nd wild country
with a woman whom he saw in the evening for the first time, and fled
with as his own wife before sunrise!

By the afternoon he had thoroughly informed himself upon the nature of
the surrounding country. Everything on the face of the map was surveyed
and charted in his mind, in accordance with his habits and training.
This done, he turned toward his secret dwelling. As he walked rapidly
and noiselessly through the hidden valleys and along the singing
streams, he noticed fresh signs of the deer, elk, and other wild tribes
among whom he had chosen to abide. "They shall be my people," he said to
himself.

Behind a group of cedars he paused to reconnoiter, and saw the
pine-bough wigwam like a giant plant, each row of boughs overlapping
the preceding circular row like the scales of a fish. Stasu was sitting
before it upon a buffalorobe, attired in her best doeskin gown. Her
delicate oval face was touched with red paint, and her slender brown
hands were occupied with a moccasin meant for him to wear. He could
scarcely believe that it was a mortal woman that he saw before him
in broad day--the pride of No Man's Trail, for that is what the Crow
Indians call that valley!

"Ho, ho, kechuwa!" he exclaimed as he approached her, and her heart
leaped in recognition of the magnetic words of love.

"It is good that we are alone! I shall never want to go back to my
people so long as I have you. I can dwell here with you forever,
unless you should think otherwise!" she exclaimed in her own tongue,
accompanied by graphic signs.

"Ho, I think of nothing else! I can see in every creature only friendly
ways and good feeling. We can live alone here, happily, unless you
should feel differently," he replied in his own language with the signs,
so that his bride understood him.

The environment was just what it should be when two people are united in
marriage. The wedding music was played by Nature, and trees, brooks,
and the birds of the air contributed their peculiar strains to a great
harmony. All of the people on No Man's Trail were polite, and understood
the reserves of love. These two had yielded to a simple and natural
impulse; but its only justification to their minds was the mysterious
leading of the twin spirit! That was the sum total of their excuse, and
it was enough.

Before the rigor of winter had set in, Tatoka brought to his bride
many buffalo skins. She was thoroughly schooled in the arts of savage
womanh