nd smear the front of his body.

After running a while he heard footsteps, and turning saw an Indian with
a spear but a few yards behind him. Being exhausted, and fearing that at
any moment the spear might be hurled at him, he concluded to surprise
the Indian. Stopping suddenly he wheeled about and presented his bloody
body and outstretched arms to the Indian.

The red man, greatly astonished, in attempting to stop quickly stumbled
and fell, breaking his spear. Before the prostrate runner could recover
himself Coulter seized the head of the shaft and quickly pinioned his
foe to the ground.

Then the fleeing hunter ran at his topmost speed toward the river, about
a mile distant. Arriving there a little ahead of his pursuers, he
plunged into the water and swam as fast as he could. Observing a raft of
drift-wood that had lodged against a small island, he dived under the
debris, and thrusting his head up between the tree-trunks of the
heterogeneous mass succeeded in getting into a position where he could
breathe and yet be concealed.

No sooner had he hidden himself than the yelling savages appeared on the
river's bank. They looked in all directions for their missing captive,
but in vain. They even went on the island and climbed over the
drift-wood, scanning every possible place of concealment. Seeing no
trace of their white prisoner they reluctantly returned to the mainland.
Coulter remained under the raft in dreadful suspense until night, when,
hearing nothing of his foes, he silently slipped from under the raft
and swam down stream a long distance before landing.

His situation was now indeed a desperate one; his feet had become filled
with thorns from the prickly pear while running across the prairie; he
was also naked, hungry, and without means to kill the wild game for
food; moreover, the distance to the nearest fort was at least a
seven-days' journey. But he was in excellent physical condition and,
being inured to hardships and skilled in traversing the pathless
wilderness, he at length reached the fort, having subsisted in the
meantime chiefly on roots whose nutritious value he had learned from the
Indians.

John Bridger, a famous hunter, was familiar with the region now known as
Yellowstone Park as early as 1830, and he endeavored to have his
descriptions of it published, but he could find no periodical or
newspaper willing to print his statements. In Bridger's case, however,
there was ground for doubt, inas