Chapter II: Part 2

‘O no, sir; no magistrate!’ she cried out earnestly. ‘What I have to tell concerns my poor father, and I dare not state it to a magistrate, for it might ruin him. If you will not hear me and try to save my poor father, I shall die with sealed lips. O my father! my good kind father! it is too, too cruel that I must tell of your sin.’ The last words were pronounced almost in a cry; the tears filled her eyes, and she began to sob piteously. Her racking cough soon followed; and I feared that she must indeed die ‘with sealed lips,’ as she had said; for to me it seemed that every succeeding cough must be her last. After a little while, however, a slight respite came, and she tried to resume her statement. She gasped out: ‘The insurance—the Blank Insurance’ (mentioning the name of a well-known Company); ‘it’s not my’—— But before she could get any farther, the cough again seized her, and this time with such terrible power that the poor creature fell back utterly exhausted.

Fearing that her life was now really waning, I went to the door of the room for the nurse, who at once came in. When she had settled the sufferer in a more easy position, she turned to me and whispered: ‘Very little longer, sir!’ I, however, remained in the room, in the hope that after a little time she might have strength to resume her statement; but when half an hour had nearly elapsed without bringing with it any sign of returning strength, I saw that the statement must remain in its unfinished condition. I therefore wrote down carefully all that had occurred, put it into an envelope, sealed it, placed it in my pocket, and prepared to go away. Before doing so, I took one look at the form that lay on the bed before me. To describe her face, I cannot, though I seem to see it as distinctly to-day as I saw it then—one of those strangely exquisite flowers, whose tender growth so often kindles the selfish craving of the old reaper, Death. I had stood by many a death-bed; my profession had inured me to scenes of anguish and pain; but as I looked on that pale beautiful woman, and read on her features the impression which told only too plainly of a conflict of racking reality within, my cold heart softened, and my whole nature went forth in one great yearning to comfort and to soothe her. I breathed a prayer for the soul that was passing—earnest, as I had never known earnestness before; and with feelings too sad to portray, but too real to be forgotten, I left the room and the house.

Two days after this eventful night, my friend the clergyman (whom I subsequently discovered to be the newly appointed rector of a neighbouring parish) again entered my study. He told me that the poor young girl was dead, that she had passed away about half an hour after I had left the room, never having spoken a word after that terrible fit of coughing to which I had been a witness.

The question then came to be decided as to the meaning of the broken statement made by the young girl, and what was my duty with regard to it. I have since frequently questioned the wisdom and propriety of the course which I then pursued; but whether right or wrong, my action was the result of much deliberation. I wrote in the first instance to the insurance Company, asking them if they would kindly inform me, as solicitor for the late Miss M——, whether any insurance had been effected on her life with that Company; and if so, when and by whom it was effected, what was the amount of it, and to whom it had become payable by the fall of Miss M——’s life. I received a letter in reply from the secretary of the Company, informing me that my young friend had herself, about a year previously, effected an insurance on her own life in two policies of five thousand pounds each, and that if she had not otherwise assigned the policies during her lifetime, the sum of ten thousand pounds was payable to her executors or administrators, as the case might be.

The receipt of this information led me to believe, what I had suspected before, that there was something wrong about this insurance, though I could not exactly determine the nature of that something. I therefore wrote a second time to the Company, stating that I had reason to believe that it would be wise for the Company to make careful inquiries with reference to the Policy, before surrendering its value. The secretary at once wrote back to me asking me to state the information which led me to form this belief; but I replied that I was not in possession of any information whatever bearing on the matter, but that from what took place at an interview which I had had with the late Miss M—— a short time before her death, I had been led to suspect that there was something wrong about the insurance.

I heard no more of the matter till one morning some two or three months afterwards, when I was honoured with a visit from the secretary and solicitor of the insurance Company. They told me that the father of my poor young friend had threatened them with legal proceedings if they did not pay the amount of the insurance at once, and asked me to tell them exactly what had passed at the interview to which I had alluded in my letter. At first I hesitated as to whether I ought to do so or not, but ultimately I gave them a true account of all that had taken place on that fatal 31st of December. They thanked me warmly, said they thought I had only done my duty in disclosing the matter to them, and went away.

What use the Company made of this information, or what means they adopted to probe the mystery to its source, I do not know; but about six months after my interview with the secretary and solicitor, when I was beginning to hope that I should never hear of the case again, I received a summons to attend at an assizes to be shortly holden in the county town of a northern shire. There was no means of refusing this command, though I would have given a good deal to be able to evade it. I therefore found myself, about a fortnight after its receipt, quietly sitting in the crowded court-house of the aforesaid town, a witness in the case of ‘M—— _versus_ The Blank Insurance Company.’

