Page:The life and adventures of James P. Beckwourth, mountaineer, scout, pioneer, and chief of the Crow nation of Indians (IA lifeadventuresof00beckrich).pdf/312

296 that even the heroine set them, not one of the Black Feet who ventured to show fight would have escaped. The heroine killed three warriors with her lance, and took two fine little boys prisoners. We found but about a thousand warriors to oppose us, while there were lodges enough to contain three times the number. We only took sixty-eight scalps after all our trouble—a thing I could not account for. We took thirty women and children prisoners, and drove home near two thousand head of horses, among which were many of our own.

As I had never seen the Black Feet fight so well as at the fort, I expected an equal display of valour on this occasion, but they offered nothing worthy the name of defence. I learned from my prisoners that my old father-in-law was in that village, whose daughter I had nearly killed for dancing over the scalps of the white men. We had only one warrior wounded, who was shot through the thigh; but it was not broken, and, like all Indian wounds, it soon got well. We reached home in less than four days; and, after our arrival, singing and dancing were kept up for a week.

In taking prisoners from an enemy we gain much useful information, as there are always more or less of their tribe domiciliated with us, to whom the captives impart confidence; these relate all that they hear to the chiefs, thus affording much serviceable information that could not otherwise be obtained. The women seem to care but little for their captivity, more particularly the young women, who have neither husbands nor children to attach them to their own tribe. They like Crow husbands, because they keep them painted most of the time with the emblems of triumph, and do not whip them like their Black Foot husbands. Certain it is that, when once captured by us, none of them ever wished to return to their own nation. In our numerous campaigns that winter we also took an unusual number of boys, all of whom make excellent Crow warriors, so that our numbers considerably increased from our prisoners alone. Some of the best warriors in the Crow nation had been boys taken from the surrounding tribes. They had been brought up with us, had played with our children, and fought their miniature sham-battles together,