1840Indian rebirth

"What happened to them?" the horse whistle asked.

"We met bandits!" Milly cried again, "I don't know what happened to them now. Mom told me to run."

This is not a rare thing. In the wilderness of the Midwest, compared with the current West, the level of crime in the United States in later generations can be described as shy. It is normal to encounter a group of bandits.

Ma Shao thought for a while: "Let's go over there and take a look."

Then he took Milly and a group of tribesmen toward the direction she pointed, and soon came to a slope. Using the cover of the slope, they carefully observed the front.

A group of bandits had just finished their work. There were more than a dozen of them, all armed with guns and riding horses. In front of them was a carriage with various sundries piled on it. Under the carriage were two corpses, a man and a woman.

The two corpses must be Milly's parents, but Milly was asked not to show her head, so she hasn't seen this scene yet.

The bandits were discussing something together around the female corpse. The horse whistle could faintly hear the conversation, but could not understand a word.

They don't seem to be speaking English.

"They're Mexicans," Stone Crow said.

"Why?" Ma Shao was surprised.

"Intuition." Stone Crow said, "You are still young, and the people the Apaches are most familiar with are Mexicans."

Indeed, most of the Apaches lived in what is now Mexico and had more contact with the Mexicans. The Sleeping Bear clan originally moved to its current location from the southwest.

Compared to Americans, the Apaches are more familiar with Mexicans, and of course they hate Mexicans more.

"Kill these Mexicans!" Thick Shoulder said viciously.

"We should kill these bandits." Ma Shao glanced at Milly who was frightened by the thick-shouldered tone, "We are good people."

"Yes, kill these bandits!"

Although the Mian Xiong clan had a large number of people, they still needed all their strength to fight a lion against a rabbit. The fewer casualties, the better. Therefore, the horse whistle ordered some clan members to circle back to both sides of the bandits, and then launch a charge at the same time.

Following his charging sentry, nearly a hundred Apaches attacked from three directions.

The Mexican gangsters who were caught off guard suddenly became confused and fled backwards in panic, but they could not escape and were quickly wiped out by the heavy rain of bullets from revolvers.

Afterwards, everyone counted the loot and found that the bandits were quite wealthy. A total of more than 900 Spanish silver dollars, as well as some U.S. dollars and gold were found, as well as their belongings, such as firearms and horses.

The Spanish silver dollar is one of the most popular currencies in North America, and one of its coins is worth about the same as one U.S. dollar.

Therefore, the horse whistle estimated that the value of these trophies should reach two thousand US dollars, which is quite considerable.

And they only paid the price with a few minor injuries, which is naturally a matter of joy.

But some people fell into grief-Milly, she saw the bodies of her parents. For a twelve-year-old child, this was like the sky falling.

She was crying on her parents' bodies, looking pitiful and helpless.

"What are you going to do with her?" Shiya walked up to Ma Shao and asked.

Ma Shao thought for a while and finally said: "I'm going to take her back to the tribe."

"She is white." Stone Crow reminded.

"I know, but she is still young, she should be able to gradually integrate into us." Ma Shao said.

But this was not the real reason for his decision. He actually had another consideration - he wanted to find someone to learn English.

Although a little girl's language proficiency is not very high, she is a native speaker after all and is definitely much better than most non-native learners. She is enough to be an English teacher for Ma Shao, at least more than enough to teach spoken English.

Moreover, as an Indian, Mashao would either not be able to trust an adult American as an English teacher, or he would have to pay a high price.

In comparison, Millie is undoubtedly a safe choice.

After all, what bad thoughts could a little girl have?

So Ma Shao walked up to Milly, comforted her for a few words, and then said, "Milly, what are you going to do in the future?"

"I...I don't know." Milly sobbed blankly, and her answer was completely expected by Ma Shao.

"In that case, are you willing to come to my village?" Mashao didn't know what the clan should say, so he could only say it was a village.

"Where is the village?"

"To the east, we need to walk for a few days."

Milly didn't speak for a while, but looked at the horse whistle and other Apaches, and then asked hesitantly: "You... are you really good people?"

"Of course." Ma Shao smiled, "Don't you think we are similar?"

Milly was silent for a while, and finally agreed: "Okay, I'll go back to the village with you. By the way, what's your name?"

"Well... you can call me Whistle." Ma Shao thought for a while and finally gave himself a hasty English name.

For Americans, whether transliterated or translated, Indian names are a bit strange and not easy to remember, and Ma Shao doesn’t know how to translate his own name, whistle to call horse?

As for the English name in the previous life, "shaw ma", it was obviously a name given by a Chinese.

"What a strange name." Milly couldn't help but say.

"If you learn our language, you can understand my name." Ma Shao said, "In fact, in my opinion, your name is quite strange."

"No, Milly is a very nice name, everyone says so!" Milly insisted.

"Okay." Ma Shao said, "Maybe it's because my English is so poor."

Milly nodded with deep understanding: "Indeed, but I can teach you, and you can also teach me your language."

"Of course, no problem." Ma Shao smiled.

Then everyone simply buried Milly's parents and took their belongings with them.

The couple had nothing of value, but they did have a bag of corn kernels, which the Sleeping Bear clan could use.

Along the planned route, people passed through the four clans one after another, taking all their young and old with them and continuing eastward to the Mian Xiong clan.

With the participation of all four clans, the number of people in the team reached 600, and there were thousands of horses, which looked quite majestic.

In addition, two more clans joined on the road. One of them had just lost a battle with the Texans and had to join others.

The other was a clan that participated in the Battle of Arapaho not long ago. When the horse whistle led a team of several hundred people past their location, they discussed it briefly and decided to bring the whole clan, old and young, to join them.

As a result, the size of the team further expanded, reaching about 800 people and more than 2,000 horses.

So, the horse whistler who had followed the twenty people on the expedition returned to the Mian Xiong clan with eight hundred people and two thousand horses.