“If he had made that resolution earlier, it would have been better for all of us. How did it happen that you were not burned?”
“The red-skins took us out to roast us. They tied us to stakes and built a fire around us. It was all up with this child, I allowed, and the fire was jest beginnin’ to scorch, when a white man stepped in and scattered the fire, and swore that they shouldn’t burn us while he lived.”
“I should think he would not have been likely to live long, after that.”
“I tell ye, cap’n, he skeered ’em. Some of them red-skins nearly turned white. Thar was some talk, and then a lot of red-skins j’ined the white man, and thar was a right smart chance fur a big row; but it quieted down arter a bit, and then they turned us loose.”
“It is very strange. It is seldom that a white man gains such influence among the Blackfeet. Do you know who he was?”
“They called him Silverspur. He was young, but a right smart chance of a man.”
“Silverspur? I have heard of him; in fact, I have seen him. His name is Wilder, if I remember rightly. He is a brave man, and fine-looking, but of an unsettled disposition. It would not surprise me if he had joined the Blackfeet. If he has, they will not keep him long. What has become of Sam Glass?”
“He was killed in the scrimmage. The red-skins danced over his scalp and Mr. Robinette’s the night they took us.”
“Yes, sir. I was mistooken about its bein’ the Crows who raised the old man’s ha’r. They were Blackfeet who pounced onto us.”
“Did they carry away Miss Flora, or was she killed? Have you heard any thing about her?”
“She was here; but she’s gone now; and that’s why you had sech an easy time whippin’ this village of Blackfeet. Ef it hadn’t been fur her, the job would hev been a leetle tougher, I reckon.”
“I heerd the red-skins torkin’ about it. That white man, Silverspur, kerried her off last night, and one of the red-skins went with him. Leastways, she was missin’, and so war those two men. Thar was a big hullabaloo raised this mornin’, as the head chief had sot his eye on her fur a wife, and they war mad, too, about the red-skin goin’ off with Silverspur. A right smart chance of warriors mounted and rode off arter ’em, and that’s how thar warn’t many in the village when you came.”