"Little
Grit," as a pet name--that Miss Spitfire, minus her revolver, sat
biting her nails about two rods away--and that she waited anxiously
for the expected arrival of the 'Frisco train, bound eastward.

"Come, now, Little Grit," said the leader of the band, when the whisky
had all disappeared, "you was gwine with Buffalo Bill; better come
along with me--I'm a better fellow, an' hev killed more Injuns than
ever Bill did. We're arter them pesky redskins now. A lot of 'em
crossed the stream a couple o' nights ago, and stole our best horses.
We're bound to hev 'em back. Some o' them red thieves will miss their
skalps afore to-morrow night. A feller as kin fight a woman is jist
the chap for us. You come along; we'll show you how to tree your first
Injun."

The long and the short of it was I had to go. I did not want to. I
thought of my mother, of Belle, of Blue-Eyes, and I hung back. But I
was taken along. These giants, with their bristling belts, did not
understand a person who said "no" to them. And as the secondary effect
of the liquor was to make them quarrelsome, I had to pretend that I
liked the expedition.

Not to weary the reader, we tracked the marauders, and came across
them at earliest dawn the following morning, cooking their dog-stew
under the shelter of a high bluff, with the stolen horses picketed
near, in a cluster of young cottonwoods.

I have no talent for depicting skirmishes with the redskins; I leave
all that to Buffalo Bill. I will here simply explain that the Indians
were surprised, but savage; that the whites were resolved to get back
their horses, and that they did get them, and rode off victorious,
leaving six dead and nine wounded red warriors on the battle-ground,
with only one mishap to their own numbers.

The mishap was a trifling one to the border ruffians. It was not so
trifling to me.

It consisted of their leaving me a prisoner in the hands of the
Indians.

I was bound to a tree, while the wretches jabbered around me, as to
what they should do for me. Then, while I was reflecting whether I
would not prefer marriage with Miss Spitfire to this horrible
predicament, they drove a stake into the ground, untied me, led me to
the stake, re-tied me to that, and piled branches of dry cottonwood
about me up to my neck.

Then one of them ran, howling, to bring a brand from the fire under
the upset breakfast pot.

I raised my eyes to the bright sun, which had risen over the plain,
and w