly wrung out of it, running between it and the epigastric station referred to.

This treatment was an instantaneous success in more senses than one. It not only quieted the patient's pain, but brought relief to the anxiety of his friends. When the bright fire I had made leapt up into the dark, it became a beacon to two despondent horsemen, who were searching vainly for me on the southern bluff. They immediately pushed for it; and nearly an hour after the first towel had started from the kettle, Munger and John Gilbert appeared at the

further bank of the river, and shouted, "Halloo!" I left my patient sinking into a pleasant sleep, and disclosed to them myself and my safety, after which I had the pleasure of piloting them round the slough by the same path which had led me to camp.

They were as glad to see me as I to see them. I found that they had been in search of me for three hours, having returned from their hunt to dinner, and started out again to look me up soon after that. I introduced them to my new friends, got them supper, and then we all camped down under our blankets (my friends had thoughtfully brought mine out to me), to await the daylight that should enable us to return.

The impression in our own camp had been that I was killed or horribly mangled by some old bull, whom I had brought to bay. Such things happen every season; and the fact that Nig was famous for his pluck in riding up to the very head of the buffalo whom his master had wounded, did not diminish the fear of my friends in my behalf.

I further found that I had been within a mile of our camp, when I struck the high bluff where I found the deserted Indian camp. I learned a new fact about the bluffs of the Republican. They do not run parallel with the river, but alternately recede and approach, making the river bottom a succession of amphitheatres, the ends of whose semicircles rise precipitously from the water, like the bluff in question. Had I known this fact, I should not have been misled by the conformation of the land. The very next amphitheatrical bottom below the Indian bluff was the one on which our party lay encamped.

This had been a day of curious good fortune to me,

though I regretted to think that it all arose from some corresponding misfortune on the part of my British friends. If they had not diverged from their course on the northern divide, I should have crossed the river to-night, only to change my place of desolation; there would have been no British flag here to gladden an American eye. If my friend had not been attacked in the epigastrium, I should have built no fire. Had I built none, my comrades would have turned back to camp in despair. They had just concluded to do so, when my beacon flamed up through the dark. I thought of these things with a tendency to philosophize, but Zeno himself would have gone to sleep after such a day as I had spent. In five minutes, thoughtless and philosophers, we were all "sawing gourds" together in the land of Nod.

The sun was not half an hour high when our blankets were strapped behind our saddles, and we ourselves had shaken hands with our kind hosts. We had gone as far as Turkey Draw, a wet ravine about four miles from the English camp (and very well named, as the rapid departure from their nests of several turkey-hens at our approach convinced us), when we caught sight of two fine buffalo on the broad meadow, bordering the opposite side of the draw. I felt glad of an opportunity for retrieving myself, and bringing a little meat home to camp, after my long absence. So I stole quietly across the stream into its fringing timber, and, dismounting from Nig, took steady aim at the nearest buffalo. He was grazing with his haunches toward me. The ball broke his right hip, and he plunged away on three legs, the other swinging useless. I leapt on my horse, put spurs to him, and was in three minutes close on the bull's