Between grunts, motions and words on the part of the Lost Indian, and as many from several plainsmen, none of which seemed to be clearer than Hottentot, this was, in simple language, the story told by the Lost Indian at Bedtick Creek:
"Five moons ago, while at White River, where the Great Father has begun to issue rations of beef on the foot to every head of a Sioux tepee. I gave the Mountain Fox seventeen beaver pelts, a bale of buckskins, twelve obsidian arrow points, one lame calico pony, a pipestone peace-pipe, some kinnickinnic and an iron oven, found after the soldiers left a camp at Clear Creek, and eleven bone buttons for the hand of his second oldest daughter. This was all of my fortune, except one saddle pony, a pack pony, one lodge-pole tepee and poles, four buffalo robes, a coil of telegraph wire [stolen from the Overland], several hair-braided halters, a lariat and my private store of scalps, none of which I took myself, but which had been inherited from my father, a sub-chief known as the Hawk, a brave man whose bones are now dry in an elevated grave near the fast-running creek known to the whites as Ten, but which in Sioux is Wickachimminy. This, with my bows and arrows and a Spencer rifle, for which I had no ammunition, with my moccasins, a breech-clout and jerked meat to last one moon, was all I had—not much, but enough—and I was happy with my bride.
"After the sun had risen and set three times Mountain Fox came to my tepee and said I must give him still another horse, two blankets (which I did not have and could not get), and which he said I had promised.
"In our Sioux nation we never kill—that is, we do not kill Sioux. No Sioux has yet killed a Sioux, and few Sioux have ever called another of our tribe a liar. I called him a liar. He made a sign of anger and a loud noise of distress. My bride, on his command, left the tepee with him, telling me that under Sioux law, which I knew to be right, that the contract had not been filled until one moon had elapsed and all members of both families had smoked in celebration. What did I do? I rode away in the night toward the tracks where the Iron Horse runs, twenty days away, going and coming, to get from a white man's corral a horse and perhaps the blankets. This was while the grass was still green.
"I found the horse and the blankets and a gun; also food in cans. But I found in a large bottle what I had heard of, but never tasted before. After the first sun had set I stopped at Dry Canyon, which is never dry, but full of roaring water, and there I drank nearly all from the bottle. What I did then I only remember as a dream, but I saw in my dream my bride and I wept. My pony and the horse I found in the white man's corral at the trail of the Iron Horse, with the blankets and the food in cans, and I—Big Jaw—waded Dry Canyon Creek, which I say was wet, for nearly a day and left no trail. I drank more of the white man's poison and then camped without a fire.
"When the next sun came up I was ill and drank lots of water. Then came six men from the corral at the trail of the Iron Horse, and they bound my hands with small chains, tied me to my pony and took me back to the trail of the Iron Horse, where I was kept in a log house with iron windows until one night it burned, and I was taken out by the white man in charge, who, three moons ago, blindfolded me, put me on a horse and took me to another corral on the trail of the Iron Horse and locked me in a large tepee made of stone, where they fed me well and gave me medicine.
"Then I was, one moon ago, put to work in a forest to chop trees, and I ran away.
"Have you seen my bride—she of the hair as black as a starless night and teeth as white as the wing of a dove?
"Oh, white man, tell me, have you seen her? I am a lost sheep—the trail is covered to my eyes, with which I have wept almost constantly all the moons I have been away. Have you seen her I seek? I am hungry, not in my stomach, but in my breast and in my head; I must feast or die!"
Then he wept like a child.