ir rear.

At the first alarm, Mr. Stuart and his comrades had seized their rifles,
and attempted to cut off the Indians who were pursuing the horses. Their
attention was instantly distracted by whoops and yells in an opposite
direction.

They now apprehended that a reserve party was about to carry off their
baggage. They ran to secure it. The reserve party, however, galloped by,
whooping and yelling in triumph and derision. The last of them proved to
be their commander, the identical giant joker already mentioned. He was
not cast in the stern poetical mold of fashionable Indian heroism, but
on the contrary, was grievously given to vulgar jocularity. As he passed
Mr. Stuart and his companions, he checked his horse, raised himself
in his saddle, and clapping his hand on the most insulting part of his
body, uttered some jeering words, which, fortunately for their delicacy,
they could not understand. The rifle of Ben Jones was leveled in an
instant, and he was on the point of whizzing a bullet into the target so
tauntingly displayed. "Not for your life! not for your life!" exclaimed
Mr. Stuart, "you will bring destruction on us all!"

It was hard to restrain honest Ben, when the mark was so fair and the
insult so foul. "O, Mr. Stuart," exclaimed he, "only let me have one
crack at the infernal rascal, and you may keep all the pay that is due
to me."

"By heaven, if you fire," cried Mr. Stuart, "I'll blow your brains out."

By this time the Indian was far out of reach, and had rejoined his men,
and the whole dare-devil band, with the captured horses, scuttled off
along the defiles, their red flag flaunting overhead, and the rocks
echoing to their whoops and yells, and demoniac laughter.

The unhorsed travellers gazed after them in silent mortification and
despair; yet Mr. Stuart could not but admire the style and spirit with
which the whole exploit had been managed, and pronounced it one of the
most daring and intrepid actions he had ever heard of among Indians.
The whole number of the Crows did not exceed twenty. In this way a small
gang of lurkers will hurry off the cavalry of a large war party, for
when once a drove of horses are seized with panic, they become frantic,
and nothing short of broken necks can stop them.

No one was more annoyed by this unfortunate occurrence than Ben Jones.
He declared he would actually have given his whole arrears of pay,
amounting to upwards of a year's wages, rather than be balked o