Page:The life and adventures of James P. Beckwourth, mountaineer, scout, pioneer, and chief of the Crow nation of Indians (IA lifeadventuresof00beckrich).pdf/352

332 I will be already there to welcome you. This day I become your wife—Bar-chee-am-pe is a warrior no more."

This relieved me of my melancholy. I shook the braves by the hand all round, and narrated much of my recent adventures to them. When I came to my danger in the A-rick-a-ra country, they were almost boiling with wrath, and asked my permission to go and exterminate them.

Pine Leaf left the fort with my sisters to go and dress for the short marriage ceremony. She had so long worn the war costume that female apparel seemed hardly to become her; she returned so transformed in appearance that the beholder could scarcely recognize her for the same person.

When I visited her lodge in the evening I found her dressed like a queen, with a lodge full of her own and my relatives to witness the nuptials. She was naturally a pensive, deep-thinking girl; her mind seemed absorbed in some other object than worldly matters. It might be that her continual remembrance of her brother's early fall had tinged her mind with melancholy, or it might be constitutional to her; but for an Indian girl she had more of that winning grace, more of those feminine blandishments—in short, she approached nearer to our ideal of a woman than her savage birth and breed would seem to render possible.

This was my last marriage in the Crow nation. Pine Leaf, the pride and admiration of her people, was no longer the dauntless and victorious warrior, the avenger of the fall of her brother. She retired from the field of her glory, and became the affectionate wife of the Medicine Calf.

The difficulty being now entirely removed, we quitted our encampment, and went on a hunting excursion. We were away but a few days and then returned to the fort. One morning it was discovered a large drove of horses was missing. A party was despatched along the trail, which conducted them precisely the same route they took before. I raised a party, and again struck across the Mussel Shell, and, finding I was before the fugitives, I secreted my warriors as before. We had waited but a few moments, when I saw the enemy emerge from the pines, not more than a mile distant. Pine Leaf and my little wife were with me. My new bride, as she saw the