In this he
agreed with me.
By this time my men were all on the battle-field, and most of the
men from the train, also a number of the women who had come out to
see the dead Indians. I asked one of the boys to go with me to
scalp the Indians, after which I would go to the train as I wanted
to change horses, but none of them knew how to scalp an Indian, so
Jim and I had to teach them how.
One old man, who was looking on, said: "I would not mind shooting
an Indian, but I would not like to scalp one of them."
After scalping the nine Indians we rode to the train and showed
the scalps to the women. One young lady said to me:
"I always took you to be a gentleman until now."
I said: "Miss, I claim to be only a plain plains gentleman, but
that at any and all times."
She said: "I don't think a gentleman could be so barbarous as you
are."
"My dear lady," I replied, "the taking of these scalps may be the
means of saving the train," and then I explained why we always
scalped the Indians when we killed them. I told her that the
Indians did not fear death, but hated the idea of being scalped.
About this time Jim Bridger came up and gave a more through
explanation of the scalping business, and I did not hear anything
more of it at that time. But Jim often teased the young lady
spoken of, who had a lovely head of hair, by remarking what a fine
scalp it would make for the Indians.
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