
] 
| 

Dec. 28, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
1009 

— 
to get this girl to share his lodge, and I, I had 
got her. Had I not good reason to be proud 
and happy? Of course I had, for she cared for me 
as much as I did for her; she also was happy. 
“We rode out across the sage and grease- 
wood flat bordering the river, then up the val- 
ley’s slope on to the big plain, seamed with deep, 
brushy coulées putting in to the river. Away 
in the distance was my herd, and we went to- 
ward it, riding along a narrow ridge between 
two coulées. We were talking and laughing, 
never thinking of any danger, when suddenly a 
gun boomed behind us, and I fell from my 
horse. 
strike, nor falling. I merely heard the gun. 
When I came to myself there was a terrible pain 
in my head. The bullet had struck just here, 
above this temple. and glanced off, not doing 
any damage, except to cut the scalp and let out 
considerable blood. But the pain was terrible. 
I saw that I must have lain there for some 
time, because the sun was now quite high above 
the edge of the world. When I opened my eyes 
Si’-pi-ah-ki bent over and kissed me. She had 
my gun on her lap, and sat facing the direction 
from which the shot had come, the coulée on 
the down river side of the ridge. ‘Oh,’ she 
said, ‘I thought at first you were killed, and I 
wanted to die, too. But I felt for your heart and 
found that it was beating. I pressed your 
| wound as I: knew the skull was not crushed. So 
| I just picked up your gun and watched for the 
| enemy to show himself.’ 
“Now was she not brave? Most women in 
| her place would just have screamed and ridden 
| away as fast as they could urge the horse; 
| would have been so frightened that they would 
not have known what they were doing. She had 
seen no enemy, had heard nothing. Our horses 
were grazing not far away. ‘I tried to rise, and 
fell back, dizzy. ‘Lie still,’ she said, ‘some one 
will be coming this way before long, and we'll 
/get help.’ Sure enough a rider did appear, 
‘coming out from the river on another ridge, 
and Si’-pi-ah-ki arose and waved her robe. He 
whipped up his horse and came quickly; and 
when he learned what had happened he hurried 
back to camp for aid. A big crowd of men 
|returned with him, also my mother with a travoi, 
lon which I was taken in to my lodge. My 
friends searched the coulée and found no signs 
of a war party, only the tracks of a man lead- 
ing down it to camp. The tracks were fresh, 
made that morning, and they were the im- 
prints of parfleche soled moccasins! He who 
\had shot me then, was some one of our own 
people. Many men had gone out afoot after 
‘their horses. but no one had been seen to re- 
turn afoot; all had returned riding, driving their 
herd before them. And that was all. ‘Look 
lout,’ the people said to me. ‘Watch sharp; 
some one in this camp is your enemy.’ 
“T couldn’t believe it. I thought that some 
‘friend had fired in our direction just to scare 
as, and that, seeing what he had done, he had 
Jed from the place and sneaked home. 
“Four nights later, I learned that I was mis- 
‘aken. I awoke suddenly with a sort of fear 
n my heart; with the feeling that some terrible 
janger threatened me. There was no moon. 
{ glanced up through the smoke hole; there 
were no stars; the sky was clouded over and 
twas very dark. I lay on the outside of our 
‘ouch, Si’-pi-ah-ki on the inside. I heard a faint 
‘ustling; she was sleeping, and motionless. ‘It 

