ears. They were so many, our men so few, there was no use in trying to make a stand against them. We all mounted our horses, our leader shouting: 'Ride for the timber at the camp; it is our only chance. Take courage; ride, ride fast.'
"I whipped my horse as hard as I could and pounded his sides with my heels; my husband rode close beside me also whipping him, but the poor thing could go only so fast, the enemy were getting nearer and nearer all the time. And then, suddenly, my husband gave a little cry of pain, threw up his hands, and tumbled off on to the ground. When I saw that I stopped my horse, got down, and ran to him and lifted his head and shoulders into my lap. He was dying; blood was running from his mouth in a stream; yet he made out to say: 'Take my horse; go quick; you can outride them.'
"I would not do that. If he died I wanted to die also; the enemy could kill me there beside him. I heard the thunder of their horses' feet as they came on, and cover ing my head with my robe I bent over my husband, who was now dead. I expected to be shot or struck with a war club, and I was glad for whither my dear one's shadow went, there I would follow. But no; they passed swiftly by us and I could hear shots and cries and the singing of the war song as they rode on into the distance. Then in a little while I heard again the trampling of a horse, and looking up I saw a tall man, a man full of years, looking down at me. 'Ah,' he said, 'I made a good shot; it was a long way, but my gun held straight.'
"He was a Crow, and I could talk with him. 'Yes, you have killed my poor husband; now have pity and kill me, too.'
"He laughed. 'What?' he said, 'kill such a pretty young woman as you? Oh, no. I will take you home with me and you shall be my wife.'
" 'I will not be your wife. I will kill myself,' I began, but he 'stopped me. 'You will go with me and do as I say,' he continued, 'but first I must take the scalp of this, my enemy.'
' 'Oh, no,' I cried, springing up as he dismounted. 'Oh, do not scalp him. Let me bury him, and I will do anything you say. I will work for you, I will be your slave, only let me bury this poor body where the wolves and the birds cannot touch it.'
"He laughed again, and got up into the saddle. 'I take your word,' he said. 'I go to catch a horse for you and then you can take the body down to the timber by your camp.'
"And so it was done. I wrapped my dear one in robes and lashed the body on a platform which I built in a tree by the little stream, and I was very sad. It was a long, long time, many winters, before I took courage and found life worth living.
"The man who had captured me was a chief, owning a great herd of horses, a fine lodge, many rich things; and he had six wives. These women stared very hard at me when we came to the camp, and the head wife pointed to a place beside the doorway and said: Tut your robe and things there.' She did not smile, nor did any of the others; they all looked very cross, and they never became friendly to me. I was given all of the hardest work; worst of all, they made me chip hides for them, and they would tan them into robes; every day this was my work when I was not gathering wood or bringing water to the lodge. One day the chief asked me whose robe it was I was chipping, and I told him. The next day, and the next, he asked me the same question, and I told him that this hide belonged to one of his wives, that to another, and so on. Then he be came angry, and scolded his wives. 'You will give her no more of your work to do,' he said. 'Chip your own hides, gather your share of wood; mind what I say, for I shall not tell you this again.'
"This Crow chief was a kind man, and very good to me; but I could not like him. I turned cold at his touch. How could I like him when I was always mourn ing so for the one who was gone?
"We travelled about a great deal. The Crows owned so many horses that after camp was all packed and lodge poles trailed, hundreds and hundreds of fat, strong animals were left without a burden of any kind. Once there was talk of making peace with my people, and I was very glad, for I longed to be with them again. A council was held, and it was decided to send two young men with tobacco to the chief of the Arickaree and ask that peace be declared. The messengers went, but they never returned. After waiting three moons (months) for them, it was thought that they had been killed by those whom they went to visit. Then we left the Elk River (Yellowstone) and moved to the upper part of Dried Meat River (Musselshell). This was the fifth summer after my capture. It was berry time and the bushes were loaded with ripe fruit, which we women gathered in large quantities and dried for winter use. We went out one day to some thickets on the north slope of the valley, some distance from camp, where there were more berries than at any other place we had found. There had been trouble in our lodge that morning; while my captor—I never could call him my husband—was eating, he asked to see the amount of berries we had gathered; his wives brought out their stores, the head woman five sacks of them, the others two and three each, I had but one sack, and another partly full, to show. 'How is this?' the chief asked. 'Has my little Arickaree wife become lazy?'
" 'I am not lazy,' I answered, angrily. 'I have picked a great quantity of berries; and every evening I have spread them out to dry, covering them well after sunset so that the night dew would not injure them; but in the morning, when I have removed the covers and exposed them to the sun's heat, I have found many, very many less than I had placed there. This has happened every night since we came to camp here.'
'That is strange,' he said. 'Who could have taken them? Do you women know anything about it?' he asked his wives.
"They said that they did not.
'You lie,' he cried, angrily, rising from his seat and pushing his head wife back out of his way. 'Here, little woman, are your berries; I saw them stealing them'; and from the head wife he took two sacks, from the others one each, and threw them over to me.
"Oh, those women were angry. They did not speak to me all that morning, but if looks could have killed me, then I would have died, for they scowled at me all the time. When the chief drove in the horses each caught the one she wanted and rode out to the berry patch.
"The five kept close together that day, leaving me to go by myself; and if I went near them they would move away to some distant bushes. Some time after mid day they began to move toward me, and in a little time they were at work all around close by. Still they did not speak, nor did I. My little sack was again full; I stooped over to empty the berries into a larger sack; something struck me a terrible blow on the head; I knew no more.
"When I came back to life the sun was setting. I was alone, my horse was gone, and my large berry sack was missing; the small one, empty, lay by my side. I was very dizzy, very sick. I felt of my head; there was a great swelling on it, and much dried blood in my hair. I sat up to better look around and heard some one cal ling me, the tramp of a horse, and then the chief rode up beside me and dismounted. He didn't say any thing at first, just felt of my head carefully, and of my arms, and then: They said that they could not find you when they were ready to return to camp; that you had run away. I knew better. I knew that I would find you here, but I thought to find you dead.'
" 'I wish I were,' I said, and then for the first time I cried. Oh, how lonely I felt. The chief lifted me up into his saddle and got on the horse behind me, and we rode home to the lodge. When we went inside the wives just glanced at me quickly, and then looked away. I was about to lie down on my couch by the doorway when the chief said: 'Come here, here by my side is now your place. And you,' to his head wife, giving her a hard push, 'you will take her couch by the doorway.'
"That was all. He never accused his wives of at tempting to kill me but from that time he treated them coldly, never jesting nor laughing with them as he had been used to doing. And whenever he left camp to hunt, or to look for stray horses from his herd, I had to accompany him. He would never leave me alone for a day with the others. Thus it came about that when he prepared to go with some of his friends on a raid against the northern tribes I was told to get ready also. It did not take me long; I packed my awl, needles, and sinew thread in a little pouch, made some
