see ahead for more than ten or fifteen yards, and it was two miles through the forest.  I expected to have trouble, and prepared for it by dropping my bridle-reins on the neck of the horse, putting my Sharp’s rifle at full cock, and keeping both my spurs into the pony’s flanks, and he went through that forest “like a streak of greased lightning.”

At the top of the hill I dismounted to rest my horse, and looking back saw the bushes moving in several places.  As there were no cattle or game in that vicinity, I knew the movements to be caused by Indians, and was more positive of it, when, after firing several shots at the spot where I saw the bushes in motion, all agitation ceased.  Several days after that two United States soldiers, who were on their way to their command, were shot and killed from the ambush of those bushes, and stripped of their clothing by the red devils.

One of my rides was the longest on the route.  I refer to the road between Cold Springs and Sand Springs, thirty-seven miles, and not a drop of water.  It was on this ride that I made a trip which possibly gave to our company the contract for carrying the mail by stage-coach across the Plains, a contract that was largely subsidized by Congress.

One day I trotted into Sand Springs covered with dust and perspiration.  Before I reached the station I saw a number of men running toward me, all carrying rifles, and one of them with a wave of his hand said, “All right, you pooty good boy; you go.”  I did not need a second order, and as quickly as possible rode out of their presence, looking back, however, as long as they were in sight, and keeping my rifle handy.

As I look back on those times I often wonder that we were not all killed.  A short time before, Major Ormsby of Carson City, in command of seventy-five or eighty men, went to Pyramid Lake to give battle to the Pi-Utes, who had been killing emigrants and prospectors by the wholesale.  Nearly all of the command were killed.  Another regiment of about seven hundred men, under the command of Colonel Daniel E. Hungerford and Jack Hayes, the noted Texas Ranger, was raised.  Hungerford was the beau-ideal of a soldier, as he was already the hero of three wars, and one of the best tacticians of his time.  This command drove the Indians pell-mell for three miles to Mud Lake, killing and wounding them at every jump.  Colonel Hungerford and Jack Hayes received, and were entitled, to great praise, for at the close of the war terms were made which have kept the Indians peaceable ever since.  Jack Hayes died several years ago in Alameda, California.  Colonel Hungerford, at the ripe age of seventy years, is hale and hearty, enjoying life and resting on his laurels in Italy, where he resides with his granddaughter, the Princess Colonna.

As previously stated it is marvellous that the pony boys were not all killed.