Bear Dancer by Thelma Hatch Wyss

Elk Girl can ride her pony like the wind. She loves to hunt deer in the Rocky Mountains with her brother, Ouray, a Ute chief. Elk Girl grows up happy and free. Everything changes on the day she is captured, first by the Cheyenne and then by the Arapaho warriors. Elk Girl becomes a slave on the Plains. She is afraid of her captors, but she fears the White Men – the White Enemy – more. When Elk Girl is finally rescued by some White Men who bring her to Camp Collins, a Western outpost, she learns a whole new way of life. Eventually, Elk Girl is able to return home to her tribe. Bear Dancer is based on the true story of a very brave Ute girl named Cutshutchous, which means “Elk Tooth Dress,” who lived in the American West in the late 1800’s. Review by Trudy Walsh