I had but little difficulty as I looked round the court in identifying the plaintiff; for my eyes soon rested on a manly form bearing an unmistakable resemblance to the young girl by whose death-bed I had stood about a year before. The beauty of her face was there moulded in lines of masculine firmness and power; and though her father’s expression was far from pleasing, there was nothing about him at all indicative of the character subsequently exhibited to the court. He appeared to be a gentleman of good birth and position; and as I looked at him before the case began, I was very curious to know what was his real position with reference to the insurance, and how far it would be disclosed on the evidence.

His counsel, in opening the plaintiffs case, said that it was one of the simplest cases ever ushered into a court of justice. The facts, he said, were simply these: ‘Two years previously, the late Miss M—— insured her life with the defendants, the Blank Insurance Company, in two policies of five thousand pounds each. A year after, she had effected these insurances, Miss M—— had died, without having assigned or disposed of the policies in any way. Her father, the plaintiff, was her only next of kin and her administrator, and was now entitled absolutely to the ten thousand pounds; which the Company, however, had refused to pay.’ To an uninitiated spectator, the evidence for the plaintiff certainly seemed to bear out the counsel’s statement; but when the plaintiff’s case had closed, the counsel on behalf of the Company rose and said that they were in a position to prove by a connected chain of evidence that every word of the plaintiff’s case was valueless, and that this insurance had been effected under circumstances of the grossest fraud and crime.

I myself was the first witness called on behalf of the Company; and after much objection, I was allowed to give a plain unvarnished description of the scene which I have already depicted on that sad night. You could have heard a pin drop while I was speaking, and the sensation which was produced in court was manifest. I was of course severely cross-examined; but as I had nothing to conceal, my testimony was not shaken.

The next witness for the Company was an eminent London physician, who stated that in the beginning of March, two years previously, Mr M—— had come to him in London, and had brought with him a young lady, who he said was his daughter, to have her examined by him. He then made a careful examination of the young lady, and found her to be in rapid consumption, of which result he told Mr M——, and added at the same time that she could not in his opinion live for six months. The Company’s own doctor was next called, and stated that at the end of the same month of March, Mr M—— had come to him in London, and told him that his daughter was anxious to effect an insurance on her life with the Blank Company, and asked him to appoint a day to examine her. He had known Mr M—— for many years, but had never seen his daughter. Mr M——, however, told him that she was a healthy country girl, and he would have no difficulty in passing her for the Company. It was then agreed that he should call upon Mr M—— the next day at the hotel at which they were staying and examine his daughter. He did so; and Mr M—— then introduced to him as his daughter a handsome healthy-looking girl, with all the appearance of having lived in the country. The girl looked so very healthy, that he did not think it necessary to make any minute examination of her, and merely questioned her as to what diseases—if any—she had had. She seemed very much confused, but this he attributed to her natural shyness. He recommended the Company to insure her life at the ordinary rate for her age, which was then twenty-four. The doctor was then told to look round the court and say if he saw any one like the young girl whom on that occasion he had examined; and after a little while he pointed to a young girl, and said that he believed that she was the person whom he had then examined.

The excitement in court at this announcement can scarcely be imagined. Every eye was turned on the young girl, who a few minutes afterwards ascended the witness-table. As I gazed at her, I was painfully reminded of the poor creature whom I had seen lying in such trouble less than a year before; for the likeness to her was strangely great. There was, however, a robustness, a glow of health about the girl whom I now saw for the first time, which was sadly wanting in my young friend, and which served to conceal a resemblance otherwise manifest. She said that she lived in the south of England with her father, who was a well-to-do farmer. Two years and a half previously, Mr M—— and his daughter had come to lodge at their farm for the benefit of Miss M——’s health, as she was then very delicate. Every one noticed a very strong likeness between herself and Miss M——, and a firm friendship arose between them. Mr and Miss M—— stayed about six months at the farm; and when they were about to go away to London, Mr M—— proposed that she should go up with them as a companion to his daughter, which she did. On the day before they left London, Miss M—— went out with her father to pay a visit, and she was left by herself in the hotel. She was sitting alone in their private room reading, when suddenly Mr M—— returned alone, rushed into the room, and said in a threatening manner: ‘You must say you are my daughter! There is a gentleman coming in now; and mind you _must_ say you are my daughter! If you don’t, we’ll all be ruined. Remember!’ He then hastened back, and in less than a minute re-entered with the Company’s doctor, the last witness. She was so completely taken by surprise and overcome with alarm, that she did not know what she was doing, but nevertheless felt completely under the influence of Mr M——. He introduced her to the doctor as his daughter; the doctor shook hands with her, and said he was glad to see her looking so strong and well. He asked her whether she had lived much in the country; and said he thought it would be a mere farce to go through the form of examining any one who looked so completely the essence of health as she did. He mentioned a great number of diseases, and asked her if she ever had had any of them; and after some other remarks he concluded with: ‘Well, I think I may now tell them that you’re not going to die yet awhile.’ He then talked a little to Mr M——; they had wine together; he bade adieu to her, and the two gentlemen quitted the house. All was mystery to her. She now began to entertain a confused sort of dread of Mr M——. When his daughter came home, she told her all about it, and asked her what it meant; but Miss M—— said that she did not know—that perhaps it was a joke of her father’s. She, however, forced Miss M—— to promise never to say anything about it.

