Chapter 43: Mexican Bandits

"What happened to them?" Ma Shao asked.

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

This is not a rare thing. The Midwest is a wild place. Compared with the current West, the crime level in the later United States can be described as shy. It is normal to encounter a group of bandits.

Ma Shao thought for a moment and said, "Let's go over there and take a look."

Then he took Millie and a group of tribesmen in the direction she pointed. They soon came to a slope. With 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 all kinds of sundries piled on it, and under the carriage were two bodies, a man and a woman.

These two bodies must be Millie's parents, but Millie was asked not to show her head, so she has not seen this scene.

The bandits were discussing something around the female corpse. Ma Shao could faintly hear the conversation, but he couldn't understand a word.

They didn't seem to be speaking English.

"It's a Mexican." said Stonecrow.

"Why?" Ma Shao was surprised.

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

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

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

"Kill these Mexicans!" said Thick Shoulders viciously.

"We should kill these bandits." Ma Shao glanced at Millie who was frightened by Hou Jian's tone, "We are the good guys."

"Yes, kill these bandits!"

Although the Mianxiong clan had a large number of people and was powerful, they had to use all their strength to fight a rabbit, and the fewer casualties the better. Therefore, Ma Shao ordered some of his clansmen to detour to the two sides of the bandits and then launch a charge at the same time.

Along with his charge, nearly a hundred Apaches attacked from three directions.

There was no suspense in the battle.

The Apaches had about ninety revolvers and twenty rifles. They had more men and more guns than the others, and they had no martial ethics.

In contrast, these dozen poor bandits were completely defenseless.

Faced with the sudden attack, the Mexican bandits were caught off guard and immediately threw themselves into chaos and fled in panic, but they failed to escape.

Soon, they were completely wiped out by the dense hail of bullets from the revolver.

Afterwards, the Apaches counted the spoils and discovered that this bandit gang was quite wealthy - a total of more than 900 Spanish silver dollars were found, as well as some U.S. dollars and gold, and of course their belongings, such as guns and horses.

The Spanish silver dollar was one of the most popular currencies in North America, with one coin being worth about the same as one U.S. dollar.

Therefore, Ma Shao estimated that the value of these spoils should be able to reach two thousand US dollars, which is quite considerable.

And the only price they paid for this was a few minor injuries, which was naturally something to be happy about.

But some people also fell into grief - Millie, she saw the bodies of her parents, for a twelve-year-old child, it was like the sky falling.

She lay on her parents and cried, looking pitiful and helpless.

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

Ma Shao thought for a while, and finally said: "I plan to take her back to the clan."

"She's white," Stonecrow reminded.

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

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

Although a little girl's language level would not be very high, she is a native speaker after all. She is definitely much better than most non-native learners and is qualified to be Ma Shao's English teacher, at least she is more than capable of teaching spoken English.

Moreover, as an Indian, if Ma Shao wanted to find an adult American to be his English teacher, he would either not be able to trust him or would have to pay a high price.

In comparison, Millie is undoubtedly a safe choice.

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

So he walked over to Millie, said a few words of comfort, and then said, "Millie, what are you going to do in the future?"

"I... I don't know." Millie sobbed blankly. Her answer was exactly what Ma Shao expected.

"In that case, are you willing to come to my village?" Ma Shao didn't know how to say clan, so he could only say village.

"Where is the village?"

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

Millie didn't say anything for a moment. She looked at Ma Shao and the other Apaches, then asked hesitantly, "Are you...are you really good people?"

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

Millie 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 about it and finally gave himself a hasty English name.

For Americans, Indian names are a bit strange and not easy to remember, whether they are transliterated or translated, 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." Millie couldn't help but say.

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

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

"Well," Ma Shao said, "maybe it's because my English is so poor."

Millie nodded in agreement: "Indeed, but I can teach you, and you can teach me your language."

"Of course no problem." Ma Shao smiled.

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

The couple didn't have much valuables, but they did have a bag of wheat, which was exactly what the Sleeping Bear clan could use.

People followed the planned route, passing by the four clans one after another, and continued eastward with all their young and old, heading towards the Sleeping Bear Clan.

With the joining of all four clans, the team size reached 600 people, and there were thousands of horses, which looked quite mighty.

In addition, two more clans joined on the way. One of them had just been defeated in a battle with the Rangers of the Republic of Texas and had to join forces with others.

The other was a clan that had recently participated in the Battle of Arapaho. When Ma Shao led a team of several hundred people past them, they discussed it briefly and decided to join them with the entire clan, young and old.

As a result, the size of the team expanded further, with the number of people reaching about 800 and the number of horses exceeding 2,000.

So, Ma Shao, who had followed the twenty people to the expedition, returned to the Mianxiong clan with eight hundred people and more than two thousand horses.

　I just found that the starting point can display spaces.