RECEPTIVE CONDITIONS OF THE MIND.

63

fever, is one of those things which no man can decide. But it does seem possible that in some overstrained, receptive conditions of the mind, strange things may be seen,-things invisible at other times, when the consciousness of the body overpowers that of the soul.1

1 Jebb afterwards wrote the story of "The Haunted Enghenio" for Blackwood's Magazine.'

64

CHAPTER V.

IN THE FAR WEST.

RELAPSE

OF ILLNESS-ORDERED TO A COLDER CLIMATE--GETTING USED TO HIS PERSISTENT ILL-LUCK-OPPORTUNELY REALISES CERΤΑΙΝ EXPECTATIONS"-SAILS FOR NEW YORK-MEETS WITH AN OLD FRONTIERSMAN-AFTER BUFFALO IN THE FAR WEST-SOME OF THE DISCOMFORTS OF CAMPING-OUT-BOB HARKER'S CHARACTERISTICS-NARROW ESCAPE FROM ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING—A PRAIRIE MURDER-CONJECTURES AS TO THE PERPETRATOR-A LONG RECORD OF CRIME-A GHASTLY SIGN-SCARE IN REGARD TO MOUNTAIN TRAVELLING-THE VIGILANTES FAIL TO FIND A CLUE -NEWSPAPER ARTICLES ON THE OUTRAGES-PERSONAL DANGER.

Now an attack of malaria as severe as that just described fixes on a man with a deadly grip not easy to shake off. So it came about that after he had recovered, and commenced work again, very few weeks of riding about in the mid-day sun and the evening dew induced a relapse, with a fit of shakes which brought Jack to the verge of the grave. To add to his troubles, it had been a bad coffee year, and there was little to show for his labours.

PERSISTENT ILL-LUCK.

65

Of course the owner of the plantation was "seeing life" in Paris, from which paradise he had no intention of returning to live in a feverstricken swamp, so long as one "mad Englishman" was left who would do so for him. Moreover, when of the two parties to a contract one is in the interior of Brazil, and the other in the heart of Europe, it is not easy to enforce the fulfilment of that contract, and Jack began to find that he was going to be "left" in both senses of the word. By this time he was getting so used to the persistent ill-luck of all his ventures, that he was more disappointed than surprised when he had to make up his mind that he might as well leave the Enghenio before wasting more time and money upon it. No doubt he was partly helped to this conclusion by the native doctor, who told him that unless he speedily betook himself to a colder climate nothing could ward off another attack of malaria, which, in his weakened condition, would probably be the last. He therefore acquainted the Visconde de B. with his intention in a very plainspoken letter, installed the only Englishman in the place as manager, and then sailed for New York, having acquired a good deal of insight into the working of a coffee plantation, learned a fair amount of bad Portuguese, and lost yet a little more money.

E

Fortunately for him, he had some expectations," one of which opportunely fell in at this period, giving him a little ready money with which to carry on the war.

He had now knocked about the world long enough to have made a good many acquaintances of various social grades and very different characters in most of the places he had visited.. Accordingly, he had not been long in New York before he ran up against an old guide, whom he had met in one of his excursions on behalf of the White Star Line, and whose business it was to show the guileless tenderfoot how to hunt buffalo. There were still a few buffaloes left in those days.

The guide, an old frontiersman called Bob Harker, told Jack that he was then about to start for the plains, where he would procure a waggon and team, pick up his companion, a half-breed Government scout and hunter called "Mudeater"—of Cherokee blood-and then spend some months hunting and camping-out. He asked his English acquaintance if he would not like to join the party, and Jack quickly decided that he most emphatically would, especially as the free life and bracing air of the plains would be more likely than anything else to drive the last germs of fever from his blood. His preparations, consisting chiefly as they did of

BY RAIL TO KANSAS.

67

rifles and ammunition, were soon made, and the two men started by rail to a little station on the Kansas Pacific Railway, whence they struck out south. After the first day they "joined parties" with five buffalo - hunters, also bound south. Their new comrades were not exactly agreeable companions, being mostly on, or over, the edge of delirium tremens; but the Rapahoes were reported "out," and only a fortnight before a hunters' camp had been surprised, and five men and a woman killed.

Therefore, as eight straight rifles are better than three, to say nothing of as many revolvers, the two parties joined forces, for the march at all events.

The first day out there were no incidents. The strangers were sleeping off their potations in a comatose condition at the bottom of their waggons, though always keeping one of their number sober enough to drive. Jack got two antelopes out of a band that galloped past, while the driver grabbed his rifle and missed them clean. He rubbed his eyes, swore feebly, and remarked that he had missed them through seeing two herds of antelope and shooting at the wrong one!

The party passed a wretched night, camping at a mud-hole, with burnt prairie all round, and with no food for the stock except their corn. The coyotes