"We walked by the side of our teams or behind the wagons, we slept on the ground at night, we did our own cooking, we washed our knives by sticking them into the ground rapidly a few times, and we washed our plates with sand and wisps of grass. When we stopped, we arranged our wagons in a circle, and thus formed a 'corral,' or yard, where we drove our oxen to yoke them up. And the corral was often very useful as a fort, or camp, for defending ourselves against the Indians. Do you see that little hollow down there?" he asked, pointing to a depression in the ground a short distance to the right of the train. "Well, in that hollow our wagon-train was kept three days and nights by the Indians. Three days and nights they stayed around, and made several attacks. Two of our men were killed and three were wounded by their arrows, and others had narrow escapes. One arrow hit me on the throat, but I was saved by the knot of my neckerchief, and the point only tore the skin a little. Since that time I have always had a fondness for large neckties. I don't know how many of the Indians we killed, as they carried off their dead and wounded, to save them from being scalped. Next to getting the scalps of their enemies, the most important thing with the Indians is to save their own. We had several fights during our journey, but that one was the worst. Once a little party of us were surrounded in a small 'wallow,' and had a tough time to defend ourselves successfully. Luckily for us, the Indians had no fire-arms then, and their bows and arrows were no match for our rifles. Nowadays they are well armed, but there are[Pg 41] not so many of them, and they are not inclined to trouble the railway trains. They used to do a great deal of mischief in the old times, and many a poor fellow has been killed by them."The General looked at me between puffs of his cigar. "I hear you've ridden over fifty miles to-day."
"The navigation is difficult along the Pei-ho River, and the steamers of the attacking fleet found the passage barred by cables stretched across the stream. They had considerable trouble to break through these obstructions, but they finally succeeded, and the rest of the voyage to Tien-tsin was accomplished far more easily than the capture of the forts.""Ah! 'twas your doubt first and the dream after! But let us think no more of blame, we must settle the doubt. We shall begin that to-morrow." On my venturing to say more he interrupted. "Well, we can do nothing now; at the present, sleep is our first business." However, after a little, he spoke again, and, I believe, purely in order to soothe me to slumber, speculated and counselled with me for the better part of an hour concerning my own poor little love affair.Rude? You said, rude. How was she rude?
