The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1901-12-21

he had escaped the fangs Of the wolves
| and then strange fancies began to fill
his brain.
Picture Will Not Fade.
Try as he would, he could not rid him.
self-of the picture that intruded it.
self upon him. Curses and groans aided
him not in shutting out from his mind
things he did not wish to dwell upon,
and as picture after picture ran through
his brain he began to compare himself
to the four-footed wolves outside.
They had sought his life, but had he
not taken from an Indian girl what was
more precious to her than life itself:
and had he not sent her back to her
fathers tepee thing unclean, a woman
10 be spat upon, and whose name would
be byword in the lodge OF the tribe
to which she belonged?
Dying. he supposed, Thornton at last
faced the mental charge that forced it.
self upon him, and he shrank under the
accusing finger pointed at him by a
shadowy Indian girl, whose face was
strangely like the face of the appar-
ltion that had lowered over him as he
lay unconscious soon after seeking the
shelter of the tomb. His past life came
floating by him like a fieecy cloud, and
Happy Indian Maiden.
Around tepee made Of birch bark
an Indian girl was playing, happy in
her ignorance of the sin and the pleas
ures of the world which lay the other
side OF the reservation. Pretty as
flower and admired by the braves of the
tribe. little Pta was the belle of the
village, and her hand was sought in
N n 10 CrcAh INV l.
fellows, each one ready to make her his
lawful wife. according to the custom Of
the Indian, and give her home in his
wigwam.
Then a tall. stalwart white man APP
peared upon the scene, and soon was a
welcome visitor at the tepee of old Ge-
wan go-bah, the father of Pta, Fond
was Ge-wan- go-bah of the firewater of
the white man, and as the stranger was
always ready to furnish this the old war
rlor had warm spot in his heart for
the young Woodsman. and in angry tones
he bid the dusky suitors of his daugh-
ter's hand begone.
Wins Confession of Love.
By flattery and honied words the white
man appealed to the Indian maiden, and
by fair promises and tender caresses he
q U
for him.
Long walks they took together in the
silent forest and often in the dusk they
drifted idly with the stream in the
canoe of the white man, who was an
expert in the use of the paddle and the
rifle, which things had won for him a
name among the red men Of the reser-
walton as man to be feared.
Closer and closer grew their intimacy,
much to the anger of Shang- me- she,
one of the rejected suitors Of Pta, and
more than once he made threats against
the life of the man from outside, who,
ne said, desired not to make Pta his
wife, but to make her despised wom-
an in the eyes of the tribe as soon as
he found it convenient to leave her
for white woman.
Little Pta only laughed at these warm
ings and made merry with her white
lover, who, she said, was going to mar
ry her soon.
Several months had come and gone be-
fore the love of the white man grew
cold, and then he met her with bitter
words and the offer of money. With
downcast eyes the little Indian maiden
whispered secret to her recreant DOVER
but he laughed her to scorn and told her
to go and marry one of the bucks of her
tribe. who would not mind little thing
like that
Then the Indian girl, heretofore loving
ana yielding to his every wish, had sud-
denly drawn knife and made lunge
at the man who had betrayed her, and
he, the brute that he was, had struck
her down with cruel blows.
Thornton groaned aloud as this part
Of the picture passed before him, and he
saw painted in it's true colors the crime
of which he had been guilty. Then came
a merciful blank in the mind of the in
jured man, and when the picture APP
peared before him again the scene had
changed.
The white man was the husband of
a white woman, and never gave a |
thought to poor little Pta, who had be-
come mother, as he was told, of a fine
baby boy, whose features bore marked
resemblance to the man who had been
her lover.
Finally she and her baby had faded
from his mind, and he was free to
shower his love and his caresses upon
the woman he called his wife and the
children she had borne to him.
LAME anu again the series OF pictures
unrolled themselves before the wounded
man, and as some of them We're flashed |
upon the mental canvas he writhed in !!
agony.
Beads of perspiration stood out upon
his brow, where they froze into crystals |
as pure as was the mind of poor dead
Pta before he had come into her life
Hoping Against Hope.
Arose the moon in all it's glory, and
Thornton felt for his compass, in order !
that he might get the time and make a |
note of the directions. hoping against |
hope that when the morning dawned, If |
he had not frozen to death or died of his !
wound before, he might be able to leave
his narrow refuge and prison in one |
and seek aid somewhere.
His anguish when he found his COM !
vytoc WITH f,,1 +