With such primitive reasoning did Singing Stream put the horses to the
light wagon, and, taking the little Judith with her, drove to Deadwood, a
matter of two hundred miles, to buy the bright calicoes that were to make
her like a white woman. It never occurred to the half-breed woman to make
known her plans to Warren Rodney. In circumventing Sally Tumlin the man
became the spoils of war, and it is not the Indian way to tell plans on
the war-trail. So the squaw left her kingdom in the hands of the enemy,
without a word.

Sally Tumlin and Warren Rodney looked upon the disappearance of the squaw
in the light of a providential solution of the difficulties attending
their romance. They admitted it was square of her to "hit the trail," and
they decided to lose no time in going to the army post, where a chaplain,
an Indian missionary, happened to be staying at the time, and have a real
wedding, with a ring and a fee to the parson. The wedding party started
for the post, old mother Tumlin fluttering about the bride as complacently
as if the ceremony had been the culmination of the most decorous
courtship. The oafish brother drove the bridal party, making crude jests
by-the-way, to the frank delight of the prospective groom and the giggling
protestations of the bride. The chaplain at the post was disposed to ask
few questions. Parsons made queer marriages in those tumultuous days, and
it was regarded as a patent of worthy motives that the pair should call in
the man of the gospel at all. To the question whether or not he had been
married before, Rodney answered:

"Well, parson, this is the first time I have ever stood up for a life
sentence." And the ceremony proceeded.

Some of the ladies at the post, hearing that there was to be a wedding,
dropped in and added their smiles and flutterings to the rather grim