“Waal, La Moine?”
“The girl has been carried off, Waltermyer, that’s sartin. But one Indian did it. Thar is the print of another moccasin, but it is a little one—that of a squaw. I should say that the white gal and the squaw had been talkin’ together, and after they had separated, some Indian devil of a warrior jumped from an ambush—dragged the gal inter the stream and across it—found his braves waitin’, and after lifting the gal inter a saddle, off they went like so many black thieves.”
“Ef you say so, it is so, and I’ll swear to it.”
“We saw a troop of horses in the distance,” said the father, “but as they had no riders, thought they must have been wild ones. No, no! they could never have carried Indians.”
“Not them!” replied Waltermyer, “not them! Why, man, any boy that ever saw a perarer could have told you how it was. They were hiding behind their horses—with only one foot thrown over the saddles, if they had any at all, while the girl was bound down and kept on the further side. It’s too old a trick to fool any one. But which way were they going, the prowlin’ wolves carryin’ off young lambs? West, were they? They will strike for the South Pass; but what in the name of common sense should take them thar with a stolen girl?”
No one appeared competent to solve the question, and all was silence until the Frenchman—for so he habitually called himself, notwithstanding his Indian blood—whispered in the ear of Waltermyer the single word “Mormons.”
“Right, man! Right for a thousand slugs! Stranger, did you come by the way of Laramie?”
“Certainly, we stayed there a number of days.”
“War thar any followers of the holy prophet—as the infernal sinners call themselves, though I call them thieves—around?”
“A large train. We left them there.”