Page:Life Among the Piutes.djvu/232

 I have lived here over twenty years. I never lost anything by your people, and whenever they came I always gave them something to eat. The last time your father was here I killed beef for him and the few who were with him.”

We staid here three days, because it snowed so hard we could not travel. At last it cleared off, and my cousin was going with us to the next place. He said there were very bad men there. Sometimes they would throw a rope over our women, and do fearful things to them.

“Oh, my poor cousins,” he said, “my heart aches for you, for I am afraid they will do something fearful to you. They do not care for anything. They do most terrible outrageous things to our women.”

I thought within myself, “If such an outrageous thing is to happen to me, it will not be done by one man or two, while there are two women with knives, for I know what an Indian woman can do. She can never be outraged by one man; but she may by two.” It is something an Indian woman dare not say till she has been overcome by one man, for there is no man living that can do anything to a woman if she does not wish him to. My dear reader, I have not lived in this world for over thirty or forty years for nothing, and I know what I am talking about.

We did not get to the horrible place till the second day. We got there very late in the afternoon. As we rode up to the house, I heard one of the men say, “Why, there is Sarah Winnemucca!” Oh, how glad I was to hear my name spoken by some one that knew me. I knew I was all right. He came up to me and said,—

“Why, Sarah, what in the world are you doing away out here at this time of the year?”

He helped me off my horse. Sister jumped off hers, and he told my cousin to take our horses to the stable. I