What the effect of this evidence was on the occupants of the court, I can hardly say, for I was too much absorbed in my own thoughts to notice any manifestation of feeling in others. The truth was now only too plain. The father of my young friend, knowing that his daughter’s health was failing, had resolved to profit by her death, and with that intent had secured a simple country girl and brought her up to London, to be the unwitting means of accomplishing his unfeeling design. In London he had learned on the best authority that his daughter could not live for six months, and within a month afterwards he had insured her life in her own name, without her knowledge, for a large sum of money, which he knew must be paid to him on her death; and to secure the lucre for which he craved, he had passed off for his poor dying daughter a healthy country girl; he had lied to his old friend, and caused an innocent girl to perpetrate a fraud. As these facts came home to my mind in their horrid reality, I gazed across the court to see the man who had conceived this mighty inhumanity. The coil of truth, as it had been gradually unravelled by the witnesses, seemed to have wound itself serpent-like round the frame of its foe; for the form which a little while before had been erect and defiant was now humbly prone, the eye which had glanced restlessly round the court was now fixed on the ground, and a death-like pallor lay on his countenance.

The jury without leaving their box pronounced their verdict for the Company, and the judge thereupon solemnly announced that he would direct a criminal prosecution to be instituted against the plaintiff for the crimes disclosed in that most painful case. At this announcement, I rose and entreated the judge not to adopt that course. I reminded him of the dying anxiety of the poor daughter to have her father saved, and urged that the plaintiff would be sufficiently punished by the loss of position which must be consequent on the verdict. But my solicitations were all in vain. The judge said that he sat there to protect society, and that if such crimes as had been that day disclosed were allowed to pass unpunished, he would fail in the duty which he sat there to discharge. A few minutes afterwards Mr M—— left the court in custody; and as I saw him thus committed to the pitiless mercy of the law, compassion—which can look on the wicked as well as the good—seemed to rise within me, and I almost regretted that I had put the insurance Company on the track which they had followed with such fatal accuracy.

The law, however, though very powerful, is not omnipotent; and in this case its power was destined to be futile. It was found not to be convenient to try Mr M—— at the same assizes; and his trial was therefore postponed till the following one, and he himself allowed out on bail. The next assizes came round, and everything was ready for the trial; but the prisoner was nowhere to be found. They called him in the court, they called him outside; but in vain. It was soon found that the prisoner had absconded—vanished no one knew where; and the individuals who had been kind enough to stake a portion of their worldly goods on his reappearance, were asked to shew their affection for him by paying the penalty which the law so properly attaches to such misplaced philanthropy. The following comment on the case appeared a day or two afterwards in the local newspaper: ‘We can only say that justice has been defeated, and a very bad type of criminal has escaped unpunished. The inscrutable wisdom of Providence has reserved his punishment for another world.’

* * * * *

More than twenty years after the events above narrated, the course of my professional business led me to cross the Atlantic and visit the city of New York. It happened in the course of that visit, as I was returning to my hotel at a late hour one night, that I became conscious that a human form was following me. I at once looked round, and saw within a yard of me an old man with a long white beard and weather-beaten face, dressed in ragged attire, shoeless and stockingless. Something in his face caught my attention, and on looking at it more closely, I recognised it as one which I had seen before, though I could not then tell where. When I turned round, the old man muttered in an earnest, almost savage manner: ‘Give me some money; I want it badly—very badly;’ but as I did not feel quite easy at finding so questionable a creature so close to me at such an hour of the night and in a strange city, I made no reply to his request, but hastened my steps. He, however, followed me, and again craved for money; and this time I answered in our English stereotyped form: ‘I have nothing for you, my good man.’

I suppose, however, that he did not catch my reply, for he added sharply: ‘What do you say?’ To which I answered: ‘I say that I have no money for you.’

‘Do you indeed?’ he said with fury. ‘Then keep it, and perish with it. I hope it may drag you down, as it did me.’ With these words he turned away, and I heard his steps behind me no more; but I had not gone very far when I recollected on what former occasion I had seen the old man’s face. I remembered that it was the same face which twenty years before I had seen in that northern court-house—the face that had known a death-like pallor when the heavy chain of Truth clanked forth its tale of hidden guilt. I at once stopped and turned round; but I could only distinguish faintly the outline of his figure in the distance; and as I gazed at that ragged form, retreating I knew not whither, there flashed with vivid reality through my mind the events which I have endeavoured here to relate, and I remembered the words of a thoughtful modern writer: ‘The secrets of men’s lives are rarely held inviolate till eternity—there is a reckoning here without the aid of eternal books.’

THE PRAIRIES AND THEIR INHABITANTS.

