ew, also, that when he got ready, which would be when some incident of
camp-life inspired him, he would be as garrulous as ever.

One evening just before supper, a party of enlisted men who had been up
the creek to catch fish, but had failed to take anything owing to the
frozen condition of the stream, returned with the skeleton of a
Cheyenne Indian which they had picked up on the battle-ground of a month
previously--one of Custer's victims in his engagement with Black Kettle.
This was the incentive Uncle John required. As he gazed on the bleached
bones of the warrior, he said: "Boys, I'm going to tell you a good long
story to-night. Them Ingin's bones has put me in mind of it. After we've
eat, if you fellows wants to hear it, come down to headquarters tent,
and I'll give it to you."

Of course word was rapidly passed from one to another, as the whole camp
was eager to hear the old trapper again. In a short time, every man not
on guard or detailed to keep up the signals on the hills gathered around
the dying embers of the cook's fire in front of my tent; the enlisted
men and teamsters in groups by themselves, the officers a little closer
in a circle, in the centre of which Uncle John sat.

The night was cold, the sky covered with great fleecy patches, through
which the full moon, just fairly risen, appeared to be racing, under the
effect of that optical illusion caused by the rapidly moving clouds. The
coyotes had commenced their nocturnal concert in the timbered recesses
of the creek not far away, and on the battle-field a short distance
beyond, as they battened and fought over the dead warriors and the
carcasses of twelve hundred ponies killed in that terrible slaughter by
the intrepid Custer and his troopers. The signals on the hills leaped
into the crisp air like the tongues of dragons in the myths of the
ancients; in fact, the whole aspect of the place, as we sat around the
blazing logs of our camp-fire, was weird and uncanny.

Every one was eager for the veteran guide to begin his tale; but as I
knew he could not proceed without smoking, I passed him my pouch of Lone
Jack--the brand par excellence in the army at that time.

Uncle John loaded his corn-cob, picked up a live coal, and, pressing
it down on the tobacco with his thumb, commenced to puff vigorously. As
soon as his withered old face was half hidden in a cloud of smoke, he
opened his story in his stereotyped way. I relate it just as he told it,
but div