living with the Indians." This man they talked of,
and of whom they seemed to have but a rough idea,
was to be captured, skinned alive, roasted, scalped,
and, in fact, to undergo all the refined tortures
known to the border.
It crossed my mind suddenly, like a flash, that I was that man.
I saw at the same time, however, that there was not the slightest suspicion that the pale, slim boy before them was u the man who lived with the Indians."
Through half- friendly savages and other means it had gone abroad among the settlers that there was a white man living with the Indians. Nothing could induce these men to believe that a man could live with the Indians for any other purpose than to take part with them in their wars, and to plunder the whites. And, as a rule, so far as I know, those who have cast their fortunes in with the Indians have been outlaws, men who could not live longer with their kind.
But these fellows expected to find the renegade a strong-limbed, bearded, desperate man. Perhaps had any one told them there and then that I was that man they would have laughed in his face.
My first impulse was to run away. Had it then been night I certainly should have fled. All day I watched my chance to escape, but no chance came. That night I had no opportunity without great hazard, and soon I began to think better of my projected flight through the snow.
