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Show 250 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF "Not another word," interrupted I ; "though I will hang you, at any rate." Then, turning to the eleven renegade white men, I said, " I give you just five minutes to leave tho village ; if you are longer in going, I will order my warriors to scalp every one of you. You assume to be white men, and yet think no more of yourselves than to enter an Indian village and set such an example to the savages; whereas, if they were to treat you in such a manner, you would think death too light a punishment. You rob your own race, and forbid their return to the village under pain of death, allying yourselves with the worst Indian in the tribe. After stripping your victim, you forcibly deprive him of his few trusty followers, and bid him go through these trackless wilds, filled with murderous savages, who, had they come across him, would have murdered him before he reached the fort." I rated them thus soundly, but not one offered to lift his hand. The stolen horses were very quickly forthcoming, and the purloined property was readily produced. I restored it to my friend before them. ''Now," I said, addressing the ~ang, ''you can return to the fort with Mr. Adams; but if I hear that you offer to molest him in any way, your scalps shall pay for it." Then, turning to the mulatto, I said, "You have instigated all this mischief, and I should only be doing my duty to put my threat into execution, and hang you as I promised. However, you can go to the fort with these men. I shall be there about as soon as you will, and I will attend to your case then. I'll see if I can not teach you better than to come among the Crows aga~n." · / JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 251 Mr. Adams belonged to Captain Bonneville's com ·pany, and was leader of a party of about twenty men; he had come into the Crow country for the purpose of trading and trapping. The mulatto had arrived previously, and had brought a Canadian with him: the mulatto could speak the Crow language tolerably well. He had become acquainted with I-Iigh Lance, who was a bad Indian, and had relations as bad as himself; and through this clique he had obta"i ned permission to stay and trap in the country. On the anival of Mr. Adams, the mulatto made himself very familiar with his men, representing to them that they were fools to travel for hire, when they could stay among the Crows with him and do so much better. By these arguments he induced eleven of Mr. Adams's party to desert him, when, with the participation of High Lance and other bad Indians, they stripped him of all his goods. Mr. Adams expressed his warmest thanks to me for my interference. I told him I had only done my duty, as I always had done in like cases, and should continue to do as long as I remained with the Crows. This business settled, I received a third sound thrashing from my new wife's husband and relatives for again making free with his wife. After the lapse of three days I left for the fort, again taking my friend's lady. Her husband, finding that I was incorrigible, grew furious, and declared he only wished to have me in his power once more. My Dog Soldiers said to him, ''You have whipped hi1n three times, and you shall whip him no more, neither shall you _do him any farther harm. Red Cherry loves him, and she does not love you ; she will always go with him. You might as well try to turn Big Horn · |