The subject of sport has a fascinating interest for readers of almost every class. Nor is this interest lessened when the scene of such adventures is laid in the wide prairies of the Far West. On those vast plains, ocean-like in their rolling expanse, the wigwam of the red man, and the bison and other denizens of the prairie, are alike disappearing, to be succeeded by the stately and magnificent cities which are the result of American enterprise and civilisation. Lieutenant-colonel Dodge, an officer in the United States army, gives us, in his _Hunting Grounds of the Great West_ (London: Chatto and Windus, 1877), an instructive résumé of the present aspect and position of those plains, which are still in great measure a Debatable Land, on the frontiers of which a fierce warfare is almost constantly being carried on between the wandering Indian tribes and the white settlers who are every year supplanting them.

The distinctive term ‘The Plains’ is specially applied to the area of rolling prairies extending from the mountains of Texas on the south to the British line on the north, and from the Missouri river on the east to the Rocky Mountains on the west.

Although called Plains they are never absolutely level, but present many undulations and much variety of surface. Even in their most barren stretches they are covered with short grass, but are almost without trees, which grow only in the cañons or deep water-courses. On the higher Plains this absence of trees is caused by want of water and the prevalence of high winds; and on the lower, by the prairie-fires kindled by the Indians, by the devastation caused by beavers, and by the prevalence, although in a lesser degree, of wind. In winter, on these wide Plains the storms are sometimes fearful; the icy cold north wind curdles the blood in the veins, and is speedily fatal to any living creature that is exposed to its fury; even birds fall dead in great numbers. Its destructiveness is only equalled by the terrific rain, thunder, and hail-storms which occur in summer.

No one should ever travel over the Plains without a compass, although in the unsettling misery of feeling lost, confidence is sometimes lost even in that friendly guide. In winter, from the glare of the sun on the wide waste of snow, a painful affection called snow-blindness is experienced by most travellers on the Plains. Not only is the power of vision temporarily lost, but if the skin be at all sensitive, the face and hands swell and blister, and are as exquisitely painful as if scorched by fire. In travelling, the choice of a camping-place is of the first importance; water, grass, and wood are essential requisites, and so is a knowledge of the special dangers which beset wanderers on these prairies. Camp-life, Colonel Dodge tells us, with a good tent, a nice mess-kit, plenty of bedding, a travelling kitchen, and supplies of preserved fruit and vegetables, is very enjoyable indeed. The rifle rarely fails to provide a good dinner, to which the hunters return at sunset with a keen appetite, which enables them to do full justice to the dainties of the prairie. These discussed, they collect in the cool breezy evening around the camp-fire, and with pipe and flask and song and story, the short twilight hours go merrily by.

One of the most frequent dangers to which camp-life is exposed is prairie-fire, which rises and spreads on all sides, to the height sometimes of thirty feet, half-stifling the men with smoke and heat, and driving the animals frantic with terror. Another danger arises from the sudden and severe rain-storms, which are so excessive that they may be aptly denominated water-spouts. Fancy a party of hunters in their comfortable well-appointed camp, pitched as camps often are, on the bank of a half-dry stream. After a luxurious dinner and pleasant social evening, each has retired to his own special tent, when suddenly the unmistakable rush and roar of a large volume of water awakens the traveller. In a moment he is upon his feet, rushing out into the darkness to discover if possible what it all means. The green sward of the night before is gone—water is before, behind, around him, everywhere!

When morning breaks, cold and gray, it shews, instead of the picturesque river-bluff and comfortable camp, an apparently shoreless lake, with one or two cotton-wood trees gallantly stemming the flood, on the topmost boughs of which are a few forlorn specimens of humanity, cowering before the keen wind, which as it careers along the prairie, makes sad havoc of the few fluttering remnants of their sleeping apparel. Fortunately, however, these deluges are of short continuance, and abate as quickly as they rise. Another danger, the possibilities of which are diminishing every year, arises from the stampedes to which the herds of buffalo are periodically subject. When this sudden panic seizes these immense brutes, they rush blindly on after the leaders, trampling over everything that comes in their way. Our author was camping out one night in the spring of 1871 with four wagons and a small escort. He had gone to bed, but was not asleep, when he fancied that he heard a faint, rushing sound; and suspicious that it might be a water-spout, he sprang out of his tent, and peered up the creek beside which the camp was pitched. He strained his eyes in the darkness to discover the line of foam, which is generally the precursor of an approaching deluge; but to his surprise he could discover nothing; yet the sound went on increasing, and came evidently from the prairie. Suddenly its probable cause flashed upon him, and arousing his men, he explained to them what he feared and besought them to keep calm. This was somewhat difficult, for the buffalo were already in sight, and to all appearance bearing right down upon them. ‘Our only chance,’ he said, ‘is to try to split the herd; if we cannot do that, we are lost!’ With that end in view he stationed his men fifty yards from the camp, and in trembling and fear awaited the onslaught. On, with a heavy trampling thud like thunder, rushed the unwieldy mass till they were within thirty yards of the men, who discharged their muskets and yelled with the energy of despair. A few of the foremost buffalo fell dead; the others wavered, swerved a little, and finally plunged away on one side, roaring and crashing and tumbling in the darkness over the banks of the creek.

