| OCR Text |
Show , 400 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF the war-path, you have refused to let me into the warpath secret, although you tell it to striplings on their second excursion. It was unfair that I could not know it; that I must be sent away with the women and children, when the secret was made known to those onebattle braves. If you had seen fit to tell it to me, it would have been secret until my death. But let it go; I care no farther for it. "I am about to sacrifice what I have always chosen to preserve-my liberty. The back of my steed has been my lodge and my home. On his back, armed with my lance and battle-axe, I knew no fear. The medicine chief, when fighting by my side, has displayed a noble courage and a lofty spirit, and he won from my heart, what no other warrior has ever won, the promise to marry hi1n when 1ny vow was fulfilled. He has done much for our people; he has fought their enemies, and spilled his blood for them. When I shall become his wife, I shall be fond and faithful to him. My heart feels pure before the Great Spirit and the sun. When I shall be no more on the war-path, obey the voice of the Medicine Calf, and you will grow stronger and stronger; we shall continue a great and a happy people, and he will leave us no more. I have done." She then approached me, every eye being intently fixed upon her. She placed her hand under my chin, and lifted n1y head forcibly up. "Look at me," she s_aid; "I know that your heart is crying for the follies of the people. But let it cry no more. I know you have ridden day and night to keep us from evil. You have made us strong, and your desire is to preserve us st:·ong. Now stay at ·home with us; you will not be obhged to go to war more than twice in twelve moons. And now, my friend, I am yours after you . . JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 401 have so long been seeking me. I believe ~ou ~ove me, for you have often told me you did, and I beheve you have not a forked tongue. Our lodge shall be a r:appy one; and when you depart to the happy hunti1n~ground, I will be already there to welcome :you. 'l~1s day I become your wife-Bar-chee-am-pe IS a warnor no more. " This relieved me of my 1nelancholy. I shook the braves by the hand all round, and narrated much of my recent adventures to them. vVhen I came to my danO'er in the A-rick-a-:-ra country, they were almost boil~1g with wrath, and asked n1y permission to go and exterminate them. Pine Leaf left the fort with my sisters to go and dress for the short marriage ceremony. She had so lono- '"Torn the war costume that female apparel seem- o ed hardly to become her; she returned so transformed in appearance that the beholder could scarcely recognize her for the same person. When I visited her lodge in the evening I found her dressed like a queen, with a lodge full of her own ;:tnd my relatives to witness the nuptials. She was naturally a pensive, deep-thinking girl; her mind seemed ab- - sorbed in some other object than worldly matters. It might be that her continual remembrance of her brother's early fall had tinged her mind with melancholy, or it might be constitutional to her; _}lut for an Indian girl she had more of that winning grace, n1ore of those feminine blandishments-in short, she approached nearer to our ideal of a woman than her savage birth and breed would seem to render possible. This was my last marriage in the Crow nation. Pine Leaf, the pride and admiration of her people, was no longer the dauntless and victorious warrior, the aveng- |
