| Summary: | ting off the escape of their expected prey. Benware, by nature had training ever alert, saw the Indians emerge from cover, and without warning or outcry, ran up the bank and seized Contrail's gun and with the ability for which he was noted, made off with it and successfully ran the gauntlet to the fort. The reds somewhat baffled at Benware's escape turned their attention to Contrell, who, himself unarmed, ran into a bunch of willows and lay down to await such disposition as circumstances would bring. Before reaching his covert, however, a bullet from one of the Indian's guns entered his groin, which seemed a mortal wound to him, and he even feared his own heart throbs would betray him to the blood hunters. The Indians were not sure that their trapped foe was gunless, therefore went about encompassing his destruction in a gingerly way. Their natural fear for an enemy with the "brush" on them, was life for Contrell, for after a few circumlocutions with desultory shots at the spot where the now badly wounded man was supposed to be, they yelled a few choice epithets in broken English, and made off in time to avoid a conflict with a party of rescuers coming from the Fort. For several months after his mishap, Contrell lay in the surgeon's care at the Fort Berthold military hospital. His case was a critical one, but a robust physique pulled him through. Some months later, he again appeared in the Fort Peck country and turned up as a woodyard proprietor in one of the Missouri's timber points in that section. Matrimonially inclined, he had "spliced" up with a fair daughter of the Assiniboine tribe, and with a good team of ponies, and ready wood sales to passing steamers, the Contrell establishment seemed in a prosperous way. But like all lands where the methods of the Bedouin prevail, peace and sunshine to the couple were of the short shift order. "Nosey" and a few other disreputable characters had been driven away from the Whoop Up country by the Canadian Mounted Police and taken refuge on the Missouri in some points below the mouth of the Musselshell River, but were too steeped in their manner of life to heed the lesson of its mishaps—and figure out the risk of continuance. After having stolen or swindled through bad rum, all the ponies they could from both the northern and southern Assiniboines, they "let themselves loose," on the herds of Granville Stuart—a British subject—partly in revenge for their discomfort at and around Whoop Up, and partly from the revenue that came with good horses. A regular line was established along the Missouri as far south as Bismarck and the run made full handed both ways. 21 Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited with Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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