It would be the same ordeal, no matter what tribe he went to.
Around the campfires with other trappers Sam had paid close attention to their talk about Indian women. Some of the stories he found incredible, such as that of Baptiste Brown, a Canadian, who gave almost two quarts of his blood as a part of the bride price; or of Moose Creek Harry, who was tomahawked by his bride on his wedding night. The misogynists among the trappers, such as Lost-Skelp Dan, thought all women the curse of the earth and would not listen to talk about them; but the gallants astonished Sam by the vehemence, sometimes the threats and violence, with which they defended their taste in red women. Solomon Silver swore by the Osages, Bill Williams by the Eutaws, Rose and Beckwourth by the Crows, Jim Bridger by the Snakes, William Bent by the Cheyennes, and Loretto by the Blackfeet. Sam had found different virtues to admire in different tribes. The Eutaws made the finest deerskin leather, and unlike the Crows, Arapahoes, and Blackfeet, they did not steal. On the other hand, they would beg until a man loathed the sight of them. A chief would bring forth all the children in the tribe and they would be crying their heads off and staggering as if with hunger, though there might be enough food stored to last all winter.
The Arapahoes placed hospitality next to valor. They set before a guest the best they had and protected his life with their own. Among this people a man took as many wives as he could pay for, but Sam had decided that one wife for him would be enough. Having met William Bent at Bent’s Fort and heard him speak highly of the Cheyennes, Sam had ridden across Cheyenne country. He had been told that the first lodge he entered would be his home as long as he wished to remain, and that lodge had happened to belong to Vipponah, or Lean Chief, who had gravely shaken Sam’s big right hand and cried, "Hook-ah-hay! Num-whit?" (Welcome! How do you do?) Food and drink had been set before Sam, and after a night in this lodge he had been favorably impressed by the manners of these people. The lodge, in the form of a cone of poles eighteen feet long, set on end with their tops loosely bound so the smoke could pass through, and covered over with skins and buffalo robes, had the fire in its center. No Indian ever passed between the fire and the persons sitting around it. Sam thought it strange that so many of the children had streaks of gray in their black hair, and that the boys to the age of six or seven went completely naked, whereas the girls were clothed from infancy. Lean Chief, observing Sam’s appraisal of the marriageable girls around him, explained how it would be if Sam were to bid for one. He would tie his favorite pony to the lodge of the girl’s father. If he was acceptable to the father and the girl, the next morning he would find his horse with his father-in-law’s horses. If not acceptable, he would find his horse where he had left it, with all the boys of the village around it, hooting and jeering.
Sam had thought of taking a wife from the Crows, before learning that they were the world’s biggest liars and most industrious horse thieves. Just the same, they were such a handsome high-spirited people that he had twice returned to look at the girls. He had become amused at the way he was looking at the women in different tribes, and wondered if any whiteman seeking a wife had gone forth to look at French, German, English, Jewish, and other women.
All in all he had found the Indian people to be of middle stature, with lean straight bodies and fine limbs, their black hair usually flowing loosely over their shoulders, their keen black eyes aglow with the joy of living. Some of them had hair so long that it reached the ground at their feet. Except for those who lived chiefly on fish, they had beautiful white teeth. Practically all the tribes ornamented their garments with porcupine quills, beads, colored stones, feathers, leather fringes, and human hair from the heads of their enemies, dyed various colors. They painted their faces with vermilion, ochre, coal dust, ashes, hump fat, and colorful fruit juices. They wore in their black hair beads, buttons, feathers, shells, stones, and just about anything that gleamed or glittered. It was not unusual to see a squaw with eight or ten pounds of glass beads attached to her skirt, leggins, and moccasins. All Indians liked to sing, but for whitemen the sounds they made were not melodic: their war song would begin on the highest note they could reach and fall note by note to a guttural grunt; but abruptly it was high and shrill again, and again falling, to rise and fall, until white people who listened felt numbed in their senses and chilled in their marrow.
In Sam’s opinion there were no handsomer Indians than the Crows. They were a dashing colorful people with above average intelligence; a few whitemen, like Rose and Beckwourth, had become chiefs in the Crow nation and had lived with this people a long time. Though the braves had saddles they always rode without saddles when hunting wild game, and no other men in the world could match them on a horse. As Windy Bill said, it made a man plain oneasy to see with what fantastic skill they could ride on a dead run, the left heel on top of a ham, the left wrist through a loop of mane, and shoot arrows or guns under the horse’s neck; or on a dead run pick up the fallen arrows. But they were a notoriously adulterous people. Bill, who had lived among them, said the men never seemed to be jealous; if they found a wife with a lover they gave her to a brute who was likely to beat the hell out of her. A Crow warrior’s highest ambition in life was to lift twenty scalps and to show such skill and valor that he would be allowed to wear in his hair the feathers of the golden eagle, as a badge of courage and rank. One who wore even a single quill was entitled to and received profound deference; one with a half dozen quills was regarded with awe.
On Sam’s first visit to the Crows he was smoking a pipe and for some reason laid his Bowie at his side. He became aware of a Crow standing by him and of what the brave was doing. The sly thief was standing over the knife and had got it between two of his toes, with the robe from his shoulders almost concealing it. He stood immobile perhaps a minute; then, the foot clutching the knife, moved slowly upward into the folds of the robe and a noiseless hand reached down. At this moment Sam rose swiftly to his feet, and seizing the Indian by his throat and bottom, literally pitched him end over end, with the knife spilling from the robe as he sailed through the air. Three years later, when the Crows would change the course of his life, Sam was to wonder if it had all begun in that moment.
After leaving Kate he rode up the Musselshell to the big bend, and then westward nearly a hundred miles before turning south to the Yellowstone. He rode up the Yellowstone until in hazy distance he could see the mark of its deep gorges, and left it to follow a tributary, for Windy Bill had said he would spend the summer here, hidden from his enemies. Sam was still five miles from Bill’s camp when he sensed that a horseman was aproaching. Sam halted, his rifle across his left arm, and waited. He was not at all surprised when he heard a bullet whistle past his ear. It was a way mountain men had with one another.
In a few moments Bill came in sight, and he was loud with mock apologies and welcome.
"Wall, wall now, ole-timer!" he said. "I heerd ye wuz under, I shorley did. I heerd a Blackfoot varmint cut ye loose from yore possibles and ye wuz plum gone beaver." This was merely the kind of banter that most of the free trappers flung at one another. They all expected to die violent deaths, and so pretended to be amazed on finding a friend still alive. Sam was grinning in his golden beard.
But Bill did not grin when by the supper fire he heard Sam’s tale of the woman up the river. She was gone beaver, he said; god-in-whirlwinds, the wolves would drag the skulls away and the first Blackfoot to come along would lift her topknot. "I feel awful oneasy about thet woman. Why didn’t ya bring her along?"