know that you would espouse his cause against us if you had seen him take some bits of rocks out of his pocket every night after we had reached camp, and put them to soak in his wash-basin. They were given to him by Tom, who assured him that they were sponge stone—a variety that softened by keeping them in water for a certain length of time. After a few nights of faithful practice it dawned upon him that he was again the victim of a practical joke, and he quietly dropped them by the way without saying a word. You need not trouble yourself to take up arms in his defence, for he gets even with us in the long-run.
He has been so pleased with his mule from the first, and has praised him to me repeatedly. He is a good animal, for a mule, but endurance, in his constitution, rather triumphs over speed. I could not resist taking advantage of the country to play a trick on "Bos" one day.
The land was undulating, and you know how it always seems as if one could surely see for miles beyond when the top of each divide is reached, and how one can go on all day over the constant rise and fall of the earth, thinking the next divide will reveal a vast stretch of country. "Bos" rode beside me, and I invented an excuse to go in advance; I made "Vic" gallop slowly over the divide, and when out of sight on the other side I put spurs to him and dashed through the low ground. When "Bos" came in sight I was slowly ambling up the next divide and calling to him to come on. He spurred his mule, shouted to him, and waved his arms and legs to incite him to a faster gait. When he neared me I disappeared over another divide, and giving "Vic" the rein only slackened speed when it became time for "Bos" to appear. Then, when I had brought my horse down to a walk I called out, "Why on earth don't you come on?" Believing that the gait he saw me take had been unvarying, he could not understand why I lengthened the distance between us so rapidly. I kept this up until he discovered my joke, and I was obliged to ride back to join him and suit "Vic's" steps to those of his exhausted mule. . . .
No Indians or signs of Indians were seen from the time we left Lincoln until the day before yesterday, when about twenty were discovered near the column. They scampered off as soon as observed. Yesterday we came where they had slept. The officer on rear-guard duty saw about twenty-five following our trail.
