out over the Plains, still saw with
the eye of yesterday. Upon woman the artificial imprint of heredity is
set more deeply than with man. The commands of society are wrought into
her soul.

CHAPTER XXX

THEY TWAIN

Even as we were putting together our small belongings for the resumption
of our journey, I looked up and saw what I took to be a wolf, stalking
along in the grass near the edge of our encampment. I would have shot
it, but reflected that I must not waste a shot on wolves. Advancing
closer toward it, as something about its motions attracted me, I saw it
was a dog. It would not allow me to approach, but as Ellen came it lay
down in the grass, and she got close to it.

"It is sick," she said, "or hurt," and she tossed it a bone.

"Quick," I called out to her, "get it! Tame it. It is worth more than
riches to us, that dog."

So she, coaxing it, at last got her hands upon its head, though it would
not wag its tail or make any sign of friendship. It was a wolfish
mongrel Indian dog. One side of its head was cut or crushed, and it
seemed that possibly some squaw had struck it, with intent perhaps to
put it into the kettle, but with aim so bad that the victim had escaped.

To savage man, a dog is of nearly as much use as a horse. Now we had a
horse and a dog, and food, and weapons, and shelter. It was time we
should depart, and we now were well equipped to travel. But whither?

"It seems to me," said I, "that our safest plan is to keep away from the
Platte, where the Indians are more apt to be. If we keep west until we
reach the mountains, we certainly will be above Laramie, and then if we
follow south along the mountains, we must strike the Platte again, and
so find Laramie, if we do not meet any one before that time." It may be
seen how vague was my geography in regard to a region then little known
to any.

"My father will have out the whole Army looking for us," said Ellen
Meriwether to me. "We may be found any day."

But for many a day we were not found. We traveled westward day after
day, she upon the horse, I walking with the dog. We had a rude travois,
which we forced our horse to draw, and our little belongings we carried
in a leathern bag, slung between two lodge poles. The dog we did not yet
load, although the rubbed hair on his shoulders showed that he was used
to harness.

At times on these high rolling plains we saw the buffalo, and when our
dried meat ran low I paused for food, not