88 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



were those of Chil-co-the, his Yuta wife. Yes, indeed, the 

 "Bending Eeed" had escaped from her Arapaho captors, 

 and made her way back to her white husband, fasting and 

 alone. 



The Indian women who follow the fortunes of the white 

 hunters are remarkable for their affection and fidelity to 

 their husbands, the which virtues, it must be remarked, 

 are all on their own side ; for, with very few exceptions, 

 the mountaineers seldom scruple to abandon their Indian 

 wives whenever the fancy takes them to change their 

 harems ; and on such occasions the squaws, thus cast 

 aside, wild with jealousy and despair, have been not 

 unfrequently known to take signal vengeance both on 

 their faithless husbands and on the successful beauties 

 who have supplanted them in their affections. There are 

 some honourable exceptions, however, to such cruelty, and 

 many of the mountaineers stick to their red-skinned wives 

 for better and for worse, often suffering them to gain the 

 upper hand in the domestic economy of the lodges, and 

 being ruled by their better halves in all things pertaining 

 to family affairs ; and it may be remarked that, when once 

 the lady dons the unmentionables, she becomes the veriest 

 termagant that ever henpecked an unfortunate husband. 



Your refined trappers, however, who, after many years 

 of bachelor life, incline to take to themselves a better half, 

 often undertake an expedition into the settlements of New 

 Mexico, where not unfrequently they adopt a very " Young 

 Lochinvar" system in procuring the required rib; and 

 have been known to carry off vi et armis, from the midst 

 of a fandango in Fernandez or El Rancho of Taos, some 

 dark-skinned beauty with or without her own consent 

 is a matter of unconcern and bear the ravished fair one 

 across the mountains, where she soon becomes inured to 

 the free and roving life fate has assigned her. 



American women are valued at a low figure in the 

 mountains. They are too fine and "fofarraw." Neither 

 can they make mocassins, or dress skins ; nor are they so 

 schooled to perfect obedience to their lords and masters as 

 to stand a " lodge-poling," which the western lords of tho 



