As for my two friends, Gabriel and Roche, they had been both seriously wounded, and it was a long time before they were recovered.

We passed the remainder of the summer in building castles in the air for the future, and at last agreed to go to Monterey to pass the winter.  Fate, however, ordered otherwise, and a succession of adventures, the current of which I could not oppose, forced me through many wild scenes and countries, which I have yet to describe.

CHAPTER XI.

At the beginning of the fall, a few months after my father’s death, I and my two comrades, Gabriel and Roche, were hunting in the rolling prairies of the South, on the eastern shores of the Buona Ventura.  One evening we were in high spirits, having had good sport.  My two friends had entered upon a theme which they could never exhaust, one pleasantly narrating the wonders and sights of Paris, the other describing with his true native eloquence the beauties of his country, and repeating the old local Irish legends, which appeared to me quaint and highly poetical.

Of a sudden we were surrounded by a party of sixty Arrapahoes; of course, resistance or flight was useless.  Our captors, however, treated us with honour, contenting themselves with watching us closely and preventing our escape.  They knew who we were, and though my horse, saddle, and rifle were in themselves a booty for any chief, nothing was taken on us.  I addressed the chief, whom I knew: 

“What have I done to the Morning Star of the Arrapahoes, that I should be taken and watched like a sheep of the Watchinangoes?”

The chief smiled and put his hand upon my shoulders.  “The Arrapahoes,” said he, “love the young Owato Wanisha and his pale-faced brothers, for they are great warriors, and can beat their enemies with beautiful blue fires from the heavens.  The Arrapahoes know all; they are a wise people.  They will take Owato Wanisha to their own tribe that he may show his skill to them, and make them warriors.  He shall be fed with the fattest and sweetest dogs.  He will become a great warrior among the Arrapahoes.  So wish our prophets.  I obey the will of the prophets and of the nation.”

“But,” answered I, “my Manitou will not hear me if I am a slave.  The Pale-face Manitou has ears only for free warriors.  He will not lend me his fires unless space and time be my own.”

The chief interrupted me:—­“Owato Wanisha is not a slave, nor can he be one.  He is with his good friends, who will watch over him, light his fire, spread their finest blankets in his tent, and fill it with the best game of the prairie.  His friends love the young chief, but he must not escape from them, else the evil spirit would make the young Arrapahoes drunk as a beastly Crow, and excite them in their folly to kill the Pale-faces.”