However, we pass safely through the land of the Piutes, unmolested by Buffalo James. This celebrated savage can read and write, and is quite an orator, like Metamora, or the last of the Wampanoags. He went on to Washington a few years ago and called Mr. Buchanan his Great Father, and the members of the Cabinet his dear Brothers. They gave him a great many blankets, and he returned to his beautiful hunting grounds and went to killing stage drivers. He made such a fine impression upon Mr. Buchanan during his sojourn in Washington that that statesman gave a young English tourist, who crossed the plain a few years since, a letter of introduction to him. The great Indian chief read the English person's letter with considerable emotion, and then ordered him scalped, and stole his trunks.
Mr. Ryder knows me only as "Mr. Brown," and he refreshes me during the journey by quotations from my books and lectures.
"Never seen Ward?" he said.
"Oh, no."
"Ward says he likes little girls, but he likes large girls just as well. Haw, haw, haw! I should like to see the d—- fool!"
He referred to me.
He even woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me one of Ward's jokes.
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I lecture at Big Creek.
Big Creek is a straggling, wild, little village; and the house in which I had the honor of speaking a piece had no other floor than the bare earth. The roof was of sagebrush. At one end of the building a huge wood fire blazed, which, with half-a-dozen tallow-candles, afforded all the illumination desired. The lecturer spoke from behind the drinking bar. Behind him long rows of decanters glistened; above him hung pictures of race-horses and prize-fighters; and beside him, in his shirt-sleeves and wearing a cheerful smile, stood the bar-keeper. My speeches at the Bar before this had been of an elegant character, perhaps, but quite brief. They never extended beyond "I don't care if I do," "No sugar in mine," and short gems of a like character.