José — page 103: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

96 JOSE. game of the cat and the mouse, in which the cat finally devours the mouse; but one day I heard a story, and then I got bolder. I was on guard duty when the red devils returned, and I leveled my gun at five or six of them. Well, sir, they laughed at me like so many devils, and I’ll confess I felt any- thing but comfortable. They talked among them- selves a minute or so, and then they took my gun away. lIhardly knew how. I felt myself lifted on one of the horses that belonged to the fort and are always kept ready saddled, and away we went lickety-split across the plains. They must have put something under his tail or done some other mis- chief, for he went iike the old Harry, and I suppose I should have fallen off at the first dash had I not held on with teeth and toe-nails. "When the brute finally got rid of the devilish thing that bothered him and came to a halt, I was far out on the plains and hadn’t an idea which way to turn. I think I passed two nights in the open, chewed grass and only drank water once, out of a mud-hole—but like as not it was three nights instead of two. Toward the Jast, everything was like a dream to me, out of which I would occasionally wake with a start, and I should not have been able to stay on my horse if I hadn’t felt that if ever I fell off it would be the last of me.” | “You think, then, that the Indians are only mis- chievous rather than disposed to commit depreda- tions and other outrages?” the wagon-boss inter- rupted. “Well, sir,” replied the soldier, slowly scratching the back of his head; “I wouldn’t vouch for the red devils fifteen minutes. It always looked to me as if they were only waiting for a good opportunity to Eomichooks co m