The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-02-29
Ccnti1lued.l

I do not wish to speak of what fol lowed. For me a merciful ignorance came: but what that girl must have suffered hour after hour, night after night, day after day. alone. without shelter. almost without food, in such agony of terror as might have been natural even had her solitary protector been possessed of all his faculties-I say 1 cannot dwell upon that because it makes the cold sweat stand on my face even now to think of it. So will say only that one time l awoke. She told me later that she did not know whether it was two or three days we had been there thus. She told me that now and then she left me and crept to the top of the ridge to watch the Indian camp. She saw them come in from the chase, their horses loaded with meat Then. as the sun came out, they went to drying meat, and the squavs began to scrape the hides. As they had abundant food they did not hunt more than that one day, and no one rode in our direction. Our horse she kept concealed and blindfoided un- til dark. when she allowed him to feed.
 
 blanket from his head. because now. as she told me with exuItation. the In dians had broken camp, mounted and ridden away, all of them, far off to- ward the west She had cut and dried the remainder of our antelope meat. taking this hint from what we saw the Indians doing, and so most of our re maining meat had been saved.
 Aalk tighter about a thinner waist. Her face was much thinner and browner. her eyes more sunken. The white strip of her lower neck was now brick red. I dared net ask her how she had got through the nights. because she had used the blanket to blindfold the horse. She had hollowed out a place for my hips to lie more easily and pulled grasses for my bed. In all ways thoughtfulness and unselfishness had been hers. As realized this l put my hands over my face and groaned aloud. Then felt her hand on my head.
 ''How did you eat?" I asked her ''You have no fire"
 "Once I had a fre," she said. 'l made it with flint and steel. as saw you do. See" she added and pointed to a ring of ashes. where there were bits of twigs and other fuel.
 ''Now you must eat," she said. "You are like a shadow. See, I have made you broth"
 Broth ?'' said L ''How2"
 "'In your hat" she said. My father told me how the Indians boil water with hot stones. I tried it in my own hat first, but it is gone. A hot stone burned it through" Then I noticed that she was bareheaded. I lay still for a time, pondering feebly, as best l could. on the courage and resource of this girl, who now no doubt had saved my life. unworthy as it seemed to me. At last I looked up to her.
 After all. may get weIl,' I said. "Go now to the thicket at the head of the ravine and see if there are any lit- tie cottonwood trees. Auberry told me that the inner bark is bitter. It may act like quinine and break the fever"
 So presently she came back with my knife and her hands full of soft green bark which she had found ''It is bit ter" said she, but if I boil it it will spoil your broth" I drank of the crude preparation as best I might and ate feebly as I might at some of the more tender meat thus softened. And then we boiled the bitter bark. and drank that water. the only medicine we might have. Alas. it was our last use of my hat as a kettle, for now it. too, gave way.
 Now" she said to me, ''I must leave you for a time. 1 am going over to the Indian camp to see what l can find"
 She put my head in the saddle for pillow and gave me the remnant of her hat for a shade. l saw her go away, clad like an Indian woman. her long braids down her back, her head bare, her face brown. her moccasined feet slipping softly over the grasses, the metals of her leggins tinkl1ng. My eyes followed her as long as she re- mained visible. and it seemed to me hours before she returned. l missed her.
 She came back laughing and joyful. "Seer' she exclaimed. Many things. have found a knife, and I have found a broken kettle, and here is an awl made from a bone. and here is something which I think their women use in scraping hides" She showed ne all these things. last the saw edged bone or scraping hoe of the squaws used for dressing hides as she had thought
 ''Now I am squaw," she said. smil ing oddly. Yes. we are savages now"
 She looked down at me at length as I lay. Have courage. John Cowles.' she said. "Get well now soon so that we may go and hunt Our meat is nearly gone"