That, however, was denied them until some settlement could be reached. But while thinking thus of their own happiness they never failed to remember the scout and Burning Cloud with tears of gratitude, and as the days lengthened out into a week, they wondered very much what had become of them.
One night their suspense was unexpectedly relieved. The couple were found waiting for the train on the banks of a river, and thenceforward the scout resumed his old position of guide, and as they were gathered around the little camp-fire he filled in the outlines of the story that the doctor had merely sketched.
When the first frontier fort was reached there was a double wedding, and though Olive shone in all her wondrous beauty yet the dusky child of the forest almost rivaled her in her semi-savage charms. This proceeding the scout, though more from bashfulness than for any other reason, had somewhat opposed.
"We have been married once," he said, "and ther Cloud am satisfied and so am I."
"It was a heathen ceremony," suggested Olive, who, womanlike, had her peculiar notions of what constituted the fitness of such things.
"Wal, it mought be, but thar hain't no priest nor prayer-book that kin bind us any tighter than we now am, nor make us any more true."
"That may be. But remember you come of a Christian people, and must educate your wife."
"When I hain't got no edercation myself!" he laughed.
Nevertheless he consented after having a talk with the Indian girl, and finding it was her wish to be married by the "Medicine of the Manitou of the pale-faces," and so it was done.
"And speakin' of the Medicine," the scout said, a few days afterward, when they were talking over the subject, "reminds me of ther old one of ther Sioux."