to accompany the band. This offer was gladly accepted on account of his
services as their medico; and for two years he had been with them,
sharing their hardships and dangers.

Many a scene of peril had he passed through, many a privation had he
undergone, prompted by a love of his favourite study, and perhaps, too,
by the dreams of future triumph, when he would one day spread his
strange flora before the _savants_ of Europe. Poor Reichter! Poor
Friedrich Reichter! yours was the dream of a dream; it never became a
reality!

Our supper was at length finished, and washed down with a bottle of Paso
wine. There was plenty of this, as well as Taos whisky in the
encampment; and the roars of laughter that reached us from without
proved that the hunters were imbibing freely of the latter.

The doctor drew out his great meerschaum, Gode filled a red claystone,
while Seguin and I lit our husk cigarettes.

"But tell me," said I, addressing Seguin, "who is the Indian?--he who
performed the wild feat of shooting the--"

"Ah! El Sol; he is a Coco."

"A Coco?"

"Yes; of the Maricopa tribe."

"But that makes me no wiser than before. I knew that much already."

"You knew it? Who told you?"

"I heard old Rube mention the fact to his comrade Garey."

"Ay, true; he should know him." Seguin remained silent.

"Well?" continued I, wishing to learn more. "Who are the Maricopas? I
have never heard of them."

"It is a tribe but little known, a nation of singular men. They are
foes of the Apache and Navajo; their country lies down the Gila. They
came originally from the Pacific, from the shores of the Californian
Sea."

"But this man is educated, or seems so. He speaks English and French as
well as you or I. He appears to be talented, intelligent, polite--in
short, a gentleman."

"He is all you have said."

"I cannot understand this."

"I will explain to you, my friend. That man was educated at one of the
most celebrated universities in Europe. He has travelled farther and
through more countries, perhaps, than either of us."

"But how did he accomplish all this? An Indian!"

"By the aid of that which has often enabled very little men (though El
Sol is not one of those) to achieve very great deeds, or at least to get
the credit of having done so. By gold."

"Gold! and where got he the gold? I have been told that there is very
little of it in the hands of Indians. The white men have robbed them of
all