An Indian for Breakfast
"'An Indian for breakfast and a pony to ride' was their [105 men who volunteered under Major Ormsby after the killings at William's Station] slogan as the command started across…
Riding Half-Asleep
"Tired out and cramped with cold, we were torpid with what the Bedouin calls El Bakl—la Ragle du Désert, when part of the brain sleeps while the rest is wide awake."
Travel Fatigue
"Hard work had begun to tell upon the temper of the party. The judge, who ever preferred monologue to dialogue, aweary of the rolling prairies and barren plains, the bald and rocky ridges,…
Mile 1716: Ruby Valley
"Ruby Valley is a half-way house, about 300 miles from Great Salt Lake City, and at the same distance from Carson Valley. It derives its name from the small precious stones which…
Adobe
"The very word is Spanish, derived from the Arabic —, meaning 'the brick.' it is known throughout the West, and is written adobies, and pronounced dobies."
Shandidran
"Though we all rose up early, packed, and were ready to proceed, there was an unusual vis inerlice on the part of the driver: Indians were about; the mules, of course, had…
The Prairie Night Clock
"The stars of the Great Bear—the prairie night-clock—first began to pale without any seeming cause, till presently a faint streak of pale light dum i gurg, or the wolf's tail, as it…
Minahaska–Long Knife
"As has been said, in 1855, General W. S. Harney, who, whatever may be his faults as a diplomatist, is the most dreaded 'Minahaska' in the Indian country, punished the Brulés severely at…
Bond Scandal Witnesses
"The various complications of the 'Great Robbery' led to numerous articles and dispatches for several months. Jerome B. Simpoon, vice-president of the 'C. O. C.' and in general charge of the…
Native Description of Whites
"Their scanty beard was removed; they compare the bushy-faced European to a dog running away with a squirrel in its mouth."
Bones for Fires
"Buffalo herds were behind the hills, but we were too full of sleep to follow them. The plain was dotted with blanched skulls and bones, which would have made a splendid bonfire.…
Mile 197: Big Sandy Station
"A little after midnight we resumed our way, and in the state which Mohammed described when he made his famous night journey to heaven—bayni 'Z naumi wa 'I yakzan—we crossed the deep shingles,…
Whisky
"He [the stagecoach driver] can do nothing without whisky, which he loves to call tarantula juice, strychnine, red-eye, corn juice, Jersey lightning, leg-stretcher, 'tangleleg,' (for instance, 'whisky is now tested by the…