" I prepared to explore it as I had done the others; but no sooner had I entered the lodge than my fire failed me, leaving me in total darkness.

Handing it out to the doctor to be relighted, I began feeling my way about the interior of the lodge. I had almost made the circuit when my hand came in contact with a human foot; at the same time a voice unmistakably Indian, and which evidently came from the owner of the foot, convinced me that I was not alone.

I would have gladly placed myself on the outside of the lodge and there matured plus for interviewing its occupant; but, unfortunately, to reach the entrance of the lodge, I must either pass over or around the owner of the before-mentioned foot and voice.

Could I have been convinced that among its other possessions there was neither tomahawk nor scalping-knife, pistol nor war club, or any similar article of the noble red man's toilet, I would have risked an attempt to escape through the low narrow opening of the lodge; but who ever saw an Indian without one or all of these interesting trinkets?

Had I made the attempt, I should have expected to encounter either the keen edge of the scalping-knife or the blow of the tomahawk and to have engaged in a questionable struggle for life. This would not do.

I crouched in silence for a few moments, hoping the doctor would return with the lighted fire. I need not say that each succeeding moment spent in the darkness of that lodge seemed like an age.

I could hear a slight movement on the part of my unknown neighbor, which did not add to my comfort. Why does the doctor not return?

At last I discovered the approach of a light on the outside. When it neared the entrance I called to the doctor and informed him that an Indian was in the lodge, and that he had better have his weapons ready for a conflict.

With his lighted fire in one hand and docked revolver in the other, the doctor cautiously entered the lodge.

And there, directly between us, wrapped in a buffalo robe, lay the cause of my anxiety - a little Indian girl, probably ten years old; not a full blood, but a half-breed.

She was terribly frightened to find herself in our hands, with none of her people near. Why was she left behind in this manner?

This little girl, who was at first an object of our curiosity, became at once an object of our pity.

The Indians, an unusual thing for them to do toward their own blood, had willfully deserted her; but this, alas! was the least of their injuries to her.

After being shamefully abandoned by the entire village, a few of the young men of the tribe returned to the deserted lodge, and upon the person of this little girl, committed outrages, the details of which are too sickening for these pages.

She was carried to the fort and placed under the care of kind hands and warm hearts, where everything was done for her comfort that was possible. "

― George Armstrong Custer , My Life on the Plains: Or, Personal Experiences with Indians