Another danger of camp-life proceeds from rattlesnakes and vipers, which are very susceptible of cold, and at night crawl close to the person of the sleeper for warmth. One officer—a friend of Colonel Dodge’s—once found a rattlesnake coiled up beneath his pillow; and another, when drawing on his boot, felt his foot come in contact with a soft substance; he dropped the boot at once, and a huge rattlesnake glided out. Another nocturnal visitor almost as much dreaded as the snakes is the skunk, a horrible little animal about the size of a cat, which makes its way into a camp and has been known to devour the face, hands, or any uncovered part of the nearest sleeper; a skunk-bite being almost invariably followed in certain portions of the Plains by hydrophobia.

The great attraction of the Plains to sportsmen is the variety and abundance of game which they contain. First in order, as being pre-eminently an habitué of the Plains, is the buffalo, or more properly speaking, the bison, and which, in spite of its apparent ferocity, is, according to Colonel Dodge, who knows its habits well, a mild, stupid, inoffensive animal.

The elk, although disappearing even faster than the buffalo, is still to be met with on the Plains; and his great size, magnificent antlers, and splendid form, stamp him as the monarch of the prairies. He is timid, and seldom even in the last extremity employs his great strength in his own defence; what he trusts to is his skill in doubling, dodging, and hiding, which in spite of his size he accomplishes as cunningly and successfully as a hare or a fox. Many varieties of the Deer tribe are found in the Plains; of these the black-tailed deer, the red-deer, and the antelope are the most abundant, affording in the proper season boundless supplies of the most delicious venison. The mountain-sheep can scarcely be called an inhabitant of the Plains; his chosen home being amid the wild crags and rugged fastnesses of mountain-ranges. He is a fine animal, with a body somewhat resembling that of a deer, and a sheep’s head surmounted by a pair of stupendous horns. His flesh is declared by the gourmands of the hunting fraternity to be the choicest of choice morsels, a delicious compound of venison and the finest Southdown mutton.

The prairies abound with smaller animals, rabbits of two kinds, gophers, and prairie-dogs a species of marmot. The carnivora of the Plains are not numerous. First come the wolves, which hunt in packs, but whose power of making themselves disagreeable has, Colonel Dodge thinks, been greatly over-rated. This can scarcely be said of the grisly bear, which is a huge, sagacious, and pre-eminently ferocious brute. The cougar or puma, which is sometimes called the Mexican lion, is also a formidable antagonist to come to close grips with. The panther is very much the same animal on a smaller scale, and is scarcely more dangerous than the wild-cat, which is abundant and of a large size. A variety of birds are found on the Plains, flocks of quails, partridges, geese, and five species of grouse; but none of these can compete in point of size or delicacy with the wild turkey. This magnificent bird when fat is often found to weigh from twenty to twenty-five pounds.

Of the red men, the fast diminishing aborigines of the prairies, Colonel Dodge does not draw a very favourable picture. He paints them, he tells us, as he finds them, not with every attribute softened and toned down by the veil of false sentiment which the romances of Cooper and other novelists have thrown around them. The North American Indian taken as he stands is as cruel, lazy, and degraded a savage as is to be found upon the face of the earth. Virtue, morality, generosity, and honour are not only words without a meaning for him, but have no synonyms in his language. The bad qualities of the Indians are, however, no good reason for the infamous manner in which they have been treated by the agents of the American government.

Intensely conscious of his own helplessness, and conceiving that he is tossed about like a feather between the good and bad god, it is very important for the Indian to discover which of his deities is in the ascendant for the moment; and this he tries to do by divination. There is nothing so trifling but that he may deduce from it a knowledge of the supernatural; the flight of a bird, the bark of a dog, the gliding of a snake through the grass, are all full for him of a subtle intelligence; but what he principally relies upon for information is what he calls the making of a medicine. This species of manufacture, the mysteries of which are known only to himself, is undertaken upon all occasions; and besides these private acts of what may be called devotion, the tribe has from time to time a great medicine-making in common, presided over by a medicine chief. A huge structure of dressed skins called a medicine lodge is set up, with a rude image cut from a log suspended from the roof. A certain number of warriors are then selected from the assembled tribe, and a dance, which may truly be called ‘the dance of death,’ is begun. Day sinks into night and night dawns into day, and still it goes on without a moment’s intermission, till all the performers have fallen senseless to the floor, some to rise no more. If at the end of two or three days this strange ceremony is concluded without a death, the medicine chief pronounces it good medicine, and the tribe separate assured of the protection of the good god.

