insure its protection.

"Teams like our own, however, are most attended to, and if we should
wake up in the night, and by the light of the camp fire see half a dozen
ferocious-looking fellows standing over us, it would be better to let
them take what they want, and go their way in peace, than to trust to an
appeal to arms or oppose them. Once rouse them to anger, and our lives
would not be worth a sixpence; for they think no more of shedding the
blood of a man than they would that of a sheep."

"I think it would be better to give them a trial than be robbed,
especially when we possess weapons like these," cried Fred, touching his
revolver, which he carried in a belt around his waist.

Smith looked at my companion for a moment in silence, as though trying
to satisfy himself whether Fred was in earnest, or only talking because
danger was remote.

"I've carried many men to the mines," he said at length, "and been
robbed some half a dozen times; but I always found that while my
passengers were firm for resistance at the beginning of the journey, yet
at night a different opinion was formed, and the boldest has consented
to give up a shirt or pair of boots without a murmur."

Fred laughed good naturedly, and spoke jestingly in reply.

"That was because you never freighted Americans. Englishmen may consent
to have their boots pulled off, but Yankees would be apt to
remonstrate."