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 I'll use some doctor's stuff in my saddle-bag. I've toted it to the mountains an' back every trip. My medicine would work all right on anything, but I never bother it for something that don't 'mount to much. An' it ain't awful keen to work on an Injun, anyway. I've worked it on Crows, as they're friends of mine, but I always was afraid an Injun would make it grow weak. Jim Baker's got crazy idees 'bout medicine—still, it's all right not to take chances.

"A feast of b'iled berries mayn't do it any good, but I reckon they wouldn't do it any harm. Jim won't take no chances when it comes to his medicine. I've know'd him to travel four hundred miles just to git something he allowed his medicine would relish. Between my medicine an' the doctor's stuff I'll pull the Lance through or kill him."

Gauche's camp consisted of some three hundred warriors. Bridger shrewdly surmised that the Aricaras must have had help from the Sioux tribes to defeat so big a band. When the chief and his prisoners rode into camp there rose a great commotion, and from the snatches of gibes hurled at them Bridger managed to patch out the truth.