"Yes, that's my trouble," I said, quite confidentially, for somehow I seemed to get on with the brave hunter more easily than with the starched minions of society. "I'm bashful, and I'm tired of civilized life. I'm always putting my foot in it when I'm trying the hardest to keep it out. Besides, I'm in love, and the girl I want don't want me. It's either deliberate suicide or death on the plains with me." "Precisely. I understand. I've been thar!" said Buffalo Bill; and we got along well together from the first. He encouraged the idea that in my present state of mind I would make a magnificent addition to his chosen band; but I have since had some reason to believe that he was leading me on for the sole purpose of making a scarecrow[110] of me—setting me up in some spot frequented by the redskins, to become their target, while he and his comrades scooped down from some ambush and wiped out a score or two of them after I had perished at my post. I suspect this was his plan. He probably considered that so stupid a blunderer as I deserved no better fate than to be used as a decoy. I think so myself. I have nothing like the extravagant opinion of my own merits that I had when I first launched out into the sea of human conflict. [110] At all events, Buffalo Bill was very kind to me all the way out to the plains; he protected me as if I had been a timid young lady—took charge of my tickets, escorted me to and fro from the station eating-houses, almost cut up my food and eating it for me; and if a woman did but glance in my direction, he scowled ferociously. Under such patronage I got through without any accident. It was the last day of our ride by rail. In the car which we helped to occupy there was not a single female, and I was happy. A sense of repose—of safety—stole over me, which even the knowledge that on the morrow we were to take the war-path could not overcome. "Oh," sighed I, "no women! This is bliss!" In about five minutes after I had made this remark the train drew up at one of those little stations that mark off the road, and the scout got off a minute to see a man. Fatal minute![111] In that brief sixty seconds of time a female made her appearance in the car door, looked all along the line, and, either because the seat beside me was the only vacant one, or because she liked my looks, she came, and, without so much as "by your leave," plumped down by me. [111] "This seat is engaged," I mildly
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