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Show 118 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF When your wives disobey your commands, you kill them; that is your right. That thing disobeyed her husb~nd; he told her not to dance; she disobeyed him ; she had no ears ; he killed her, and he did right. l-Ie did as you all would have done, and you shall neither kill nor harm him for it. I promised the white chief that, if he would ser;td a trader to my people, I would protect him and return him unharmed ; this I must do, and he shall not be hurt here. Warriors ! wait till you meet him in battle, or, perhaps, in his own camp, then kill him; but here his life is sacred. What if we kill them all, and take what they have? It will last but a few suns; we shall then want more. Whom do we get sach-o-pach (powder) from ? We get it from the whites; and when we have expended what we have, we must do without, or go to them for more. When we have no powder, can/ we fight our enemies with plenty? If we kill these three men, whom I have given the word of a chief to protect, the white chief will send us no more, but his braves will revenge the death of their brothers. No, no ; you shall not harm them here. They have eaten of our meat, and drunk of our water; they have also smoked with us. When they have sold their goods, let them return in peace." At this time there were a great many Flat Heads at the Black Foot camp, as they were at peace with each other. After the speech of my father-in-law, a great brave of the Flat Heads, called Bad Hand, replied, " Hey ! you are yourself again ; you talk well ; !ou talk like As-as-to again. We are now at peace; If you had killed these men, we should have made war on you again; we should have raised the battle-axe . ' never to have buried it. These whites are ours, and JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 119 the Flat Heads would have revenged their deaths if they had been killed in your camp." The chief then made a loud and long harangue, after which all became quiet. As-as-to next came to my camp and said, "My son, you have done right; that woman I gave you had no sense ; her ears were stopped up ; she would not hearken to you, and you had a right to kill her. But I have ~nother daug~ter, who is younger than she was. She Is more beautiful; she has good sense and good ears. You may have her in the place of the bad one; she will hearken to all you say to h er. " . . . "Well," thought I, "this is getting marned again before I have even had time to mourn." But I replied, "Very well, my father, I will ac~ept of your kind offer," well knowing, at the same time, that to refuse him would be to offend, as he would suppose that I disdained his genero3ity. My second wife was brought to me. I found her, as her father had represented, far more intelligent and far prettier than her other sister, and I was really proud of the change. I now possessed one that many .a warrior had performed deeds of -bloody valor to obtain ; ~or it is a high honor to get the daughter of~ great .chi:f to wife, and many a bold warrior has sacn:ficed his hfe in seeking to attain such a prize. . · . During the night, while I an~ my w1fe were quie:ly reposing, some person crawled ~nto o~r couch, sobbing most bitterly. Angry at the 1ntrus10n, I asked who was there. "Me," answered a. voice, which, although well-nigh stifled with bitter sobs, I recognized as that of my other wife, whom every one had supposed dead. After lying outside the lodge senseless for some hours, she had recovered and groped her way to my bed. • |
