"In the summer of 1846, there was a little half dugout, half cabin, opposite the mouth of Frenchman's Creek, put up by Bill Thorpe, Al Boyd, and Rube Stevens. Bill and Al was men grown, and know'd more 'bout the prairies and timber than the Ingins themselves. They'd hired out to the Northwest Fur Company when they was mere kids, and kept on trapping ever since. Rube--'Little Rube' as all the old men called him--was 'bout nineteen, and plumb dumb; he could hear well enough though, for he wasn't born that way. When he was seventeen his father moved from his farm in Pennsylvany, to take up a claim in Oregon, and the whole family was compelled to cross the plains to get there; for there wasn't no other way. While they was camped in the Bitter-Root valley one evening, just 'bout sundown, a party of Blackfeet surprised the outfit, and massacred all of them but Rube. They carried him off, kept him as a slave, and, to make sure of him, cut out his tongue at the roots. But some of the women who wasn't quite so devilish as their husbands, and who took pity on him, went to work and cured him of his awful wound. He was used mighty mean by the bucks of the tribe, and made up his mind to get away from them or kill himself; for he could not live under their harsh treatment. After he'd been with them for mor'n a year, the tribe had a terrible battle with the Sioux, and in the scrimmage Rube stole a pony and lit out. He rode on night and day until he came across the cabin of the two trappers I have told you 'bout, and they, of course, took the poor boy in and cared for him. "Rube was a splendid shot with the rifle, and he swore to himself that he would never leave the prairies and do nothing for the rest of his life but kill Ingins, who had made him a homeless orphan, and so mutilated him. "After Rube had been with Boyd and Thorpe a year, they was all one day in the winter examining their traps which was scattered 'long the stream for miles. After re-baiting them, they concluded to hunt for meat, which was getting scarce at the cabin; they let Rube go down to the creek where it widened out lake-like, to fish through a hole in the ice, and Al and Bill took their rifles and hunted in the timber for deer. They all got separated of course, Rube being furtherest away, while Al and Bill did not wander so far from each other that they could not be heard if one wanted his companion. "Al shot a fat black-tail deer, and just as he was going to stoop down to cut its throat, Bill yelled out to him:-- "'Drop everything Al, for God's sake, and let's make for the dugout; they're coming, a whole band of Sioux!' "'If we can get to the cabin,' replied Al, 'we can keep off the whole nation. I wonder where Rube is? I hope he'll get here and save his scalp.'