How lavish was Blakely's
bounty to the aged and to the little ones, and Indians love their
children infinitely! The hatred or distrust of Indian man or woman,
once incurred, is venomous and lasting. The trust, above all the
gratitude, of the wild race, once fairly won, is to the full as
stable. Nothing will shake it. There are those who say the love of an
Indian girl, once given, surpasses that of her Circassian sister, and
Bridger now was learning new stories of the Bugologist with every day
of his progress in Apache lore. He had even dared to bid his impulsive
little wife "go slow," should she ever again be tempted to say
spiteful things of Blakely. "If what old Toyah tells me is true," said
he, "and I believe him, Hualpai or Apache Mohave, there isn't a decent
Indian in this part of Arizona that wouldn't give his own scalp to
save Blakely." Mrs. Bridger did not tell this at the time, for she had
said too much the other way; but, on this fifth day of our hero's
absence, there came tidings that unloosed her lips.
Just at sunset an Indian runner rode in on one of Arnold's horses, and
bearing a dispatch for Major Plume. It was from that sturdy
campaigner, Captain Stout, who knew every mile of the old trail
through Sunset Pass long years before even the ----th Cavalry,--the
predecessors of Plume, and Wren, and Sanders,--and what Stout said no
man along the Sandy ever bade him swear to.
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