We had now reached a hostile Indian country, and during the afternoon we
passed Laparelle Station, and enjoyed great discomfort all the time we
were in the neighborhood, being aware that many of the trees we dashed
by at arm’s length concealed a lurking Indian or two. During the
preceding night an ambushed savage had sent a bullet through the
pony-rider’s jacket, but he had ridden on, just the same, because
pony-riders were not allowed to stop and inquire into such things except
when killed. As long as they had life enough in them they had to stick
to the horse and ride, even if the Indians had been waiting for them a
week, and were entirely out of patience. About two hours and a half
before we arrived at Laparelle Station, the keeper in charge of it had
fired four times at an Indian, but he said with an injured air that the
Indian had “skipped around so’s to spile everything—and ammunition’s
blamed skurse, too.” The most natural inference conveyed by his manner
of speaking was, that in “skipping around,” the Indian had taken an
unfair advantage.... We shut the blinds down very tightly that first
night in the hostile Indian country, and lay on our arms. We slept on
them some, but most of the time we only lay on them. We did not talk
much, but kept quiet and listened. It was an inky-black night, and
occasionally rainy. We were among woods and rocks, hills and gorges—so
shut in, in fact, that when we peeped through a chink in a curtain, we
could discern nothing. The driver and conductor on top were still, too,
or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in
the midst of invisible dangers. We listened to raindrops pattering on
the roof; and the grinding of the wheels through the muddy gravel; and
the low wailing of the wind; and all the time we had that absurd sense
upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle,
the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the
jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the
grinding of the wheels. We listened a long time, with intent faculties
and bated breath; every time one of us would relax, and draw a long sigh
of relief and start to say something, a comrade would be sure to utter a
sudden “Hark!” and instantly the experimenter was rigid and listening
again.