t, by lighting one or
more fires; secondly, by flashing the sunlight by small mirrors from
one bluff to another. Thus, by day or by night, they can communicate at
great distances. They have "field-glasses" also.

If an Indian is benighted on the plains, he can make himself quite
comfortable, where a white man would perish in the winter with cold. He
will gather some buffalo chips, and strike a fire with a flint, sitting
close to it, and throwing his blanket around him in shape of a tent,
and let the smoke go out of a hole at the top. He thus looks at night
like a stump on fire.

MERCIFUL INDIANS.

A poor old German was traveling in Colorado with his wagon, when he was
set upon by a lot of Indians. They drew their bows to shoot him, when
he dropped upon his knees and began to pray vehemently. "Oh," said he,
"mine goot friends, please don't shoot me! I'm joost the best friends
what you have got. I never killed not nobody, and please don't shoot a
poor fellow like me." The Indians did not understand a word he said,
but he acted in such a ludicrous manner, they thought he was crazy, and
so they let him pass unharmed. They seemed to have a sense of the
ludicrous, as they went off laughing at the poor Dutchman quite
heartily.

A SCENE AT NORTH PLATTE.

After the treaty with the Indians at Fort Laramie, in 1868, the Peace
Commission adjourned, part to go with General Sherman to New Mexico, a
part to meet at Fort Rice, Dakota, with General Terry, part to go up to
Fort Bridger, in Wyoming, with General Augur, and another with
Commissioner Taylor at North Platte, Nebraska, to meet different tribes
not present at Laramie. There I went to see Spotted Tail's band, and
learn all I could of Indian life. Spotted Tail was off on the
Republican River, in Kansas, hunting buffalo with White Bear and
Man-who-owns-his-Horses, nephew of Spotted Tail. Mr. Goodell, of
Chicago, was there, to see if he could not induce the Indians to
undertake the weaving of blankets and shawls, etc. by hand-looms, such
as are in use in the Ohio Penitentiary. I went with him to hear what
they would say. Rolled up in a blanket were specimens of woolen yarn of
bright colors, and a piece of cloth partly woven, and he had a picture
of a girl sitting at the loom in the act of weaving. Around us gathered
all the young squaws, who expressed great delight at the whole thing
and seemed to comprehend it; while young Indian lads stood at a
distance an