"Mebbe so get lost in the trees, mebbe so get shot by the Cocopah,"
the Indian replied as he shook his head.
The captain laughed at the last and said that the Yuma and Cocopah
Indians were not the best of friends, and accused each other of all
sorts of things which neither had committed. Some Mexicans and certain
outlawed whites who kept close to the border for different reasons,
and the possibilities of bogging in a cane-brake were the only
uncertainties. In so many words he advised me against going.
Still I persevered. I had planned so long on completing my boating
trip to the Gulf, that I disliked to abandon the idea altogether. I
felt sure, with a flood on the Colorado, there would be some channel
that a flat-bottomed boat could go through, when travelling with the
current; but the return trip and the chances of being made a target
for some hidden native who had lived on this unfriendly border and had
as much reason for respecting some citizens of the United States as
our own Indians had in the frontier days, caused me considerable
concern. I knew it was customary everywhere to make much of the
imaginary dangers, as we had found in our other journeys; but it is
not difficult to discriminate between sound advice and the croakings
which are based on lack of real information. I knew this was sound
advice, and as usual I disliked to follow it. At last I got some
encouragement. It came from a retired Wild West showman,--the real
thing, one who knew the West from its early days.
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