This town, which we visited, was several miles in length, and at least a mile in width.  Around and in the vicinity were smaller villages, suburbs to the town.  We kindled a fire, and cooked three of the animals we had shot; the meat was exceeding sweet, tender, and juicy, resembling that of the squirrel, only that there was more fat upon it.

CHAPTER XII.

Among these Apaches, our companions, were two Comanches, who, fifteen years before, had witnessed the death of the celebrated Overton.  As this wretch, for a short time, was employed as an English agent by the Fur Company, his wild and romantic end will probably interest the many readers who have known him; at all events, the narrative will serve as a specimen of the lawless career of many who resort to the western wilderness.

Some forty-four years ago, a Spanish trader had settled among a tribe of the Tonquewas[14], at the foot of the Green Mountains.  He had taken an Indian squaw, and was living there very comfortably, paying no taxes, but occasionally levying some, under the shape of black mail, upon the settlements of the province of Santa Fe.  In one excursion, however, he was taken and hung, an event soon forgotten both by Spaniards and Tonquewas.  He had left behind him, besides a child and a squaw, property to a respectable amount; the tribe took his wealth for their own use, but cast away the widow and her offspring.  She fell by chance into the hands of a jolly, though solitary Canadian trapper, who, not having the means of selecting his spouse, took the squaw for better and for worse.

[Footnote 14:  The Tonquewas tribe sprang from the Comanches many years ago.]

In the meantime the young half-breed grew to manhood, and early displayed a wonderful capacity for languages.  The squaw died, and the trapper, now thinking of the happy days he had passed among the civilized people of the East, resolved to return thither, and took with him the young half-breed, to whom by long habit he had become attached.  They both came to St. Louis, where the half-breed soon learned enough of English to make himself understood, and one day, having gone with his “father-in-law” to pay a visit to the Osages, he murdered him on the way, took his horse, fusil, and sundries, and set up for himself.

For a long time he was unsuspected, and, indeed, if he had been, he cared very little about it.  He went from tribe to tribe, living an indolent life, which suited his taste perfectly; and as he was very necessary to the Indians as an interpreter during their bartering transactions with the Whites, he was allowed to do just as he pleased.  He was, however, fond of shifting from tribe to tribe, and the traders seeing him now with the Pawnies or the Comanches, now with the Crows or the Tonquewas, gave him the surname of “Turn-over,” which name, making a somersault, became Over-turn, and, by corruption, Overton.