MY FIRST FLINTLOCK 23 
shot full of arrows by Indians. Both were scalped, left 
for dead, and everything they had carried away. Sam 
recovered sufficiently to crawl a couple of miles on hands 
and knees to a cache he had of food and as he said, ‘‘I 
had more health than anything else and so I got well.”’ 
His partner was killed. 
Of all his adventures he was proudest of getting 
scalped. The scalp came from the place on the head 
where a man first begins to grow bald. The showing of 
naked skull was roughly round and about three and a 
half inches in diameter. Like all old-time trappers he 
wore his hair long and the scar was nearly hidden. 
Sam told me he was conscious but never moved a muscle 
when the Indian ran his knife around his head and then 
yanked his scalp off. He also made the surprising 
statement that there was very little pain in being 
scalped. He always desired to find the Indian that 
scalped him, probably for no good purpose. Whenever 
Sam got full, he would weep and cry, ‘‘I want my scalp,” 
just as a small boy does when a larger boy steals his 
candy. 
Early next morning the Indians appeared on horse- 
back, dressed in their best beaded deerskins and with 
their faces painted. A horse race like a buffalo chase 
was an occasion in their monotonous lives. They look 
at it much as a boy regards a circus. After consider- 
able of a powwow the match was made for a pony a 
side. Our pony and the Indian pony were tied, heads 
together, and left until after the race. Then the winner 
would take them. Our orders were as it was winter, 
‘“Don’t bet your blankets but everything else goes.”’ 
The Indians had a five-dollar bill and four silver Mexi- 
can dollars. They laid it on the ground. We had just 
enough cash to cover it. An Indian would place a 