As soon as an Indian boy becomes a warrior he thinks of a wife; and as an Indian belle is often something of a coquette, he finds, as others have done, that the favours of wooing are ‘fashious to seek.’ At length, however, the dusky beauty is won, and the favoured lover betakes himself to the father’s lodge, and something like the following colloquy ensues. ‘You have got a daughter,’ begins the lover, ‘an ugly lazy thing; but I want a wife, and I am willing as a favour to take her off your hands.’

‘Are you speaking of my darling girl?’ says the father—‘the prettiest best girl in the whole tribe. I do not think of giving her to any one, much less to you. Why, you are a mere boy; you have done nothing to speak of; you have not taken one scalp; you have only stolen a few wretched ponies. No, no; she is not for you, unless indeed you give me twenty ponies for her.’

‘Twenty ponies!’ yells the lover. ‘One is too many.’ And thus the haggling goes on, until a bargain is struck at something like the fair market-price of the girl, who forthwith, for there is no marriage ceremony, accompanies her new husband or master to his father’s lodge. Many families generally live under one roof, and they have not upon an average more than one meal a day. A large pot full of meat is set upon the fire, and when sufficiently cooked is taken off and placed in the middle of the floor. The inmates then gather around and help themselves with their fingers. What is left is set aside, and any one who feels hungry goes and helps himself. The lodge of the Indians is made of dressed buffalo-skins, supported upon a light framework of wood. The fire is in the centre; and as the draught is very defective, the lodge is generally in cold weather full of smoke. The beds are piles of buffalo-robes and blankets, which serve as seats during the day. Furniture there is none; except a few pots, kettles, and trunks containing the dried meat and superfluous clothing of the family, may be dignified by that term. But what is wanting in upholstery is made up in dirt, everything being kept in a state of inconceivable filth. The wealth of an Indian consists in his horses and mules; and as he leads a nomadic life in fine weather, he rarely burdens himself with anything that is not easily transported. In the general division of meat and skins, the widows and orphans of the tribe are cared for, and a certain portion set aside for their maintenance.

The Indians are very fond of gambling, and also of drinking, which is a very destructive vice to them. Another of their favourite indoor amusements is story-telling, in which they take great delight. A good story-teller is a very important personage in the tribe, and is always surrounded by an eager audience.

The cruelty of the Indians is extreme; men and women alike take an exquisite pleasure in torturing their captives. Much of this cruelty, however, has in latter days arisen from vengeful hatred to the United States government, which has broken faith with them over and over again, and is still conducting a war of extermination. No wonder that under the circumstances the red man should resent the cruelties practised by his invaders, and make reprisals when opportunity offers. It is but fair to the Indians to state, that across the frontier-line in Canada, where the treaties made with them have been rigidly observed, there have been no Indian wars and no Indian massacres; and that the red men have proved themselves to be quiet and not unthriving subjects of Queen Victoria.

ROBBERY OF AN EXPRESS TRAIN.

The following story shews the extent to which wholesale plunder may be carried on in the United States of America: About eleven o’clock on the night of Wednesday 19th September, 1877, an express train on the Union Pacific Railway was approaching the little station of Big Springs in Wyoming Territory. There wanted fully a quarter of an hour to the time when it was due, and the station-master William Barnard and his assistant had not yet commenced to prepare for its arrival; the former was still in his office, the latter engaged somewhere about the premises. All was as silent as a station generally is during the intervals between trains; when the stillness was suddenly broken in a manner no less unexpected than unpleasant. The door of the office was burst open, and four men entering, seized the astonished station-master, and told him that if he attempted the slightest resistance or refused to obey their orders, his life should instantly be forfeited. He had no choice but to submit; for he perceived clearly by the words and actions of the intruders that they were members of a large party of robbers, and that the station was completely in their power. They all wore crape masks to conceal their features, but spoke in their natural tones; and as the band consisted of thirteen men fully armed, nothing but compliance with their demands was possible on the part of the station officials. The place was solitary, the hour late; and the robbers lost no time in carrying out their evidently carefully prepared plans. The telegraph apparatus was their first object, and this they compelled the station-master to destroy. Barnard endeavoured to mislead them by only removing a portion of it, but it was of no avail; one of the men angrily desired him to mind what he was about or he would have a bullet through his head, and then ordered him to take out certain parts of the instrument and give them to him; shewing by his knowledge of the terms employed that he must have been a telegraph operator himself. In the meantime the rest of the band had not been idle. They compelled the porter to put out his ordinary signals for the now rapidly advancing train; and they maintained the strictest watch to see that nothing was done that might in the faintest degree create alarm or suspicion.

