“Yes; all my hope is in you now; you must call me Milly.”
“Yer a sweet gal, Milly; the man thet couldn’t fight fer ye don’t desarve the name of man nohow. Now look yer: I’m goin’ ter save yer young man—you see ef I don’t! I’ll save him or lay my bones by the Powder river; thet’s ez good ez swore to.”
“If you could save him, father Ben, I should love you always, dearly.”
“You would? And ye called me father Ben? All right. We’ll see ef thar ain’t suthin’ yit in old Ben Miffin.”
They hurried to the hut and entered; every thing was in confusion, and it was some time before they could collect the scattered articles sufficiently to see that not one had been removed. Every thing remained intact, to the utter surprise of Ben, who knew that Blackfeet are born thieves. In all his experience, he had never known them to enter a camp and leave any thing which could possibly be taken away; and there were many little articles, such as traps, blankets, knives, hatchets, and the like, much coveted by the Indians, lying about in every direction, untouched. Ben looked about him in amazement.
“I’ve seen a good many things in my time, strange things too, but this beats all natur’,” he said.
“Vat beats?” said Jan.
“They ain’t stole a thing; they’ve even left our hosses.”
“I dinks dese pe coot Injuns,” said Jan, with a grin.
“Good! Git out! Don’t be pokin’ fun at a chap in yer old age. The world is comin’ to an end; don’t say it ain’t; I know better. I went down to Selkirk last summer, an’ thar was a chap thar preachin’ thet the accounts of the world would be brung to a close jest about this time; an’ the durned critter was right—a Millerite, they called him.”