Year: 1877

Next day about midafternoon the party
came upon two dead Indian ponies. living
between the trail and the foothills to
the right. A few yards further on was a
great stain of blood on the two inches of
snow covering the grass. A warrior had
fallen here and been carried off by his
comrades. There was a trail of white
man on foot, heading for the foothills,
but moving very slowly, and there were
plain traces that the man halted every
few minutes to use his WEAPON. Ali
along the trail We're the hoof tracks of
ponies; and an old hunter shook his head
and said


4" 1t is the man who left our camp last
night. Back thar is whar the reds just
sighted him, and he stood in his tracks
and killed two ponies and an Injun.
There was gang of forty or fifty reds,
and the white man moved to git among
the hills and have fair play. Just look
thar !! -


Fifteen or twenty rods ahead were
three dead ponies, lying close together.
The band of redskins had made charge
upon the lone man at this point and he
had met them bravely. The snow told
everything. Standing in his tracks, and
not lifting foot except to wheel around,
he had whipped the whole gang. There
were dead ponies within 100 feet nf the
white mans position, and again the snow
was crlmsoned with two great patches of
blood where the warriors had fallen.


"Great God but how he fti'' whis-
pered the old hunter, as he saw how the
snow had been trampled down; "but
they wounded him here


So they hnd. He had retreated slow
ly, seeming to have no fear, and along
his trail was track of blood The first
hills were mile away, and straight for
the hills ran the bloody path through the
snow. There were no sounds of conflict
no red demons in sight. (Which for
who" had met them early in the morning,
and the tragedy had been played before
the sun was two hours old Again be-
tween the three dead ponies and the first
hill the white man had been charged by
the full band. They had circled around
him, and then charged at common CEN
ter. One lone man. armed with a caf-
bine and an ak, was the center. Thirty,
forty, perhaps fifty, to one, and yet he
had not weakened in the least On the
right was dead pony; on the left, two
crimson spots in the snow. Ahead,
toward the hill, a horse had fallen and
struggled up, and half a dozen trails of
blood could be counted The Indians
had given way, and at slow pace the
white man had resumed his journey.


"You will see a sight to make your
flesh crawl over in the hills !'' whispered
the hunter, and the party slowly ad-
vanced.


The lone man had not hurried his
pace. The yelling, bowling, whooping
redskins galloping around him, firing
upon him, and sure of his scalp, had not
shaken his nerve. Over the hill, across
little valley, up a ravine, and there
was the end. The white man could go
no further, and there he stood at bay.


May the Lord have mercy on him p
gasped the miner, as the little band
looked over the field of battle. There
were dead and wounded ponies there
were blood patches on the snow, and
four Indians, stark and stiff, were lying
to one side, the survivors not having
horses enough to carry off their dead.


At the head of the ravine the snow had
scarcely color except red. The red
skins had charged in a body, and, drop
ping his carbine when the last cartridge
was gone, the lone man had used his
ak with awful effect. They had shot
him and struck him with their toma-
hawks, and when life went out he had
more wounds than could be counted.
There he lay, the ak still clutched with
giants grip, his eyes wide open, his
body covered with wounds, and before
him was a record to prove a more terri
BILE fight than Clusters. He had fought
fifty men single-handed He had driven
them back again and again, and a dozen
lives had been taken for his one
(which for who," he had said, and
who" had won, but it was not a vic
tory for the red men to boast over
When they rode out of the valley every
horse had double burden of living and
dead, and yet some had to be left be-
hind.


The party could not dig up the frozen
ground to give the brave man burial
Fifty miles away the gaunt wolves were
tearing at the bodies of wife and chill
dren. As the party turned away from
the horrible sight, gaunt wolves crept
down to strip these bones also They
rushed from corpse to corpse, gnashing
their yellow fangs, and before the sun
went down another record of the plains
and hills was hidden from sight of the
traveler.-Ne,U York Sun


INTERNAL INHIETY


Coming down this morning we noticed
in front of a negro shanty n milk cart to