All fell out exactly as they had anticipated: the train came gradually to a stand in obedience to the signal, and ran blindly into the trap prepared for it. The unconscious passengers, most of whom were asleep, were quite at the mercy of the robbers, who lost not a moment in diligently setting to work to make the most of the golden opportunity before them. The train in the meantime had drawn up at the platform; it was a long one, consisting of a saloon and two Pullman’s sleeping-cars, besides ordinary carriages and luggage-vans; and there were a good many passengers, nearly all of them sleeping soundly. A portion of the gang at once made prisoners of the engineer and stoker; while four of them compelled Barnard the station-master to go as he usually did to the mail-van and knock at the door for admittance. George Miller, the post-office agent in charge of the mails and specie, immediately opened the door, when several of the robbers jumped in, one of them holding a revolver to his head, while the others rapidly cleared the drawers and boxes of all the money they contained; thus securing a very large sum—about forty or fifty thousand dollars. They did not trouble themselves to examine the letters; and a combination-safe containing a very large sum in gold and notes was also left untouched; for it was beyond their power to break it open, and neither Miller the agent nor Patterson the conductor of the train knew the combined intricacies; this the robbers obliged them to swear on their word of honour.

The gang then directed their attention to the passengers, most of whom were now awake, and beginning to be aware of the unpleasant circumstances in which they were placed. Some were inclined to resist the highwaymen; but the more prudent among them counselled submission, as very few of them had available firearms, and they were ignorant of the strength of the band, and feared more serious consequences if they were driven to resort to extremes. Of the likelihood of this they had an early intimation; for a passenger who chanced to be standing on the outside platform of one of the carriages as the train entered the station, had a couple of pistol-shots fired at him, luckily without doing him any injury. He retreated into the carriage, and was directly followed by the robbers, who entered the car at both ends, and desired the passengers to hold up their hands; a command they all instantly obeyed. They were then rifled one after the other; their pockets being thoroughly searched, watches, purses, and all loose money being taken away. This was done in all the open carriages; but the doors of the two Pullman sleeping-cars being locked, they did not obtain an entrance into either; and the inmates probably thinking discretion the better part of valour, remained ensconced within their shelter. Whether it would long have served as such cannot now be determined; possibly the robbers might have forced the doors had time been allowed them; but fortunately for the travellers the whistle of an approaching goods-train scared the gang, who made a precipitate retreat from the scene of their depredations, carrying their booty along with them.

Relieved of their unwelcome presence, the passengers issued forth from the cars and began to relate their various experiences. Luckily no one was seriously wounded. The postal agent had been violently knocked against the carriage-door at the first rush of the thieves, and was considerably bruised, and another man had his forehead grazed by a pistol bullet; but beyond those comparatively trifling injuries they all escaped with the fright and the loss of every article of value on which the robbers had time to lay their hands. Most of the passengers in the open cars were cleared of whatever money they had about them, and several of them lost gold and silver watches; but even in the excitement of the moment a few of them had sufficient presence of mind to enable them hastily to secrete purses and pocket-books, either by slipping them under the cushions or dropping them on the floor. A Jew named Harris was robbed of four hundred and fifty dollars and his watch; but while raising his hands in obedience to the command of ‘Hands up!’ he skilfully contrived to drop a roll of notes on the seat beside him, which was overlooked by the robbers as they examined his pockets. A miner who wore a belt containing eleven thousand dollars in gold, was quick enough to fasten it round the waist of his little child, who was not molested by the thieves, and this large sum fortunately escaped their clutches. They managed, however, in the short space of time at their disposal to make some very pretty pickings out of the train; their gains being computed at fully fifty thousand dollars, besides watches and other articles of value.

The scheme had evidently been a most carefully organised one, and was carried out in every detail with perfect coolness and regularity, not a moment being wasted, and the members of the gang having clearly been previously instructed as to the duty each man was to perform. It is supposed they had fastened their horses somewhere at the back of the station, as on quitting the train they immediately disappeared without leaving any traces behind them.

An alarm was at once given, and several parties started in pursuit; but their search was entirely unsuccessful so far as regarded hearing any tidings of the robbers. The following day a band of searchers found among the mountains ten or twelve miles from the station of Big Springs, a rifle, a pistol, and an empty money-box; proving indisputably that the highwaymen had passed that way. It was well known that some very notorious Missouri bandits were at large among the Black Hills, and it is believed that they were the perpetrators of the attack on the train. A large reward was offered for their apprehension; but so far as we know, they have hitherto managed to elude all pursuit, and it is doubtful whether they may ever be brought to justice. With such possible contingencies, travelling by the Union Pacific, or any other railway in the Far West, is not a pleasant idea to contemplate.

POPULAR ERRORS REGARDING THE SHREW-MOUSE.

