THE BATTALION.
11
th em in my early days, if any of you care to hear it.” We as
sented gladly and he began.
“ About forty years ago I was a young cow-boy on the
plains. The Indians had been peaceful for a good while, and
made occasional visits to the fort where I stayed. One day a
tribe of Sioux Indians visited us, and while there they
quarreled with some of our soldiers and went off mad. The
first thing we knew, they had dug up the hatchet and were
gathering to attack us. The captain of the fort was a very
reckless man, and, as he felt himself secure against an at-
sault from the Indians, he took no pains to be ready for them.
When they surrounded the little o a day post two later, he
found himself wholly unprepared. The Indians captured the
fort, and massacred every soul except the captain’s daughter;
her they took with them.
Luckily, I was on a hunt at the time the Indians cap
tured the fort, and when I came back and found what had
happened, and saw that the girl’s body was nowhere among
the dead, I knew that the Indians had taken her off with
them. I waited only long enough for my horse to rest and
then struck out for the Indian village, which’was some forty
miles or more away. When I came within a mile of the set
tlement, I got down off my horse and tied him in a thicket,
and then began crawling camtiously towards the encampment.
As soon as I came in sight of the encampment, I lay and
waited to find out where the Indians had put the girl. It
did not take me long to find the place, for I saw all the war
riors in the village gathered around one of the largest wig-