“Yes.” By this time they had reached the open prairie, just beyond the wagons; there they paused.
“Sit down,” said Abe, “and I’ll tell you all about it.”
The two guides sat down upon the grass. Abe closed his eyes for a moment thoughtfully, as if striving to remember the past. After a moment of silence he spoke:
“Of course you’ve heard, Dave, that my father was killed out here on the Yellowstone trail by these Crows, and died in my arms?”
“Yes,” said Dave, “I have heard the story.”
“An’ I suppose hearn, too, how I swore to be revenged upon all the red devils of the Crow nation?”
“Yes, I heard that also.”
“Wal,” said the guide, “I did a good deal in wiping ’em out in fair fight, but the bitterest revenge that I took wasn’t in fair fight. It were about two years after my father’s death, an’ the border folks an’ the Injuns had already begun to call me the ‘Crow-Killer,’ that a large lot of the Crows came into Fort Benton to sign a treaty and have a big talk with the Injun agents. I was at the fort at the time an’ the Crows were mighty anxious to get a look at their devil as they called me. Of course as they were there on a peace-mission, I couldn’t very well take their top-knots, but I wanted to, for the blood were hot in my veins in those days. Being on a peace-talk, they had brought their squaws with them, an’ among the squaws was the prettiest Injun I ever saw. She were called ‘Little Star,’ an’ she were a star! Although she were a Crow, I fell in love with her, an’, as it ’bout always happens in just such cases, she fell in love with me. She was to be the wife of one of the young braves, named ‘Rolling Cloud’; the ‘White Vulture’ is his son. Wal, the ‘Little Star’ an’ I used to meet nights, outside the fort; she were dead gone on me—I were called a handsome feller then—an’ were willin’ to leave her tribe an’ go with me. Wal, I loved the gal, Injun though she was, an’ I took her. One morning both she an’ I were missin’. We went down the river, an’ I married her, Injun fashion, for thar wasn’t no minister nigh. Wal, my takin’ the gal riled the Crows awfully. I pitched my shanty with a little settlement on the Missouri, an’ for two years I were happy. There were some things happened in those two years, but I don’t care to speak of them. At the end, about, of those two years I came back one night an’ found my cabin destroyed an’ my wife gone, an’ from that day to this I have never hearn word of her; but in an Injun fight out hyar, I met the ‘Rolling Cloud.’ We had a fair tussle an’ I downed an’ knifed him, an’ as he died he muttered something ’bout the ‘Little Star,’ which makes me think the Crows know something of my wife’s fate.”