No popular error is more absolutely destitute of foundation than that regarding the shrew. This little quadruped, very common in meadows and pastures in all parts of Britain, and generally known as the shrew-mouse, is as harmless as any creature that lives. Its food consists of insects and their larvæ; and its teeth are very small, so that it is scarcely able to bite through the human skin. Yet according to a popular belief, very widely prevalent, its bite is most venomous, and in many districts in England the viper is less feared. Nor is it only its bite that is supposed to be deadly to man or beast. Contact with it in any way is accounted extremely dangerous; and cattle seized with any malady, especially if shewing any appearance of numbness in the legs, are apt to be reputed ‘shrew-struck.’ Horses in particular are accounted very liable to suffer from this cause. An infallible cure, however, was to be found in dragging the shrew-struck animal through a bramble rooted at both ends, or in the application of a twig of a shrew-ash. ‘A shrew-ash,’ says White, in his _Natural History of Selborne_, ‘is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pain which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected; for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that whenever it creeps over a beast, whether it be horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of its limbs. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever.’ This tree, whose every branch possessed such a potent charm, was an ash in the trunk of which an auger-hole had been bored, and a living shrew put into the hole, which was then closed with a wooden plug. The incantations used when this was done have now been forgotten; the shrew-ash has lost its old repute; but the belief in its virtues still lingers in some quarters, and the belief in the dangerous bite and maleficent touch of the shrew is strong among the country-people in many parts of England. How confidently this belief was entertained even by the best educated in former times appears from many allusions to it by old authors. It was received as an unquestionable fact of natural history. In Topsel’s _History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents_, published in 1658, it is said of the shrew, that ‘it is a ravening beast, feigning itself gentle and tame; but being touched, it biteth deep and poisoneth deadly; it beareth a cruel mind, desiring to hurt anything;’ with much more of the like nature, and much concerning medicinal virtues ascribed to this little animal. But the belief in the deadliness of the shrew’s bite has been transmitted from one generation to another from times far more remote than those of this credulous author. It prevailed among the ancient Romans, and their remedy for a shrew’s bite was to cut the body of the little creature asunder and place it on the injured part.

FLOATING-LIGHTS.

Besides the lighthouses which warn the sailor of danger and guide him in his course amidst the darkness of night, there are along the British coasts numerous floating-lights or light-vessels in situations where the erection of a lighthouse is impossible, where there are banks or shoals perilous to ships but affording no foundation for a building. These vessels ride at anchor in places that have been selected for them, and which are as exactly marked on the charts as the positions of the lighthouses. Most of them are stationed off the east coast of England from the mouth of the Humber southward; a few on other parts of the English coast, and on that of Ireland; and two on the coast of Scotland. They are generally vessels of about one hundred and fifty tons, specially constructed with a view to their riding safely at anchor in exposed situations and during the most severe storms, without regard to sailing-powers, of which they have no need; and it has been an extremely rare thing for any of them to be driven from their moorings or to experience any disaster. The mariner counts upon the guidance of their light in any weather, as confidently as he does on that of a lighthouse built upon a rock.

The English floating-lights, like the English lighthouses, are under the care and management of Trinity House. From the Appendix to the Report of the Royal Commission on Lights, Buoys, and Beacons, presented to the Houses of Parliament in 1861, we obtain some interesting information concerning them. They are each provided with a crew of eleven men, who have no occupation but their professional duties; and of whom there are at all times seven on board the vessel, and four on shore, employed in the storehouses at the Trinity Buoy Wharf, Blackwall. The men remain on shore for a month at a time. Each vessel has a master and mate, but these are never on duty at the same time; taking the command in turn, month about. No men are employed in this service but such as are already good sailors; and the men rise by seniority from the lowest rank to that of master, so that there is a strong inducement for them to continue in the service. Misconduct of any kind—as disobedience of the orders of the master or mate, quarrelling, breach of regulations, neglect of duty, or intoxication when on shore—is punished by censure, degradation to a lower rank, or dismissal from the service, according to the gravity of the offence. The lowest wage of the men is only two pounds fifteen shillings per month—at least so it was in 1861, and we have heard of no change. The master has five pounds per month and an allowance of ten pounds a year for house-rent. All find their own provisions. They are allowed to use beer on board the vessel, but no spirits. They are completely secluded from the rest of the world, whilst on duty. No boats are allowed to go alongside the light-vessels, and the men are strictly forbidden to go on board any passing ship. A library is supplied to each vessel.

Life in a light-vessel one would think must be rather monotonous; but many of those who enter the service remain long in it. Small pensions are allowed to superannuated men or those disabled by disease or accident. The lantern used to be hung from the yard-arm of the vessel, but in 1807 Mr R. Stevenson introduced at the floating-light at the Bell Rock the mode now used, in which the lantern surrounds the mast, sliding up and down on it, and is elevated to the top of it when lighted. Those light-vessels which occupy the most exposed stations ride more easily, if the water is deep, than those which are tossed by smaller but more frequent waves. The latter must sometimes be rather unpleasant abodes. The master of the Owers light-vessel, in the English Channel, between Beachy Head and the Isle of Wight, told the members of the Royal Commission who visited his vessel in 1859, that in bad weather he sometimes ‘could not lie on the floor of his cabin without holding on to the legs of the table.’

* * * * *

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

* * * * *

_All Rights Reserved._