condition
would be carried out to the neighboring hillsides just before
dissolution, and there abandoned to their sufferings, with little or
no attention, unless the placing under their heads of a small stick
of wood--with possibly some laudable object, but doubtless great
discomfort to their victim--might be considered such.

To uproot these senseless and monstrous practices was indeed most
difficult. The most pernicious of all was one which was likely to
bring about tragic results. They believed firmly in a class of
doctors among their people who professed that they could procure the
illness of an individual at will, and that by certain incantations
they could kill or cure the sick person. Their faith in this
superstition was so steadfast that there was no doubting its
sincerity, many indulging at times in the most trying privations,
that their relatives might be saved from death at the hands of the
doctors. I often talked with them on the subject, and tried to
reason them out of the superstitious belief, defying the doctors to
kill me, or even make me ill; but my talks were unavailing, and they
always met my arguments with the remark that I was a white man, of a
race wholly different from the red man, and that that was the reason
the medicine of the doctors would not affect me. These villainous
doctors might be either men or women, and any one of them finding an
Indian ill, at once averred that his influence was the cause,
offering at the same time to cure the invalid for a fee, which
generally amounted to about all the ponies his family possessed. If
the proposition was accepted and the fee paid over, the family, in
case the man died, was to have indemnity through the death of the
doctor, who freely promised that they might take his life in such
event, relying on his chances of getting protection from the furious
relatives by fleeing to the military post till time had so assuaged
their grief that matters could be compromised or settled by a
restoration of a part of the property, when the rascally leeches
could again resume their practice. Of course the services of a
doctor were always accepted when an Indian fell ill; otherwise the
invalid's death would surely ensue, brought about by the evil
influence that was unpropitiated. Latterly it had become quite the
thing, when a patient died, for the doctor to flee to our camp--it
was so convenient and so much safer than elsewhere--and my cellar was
a favorite p