o strike.
One moment more, and the Blackfoot chief had been in the happy
hunting-grounds with his fathers, when the gun of Big Otter came down on
the skull of the boastful one. It was enough. Strong Elk was saved--
and he is grateful; waugh!"

"Well, he has reason to be!" said I, much impressed by the modest way in
which the story was told. "And now," I added, "since we have got a
capital horse, and the journey before us is long, don't you think we
should start to-morrow!"

"Yes, to-morrow--and it is time for Waboose to rest. She is strong, but
she has had much to weary her, and her grief is deep."

With a kindly acknowledgment of the Indian's thoughtful care of her, Eve
rose and went to her tent. Big Otter lighted his pipe, and I lay down
to meditate; but almost before I had time to think, my head drooped and
I was in the land of forgetfulness.

It is not my purpose, good reader, to carry you step by step over the
long, varied, and somewhat painful journey that intervened between us
and Colorado at that time. It was interesting--deeply so--for we passed
through some of the most beautiful as well as wildest scenery of the
North American wilderness. We kept far to the westward, near the base
of the Rocky Mountains, so as to avoid the haunts of civilised men. But
space will not permit of more than a brief reference to this long
journey.

I can only say that on arriving at a village belonging to a remote tribe
of Indians, who were well-known to my guide, it was arranged that Big
Otter and Waboose should stay with them, while I should go to the cities
of the pale-faces and endeavour to convert my diamonds into cash.
Happening to have a friend in Chicago I went there, and through his
agency effected the sale of the diamonds, which produced a little over
the sum mentioned by William Liston in his paper. This I took with me
in the convenient form of bills on well-known mercantile firms, in the
region to which I was bound, and, having wrapped them in a piece of
oiled silk and sewed them inside of the breastplate that contained my
gold, I set off with a light heart, though somewhat weighted shoulders,
to return to my friends in the Far West.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

TELLS OF A WONDERFUL MEETING AND A FRUSTRATED FOE.

I must change the scene now, and advance the courteous reader
considerably in regard to time as well as place on the journey which we
have pursued so long together.

It is one of those scenes