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It was along in this wild country somewhere, and far from any habitation of white men, except the stage stations, that we came across the wretchedest type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this writing. I refer to the Goshoot Indians.

Every now and then we saw in the potash-dust moccasin-tracks, with the toes turned in, and presently my field-glass revealed a hideous devil skulking in the mile-off ledges, who was none other than a Goshoot spy. How far off were the scalpers and burners? The first afternoon-stage that day was a long and terrible one.

A paraflesh is made of rawhide expressly to carry water in, and are frequently used to peddle milk by the Mexicans. The second day from Beaver creek we reached a little stream near the Goshoot village, this being the place where Uncle Kit finished buying furs to load his pack-train in 1848. The next morning we reached the village. I had not seen any of these Indians for five years.

From here on the country was all new to me, and had it not been for the kindness of the Goshoot Indians, we would have perished for the want of water.

It comes to me now at high noonday with a grisly shudder. After that, we toiled on twenty miles farther with our nearly dying horses; a hundred miles more of torturing suspense on top of that sight branded into our brains before we gained Ruby Valley, at the foot of the Humboldt Mountains, and left the last Goshoot behind us.

The only harm the Indians did our party was to wound two of Fremont's men, slightly. This was the last trouble we had with the Utes on the trip. The second day from this little brush we struck a village of Goshoot Indians, and there Uncle Kit bought enough furs to make out his cargo.

They reached the ugliness of aboriginal specimens which we had encountered on the west verge of the Goshoot country; and if any earthly pilgrimage, short of the mountains of Nightmare, can reveal their rivals, I should like to get into a prime state of health and be allowed a peep at them through a spy-glass.

It was along in this wild country somewhere, and far from any habitation of white men, except the stage stations, that we came across the wretchedest type of mankind I have ever seen, up to this writing. I refer to the Goshoot Indians.