s to the
settlements with this fort in their rear, just as if they couldn't make
a sweep of five hundred miles if they took it into their heads, and come
back into their country on the other side.

"Just at that time there was no trouble with them; the hatchet was
buried, and they used to come into the fort and sell skins and furs to
the traders there for tobacco and beads. After that affair I was telling
ye of, Rube and me, we went back for a spell to the settlement, and then
took a fancy to hunt on another line, and, after knocking about for a
time, found ourselves at Fort Charles. That was where we met Dick for
the first time.

"The Commander of the fort was a chap named White, a captain; he had
with him his wife and daughter. A worse kind of man for the commander
of a frontier station you could hardly find. He was not a bad soldier,
and was well liked by his men, and I have no doubt if he had been
fighting agin other white men he would have done well enough; but he
never seemed to have an idee what Injin nature was like, and weren't
never likely to learn.

"First place, he despised them. Now, you know, the redskins ain't to be
despised. You may hate them, you may say they are a cussed lot of
rascals and thieves, but there ain't no despising them, and any one as
does that is sure to have cause to repent it, sooner or later. There was
the less reason with the Dacotas, for they had cut up stronger bodies of
troops than there was at Fort Charles without letting a soul escape.
Then, partly because the captain despised them, I suppose, he was always
hurting their feelings.

"Now, a chief is a chief, and a man who can bring three hundred horsemen
into the field, whether he is redskin or white, is a man to whom a
certain respect should be paid. But Captain White never seemed to see
that, but just treated one redskin like another, just as if they war
dirt beneath his feet. Well, as I told you, he had with him his wife and
daughter. His wife was too fine a lady for a frontier fort, still, she
was not badly liked: but as to the daughter, there warn't a man in the
fort but would have died for her. She war about fifteen year old, and as
pretty as a flower. She war always bright and merry, with a kind word to
the soldiers as she rode past them on her pretty white mustang.

"Dick, here, he worshipped her like the rest of us. If he got a
particular good skin, or anything else, if he thought she would like it
he would put it b