not fling true, he
was pierced to the heart at the first thrust. The tribe then repaired
to the trader's lodge, and he gave them all a drink of the black water.
They danced and sang, and then lay upon the ground and slept.

After two or three days the half-breed declined to provide black water
free; if the warriors wanted it, they must pay for it. At first he gave
them a "sleep," as they called it, for one robe or skin, but as the
stock of black water diminished, two, then three, then many robes
were demanded. At last he said he had none left except what he himself
desired. The Indians offered their ponies, until the trader had all the
robes and all the ponies of the tribe.

Now, he said, he would go back to the land of the paleface and procure
more of the black water. Some of the warriors were willing he should do
this; others asserted that he had plenty of black water left, and was
going to trade with their enemy, the Sioux. The devil had awakened in
the tribe. The trader's stores and packs were searched, but no black
water was found. 'Twas hidden, then, said the Indians. The trader must
produce it, or they would kill him. Of course he could not do this. He
had sowed the wind; he reaped the whirlwind. He was scalped before the
eyes of his horrified wife, and his body mutilated and mangled. The poor
woman attempted to escape; a warrior struck her with his tomahawk, and
she fell as if dead. The Indians fired the lodge. As they did so, a
Crow squaw saw that the white woman was not dead. She took the wounded
creature to her own lodge, bound up her wounds, and nursed her back to
strength. But the unfortunate woman's brain was crazed, and could not
bear the sight of a warrior.

As soon as she could get around she ran away. The squaws went out to
look for her, and found her crooning on the banks of the Big Beard. She
would talk with the squaws, but if a warrior appeared, she hid herself
till he was gone. The squaws took her food, and she lived in a covert on
the bank of the stream for many months. One day a warrior, out hunting,
chanced upon her. Thinking she was lost, he sought to catch her, to take
her back to the village, as all Indian tribes have a veneration for the
insane; but she fled into the hills, and was never seen afterward. The
stream became known as the "Place of the Crazy Woman," or Crazy Woman's
Fork, and has retained the name to this day.

At this point, to return to my narrative, the signs indicated that