I jumped on my pinto pony, for I was riding him that day, and started up through the brush as fast as I could go. When I got a little way up the canyon, where the brush was not so thick, I could see a bear running up the hill. I went a little farther and found the girl stretched out on the ground as if she were dead. Then I shouted as loudly as I could for some of the Indians to come back, but they had all gone. I tried to lift her on to my horse but she was too heavy for me, so I laid her down again. Then she asked me for a drink. I took the cup she had been picking berries in and gave her some water. Then she said she felt better.
“Where is my mother?” she asked.
I told her that they had all run down the canyon like scared sheep. Then I helped her to her feet. She was crying all the time, and she said that her head and side and arm hurt her very much. I asked her if she could ride. She said she would try, so I helped her up on my horse and led it until we got out of the canyon. Then she told me to get on behind her as she thought she could guide the horse. We had about four miles to go, so I climbed upon the pony with her.
When we got in sight of camp we saw some Indians coming full tilt, and when they met us there was the greatest hubbub I ever heard. When we reached the camp the girl’s mother came running up and threw her arms about the girl and acted as if she were crazy. She would have hugged me too if I had been willing. She said that I was a brave boy. Mother came up and said, “Yagaki, I thought you had come down to camp ahead of me or I never would have come without you.”
New York Zoölogical Society
A black bear.
“Oh, you were as scared as any of them,” I said.
“I know I was scared,” she said, “but I never would have left you, if I had known you were still in the canyon.”
That night the girl’s father and mother came to our tepee to see what I wanted for saving their daughter’s life. I told them that I wanted nothing.