I don’t remember feeling the bullet’ 
I thought, ‘lying just outside against 
And then all at once I 
is a dog,’ 
the lodge skin.’ 
what it was; again I heard the rustling noise, 
and, dark as it was, I saw the white lodge lining 
rising, rising, very slowly a very little way at a 
knew 
time. My gun was by my side. I noiselessly 
cocked it, took ‘aim where I though this enemy 
The flash of the 
and 
of mine was lying, and fired. 
powder both lodge 
raised and a hand, grasping a shining knife. 
Then all was dark again, and mingled with Si’- 
pi-ah-ki’s frightened screams, I heard the thud, 
thud, thud, of retreating feet. My shot aroused 
the camp. Men here and there with 
ready guns inquiring what had happened. My 
woman built a fire; we took lighted sticks and 
examined the ground outside; there was no 
blood, nor anything save a pulled up lodge pin 
and the still half-raised skin. ‘Who, who was 
this enemy,’ we asked, ‘who so our 
death?? Why did he try to kill me? What harm 
had I ever done to any of my people that must 
be paid for with my life? 
“T was never spoken of as a coward. I had 
proved more than once in battle with the enemy 
that I was a pretty good fighter; but now I 
felt afraid. It is very terrible to feel that some 
one is trying to bring about your death. There- 
after I never went alone anywhere. When I 
hunted, my cousin Red Plume always accom- 
panied me. I got a youth to care for my horses, 
and that was a great pleasure I had to give up, 
for nothing is more pleasant than to round up 
your band and drive them in to water, listening 
to the thunder of their hoofs, watching them 
play, their fat, sleek, hard bodies shining in 
the sun. Also, more than all else, I feared the 
night; the darkness. When we went to bed, 
first we put out the fire, and then pretending to 
occupy one couch, we would quietly step over 
and take another one. We couldn’t talk to each 
other any more at night; not even whisper; and 
that was hard to two young people who love 
and have so very much to say to each other. I 
got two big dogs and kept them always tied 
except when we moved camp, and I made them 
savage. Always, they slept inside, one by the 
doorway, the cther by our couch. 
A winter and a summer passed, and then my 
father-in-law died. So, as my perhaps-to-be 
wives* no longer had a home, I took them. I 
had always intended to do so in time. They 
wished it, their older sister wished it, and so did 
I. We were four happy persons. My enemy 
had not troubled me for a long time, and I 
looked forward to a life of peace. Also, I be- 
came somewhat careless. On the very night 
that the two new wives came to my lodge, away 
out beyond the confines of camp there came to 
our ears the sound of shots and the cry of the 
enemy, an Assinaboine war party some of our 
young men had discovered as they came sneak- 
ing in to steal our horses. Like every other 
man, I seized my weapons and ran toward the 
place. From the time I left my lodge I heard 
some one running behind me, but I had no 
thought of danger until, twang! went a bow 
string and an arrow pierced my left shoulder, 
burning my flesh as though it was made of fire. 
I could not use my left arm at all, but, turning, 
I raised my gun with my right arm as quickly 
as I could, and fired at the person I could but 
revealed skin lining 
rushed 
desired 

*The younger sisters of a woman a man married were 
his potential wives. If he did not wish to marry them, he 
had the right to choose their husbands. 
dimly see running from me. The flash of the 
gun blinded me for a little time, and when I 
recovered from it, there was no one in sight, 
no longer any sound of running feet. I turned 
and crept homeward by a circuitous way, moy- 
ing very silently through the tall sage brush. I 
had no place out in the fight beyond, not with 
one of my own people waiting for just such a 
chance to shoot me in the back. Again I had 
a terrible feeling of dread, and that, with the 
overcame me. 
loss of blood from wound, 
I managed to reach my lodge, and fell within 
my 
the doorway as one dead. 
Before I came to life they drew the arrow 
from my shoulder, so I did not feel that pain. 
It was just an plain and new, and 
straight, without one mark to designate its owner. 
And it had a terrible barbed point; they had to 
push it on through and break it off in order to 
pull out the shaft. 
“T Jay ill and low hearted for some days. The 
chiefs held a council, and the camp crier went 
about telling loudly their words: ‘This is to 
the cowardly, mean dog who seeks the life of 
a good man. Let him beware; let him cease 
his wrong doing, for if discovered he will be 
arrow, 
given to the Sun; he will be bound to a tree 
and then left to starve and thirst until his 
shadow passes on.’ 
“Tittle good that would do, I thought. 
Sooner or later, at some unguarded time, he 
would succeed in his attempt, and my shadow 
would More 
closely than ever I now kept watch for him; 
more carefully than ever my women and my 
from possible surprise. 
go on to the sandhills, not his. 
friends guarded me 
How I longed to meet him face to face, to fight 
him with gun, or knife, or club, or even with 
bare hands. I planned what I would do iat 
ever got him in my power, how best to make 
his dying a long day of great suffering. 
“You can understand how unpleasant a camp 
life is to an active man. How, instead of sitting 
idly in your lodge you long to mount a horse 
and ride out over the plains; if not to hunt, why 
just to ride and see the plains, and the moun- 
tains rising from them, and to watch the game 
shadows sweep Over 
and birds; to see the cloud 
the big land; to feel the wind, made by the 
gods, gentle or fierce, as their heart happens 
to be at the time. And I couldn’t go and see 
it all. live it all, as others did, when they pleased. 
I could only go when someone was willing to 
accompany me. During many idle days I did 
much visiting, and gave many feasts myself. One 
by one I considered every man of our people 
as that enemy of mine. And see, not one of 
them all but gave me friendly smiles and greet- 
ing, and yet some one of them wanted my life. 
Time and again my women talked over those 
who had desired to marry them, who made pro- 
posals to their parents for them. There had 
been many, it is true, but not even among them 
could we point to one as possibly this enemy. 
Every one of them was married, and certainly 
content and happy. 
“Two winters passed. In all that time noth- 
ing occurred to disturb us, except that I felt 
sick, having pains in my stomach, in my head, 
and often, when starting to rise from a seat, I 
became blind and dizzy, and weak, and would 
just fall back in my place. This sickness grew 
worse and worse. We called in doctor after doc- 
tor; men and women who had a great favor 
with the gods, who had medicines that cured 

