He ran over these particulars with an artistic eye; but he had only an instant to observe them, as the girl uttered a little startled scream when he looked up at her, and turned to fly.
He called to her, in the Dahcotah dialect, as loudly as his weak state would permit him to call; but his voice was very feeble. She stopped, and after a little hesitation, came to him.
“I am wounded,” he said. “I fell from the top of that cliff last night, and am badly hurt. I can not move.”
This appeal was sufficient to excite the sympathy of the girl. Telling Wilder that she would soon return, she hastened away.
Within half an hour—though it seemed much longer to Wilder, who was anxious to see her again, and who feared that the Indians might arrive before she returned—she came back, accompanied by two men. One of these was a negro, and the other was an old Indian, whose hair was as white as snow, and whose face and hands and garments were painted with strange devices.
They brought with them a sort of litter, upon which the wounded man was laid very carefully and tenderly. The negro carrying one end of the litter, and the old man and the girl the other, they ascended a steep hill, and, after winding in and out among the rocks, came to a lodge, made of skins stretched upon poles, at the foot of the cliff. They entered the lodge, and Wilder saw nothing more. His rough journey had exhausted him, and he fainted.
When he again awoke, he found himself in a dark apartment, lying upon a couch of furs. From what the darkness permitted him to see, he judged that the apartment was a cavern, or a portion of a cavern; but he was not able to form any opinion of its shape or size.
He heard voices near him, which he believed to be those of the old Indian and the girl; but he could see no one, and he concluded that they were in another room. They were talking in the Indian tongue, of which he understood enough to enable him to follow their conversation.
“It shall be as you say, my child,” said the old man; “but if I do this thing, you must promise me that you will not leave me while I live.”