Ha! What a long, long way those few yards were to the shelter of the stockade. At last we rounded it. Breathing freer, we passed along the north side, led the horses in through the passageway, turned them loose, and put up the bars across it. Then we pretended to go into our lodge, but crouched away from the doorway and sneaked over to the two watchers kneeling at either side of the cannon and looking out across the flat.
"You made it! My! That little song and dance of Pitamakan's, that sure fooled 'em! He is some actor, that boy," Abbott said.
"Well, what are we to do now—fire the cannon at them? Give them a big scare?" I asked.
"I don't know what to say. If only Far Thunder were here—" Abbott began.
"He is coming. Look!" said Tsistsaki.
Sure enough, he was on his way to dinner with three men, leaving three to guard the grove, as usual. The teams were almost to the site of the fort. I went out to meet them and told the men to take the horses into the barricade.
"But the horses, they should be heat ze grass. Yes?" one of them said, and all looked at me questioningly.
"Well, maybe we shall have a fight before we eat. A war party is cached out there in the sagebrush," I replied; and they shrank back as if I had struck them. At the same time I heard some slight commotion within the barricade. At Abbott's suggestion Tsistsaki was warning the women of our impending trouble and commanding them to make no outcry.
"Shut your mouth!" I hissed to one of the teamsters, who with upflung arms was beginning to make great outcry. "Not a word from any of you now. Just get those horses inside; then pretend to go to your lodges, but sneak across to the south side and remain there."
I stood by the passageway until the others arrived, and when I had told them, too, what to do, my uncle said to me as we went crouching in across the barricade, "The war party is undoubtedly the Crow outfit that you met the other day."
We joined the others, and Abbott said to him, "We've had a pretty close call, Wesley."
"Just where are the rascals? Let me see them!" my uncle demanded. He laughed grimly when we had pointed out to him the tall brush here and there concealing them. "I'll bet that they are some tired, lying there in the hot sun and straining themselves to keep the brush upright and motionless!" After a moment of thought he added, "Tsistsaki, bring me a couple of firers for this loud-mouth gun."
"I have them already," she answered and handed him a fuse. He stuck it into the touch-hole of the cannon and poured some fine powder from his horn in round it. "I will attend to this," he said to us then. "Now, you, Henri Robarre! You being about as poor a shot as ever cordelled up this river, you fire at the foot of one of those bunches of tall sage, just to start this surprise party. You others then do the best you can."
He waited until Tsistsaki had interpreted his words to Pitamakan and then told Henri to fire. Henri did so. None of us saw where the ball struck, and I doubt whether he himself knew where he aimed. The loud boom of the gun echoed across the valley and died away; the smoke from it lifted, but none of the enemy made a move; not one of their shelters even quivered.
"Just what I expected! Abbott, let us see what you can do," said my uncle.
Abbott stood up, head and shoulders above the barricade, took quick aim and fired at a bunch of the brush; down it fell as the man behind it let go his hold upon it and with loud yells of warning or command to his companions ran straight away from us. At that all the others sprang from their places of concealment like so many jumping-jacks, and those with guns fired at us before they turned to run. When we fired at them three went down at once, and two more staggered on a little way before they fell. At that our engagés took heart and yelled defiance at the enemy as they hastily began reloading their guns. I heard Abbott calling himself names for having failed to kill the man behind the brush that he had fired into.
The enemy, twenty or more of them, were drawing together as they went leaping through the sagebrush, straight up the valley; and presently they halted and faced about and with yells of hatred and defiance fired several more desultory shots at us. That was the opportunity for which my uncle was waiting. He hastily sighted the cannon at them and lighted the fuse. The old gun went off with a tremendous roar, and with wild shrieks of fear the enemy ran on faster than ever, if that were possible—all but two whom the grapeshot had struck.
"Help, here! Powder and a solid shot!" my uncle yelled.
Those, too, Tsistsaki had ready for us. Abbott and I rammed the charges in; Tsistsaki inserted a fresh fuse. We wheeled the gun round into place, and my uncle again sighted it and touched it off. We waited and waited, and at last saw a cloud of dust and bits of sagebrush puff into the air close to the left of the fleeing enemy. As one man they leaped affrightedly to the right and headed for the mouth of a coulee that entered the valley from the west. Before we could load the cannon again they had turned up into the coulee and were gone from our sight.
"Well," my uncle exclaimed, "I guess that settles our trouble with that outfit!" Almost at the same moment a heated argument arose among our engagés, every one of whom asserted that he had killed an enemy. "Here, you, the way for you all to settle your claims is to go out there and show which one of the enemy you each downed!"
Not one of them made answer to that; not one of them wanted to go out there, perhaps to face a wounded and desperate man. Pitamakan stared at them, muttered something about cowardly dog-faces, and leaped over the barricade. Abbott, my uncle, Tsistsaki, and I followed his move, but we had gone out some distance before the engagés began to follow, moving slowly well in our rear.
We, of course, did not proceed without due caution. The very first one of the dead that we approached was one of the two Crows who had tried to entice Pitamakan and me into a peace smoke with them, which would have been our last. We were glad enough that he was one of the dead.
"I killed him," said Pitamakan as we passed on. "I killed him; he dropped when I fired, but I cannot count coup upon him."
"Why not?" Tsistsaki asked.
"Because of that!" he replied, turning and pointing to the engagés. They had come to the body of the Crow and three were pretending to have fired the bullet that laid the enemy low. "I cannot prove that I killed him," he added sorrowfully.
Now the three engagés who had been left on guard in the grove came to us, out of breath and excited, and my uncle promptly ordered them back to their places. We made the round of the dead, the engagés taking their weapons and various belongings; then we went back to the barricade for dinner, first, however, watering and picketing the hungry horses. Later on, when the teams were again hitched, the engagés drove about and gathered up the dead and consigned them to the depths of the big river.
That evening as Pitamakan, Abbott, and I were preparing to go down into the grove for our nightly watch the engagés were celebrating our victory of the day. They had all assembled in Henri Robarre's lodge, singing quaint songs, boasting of their bravery and accurate shooting, and calling loudly for the women to prepare a little feast, for they were going to dance. The women! They were gathered in another lodge, laughing at their men. Otter Woman, Henri Robarre's wife, who was a wonderful mimic, was making the others ache from laughing as she repeated her man's futile protests and his gait when she had driven him home from the gathering of the men who requested their discharge.
"Those women have a whole lot more sense than their men," Abbott remarked.
The night passed quietly. Late in the following afternoon, just after we three had ended our daily sleep, the women cried out that they could see the smoke from a down-river steamboat, and Tsistsaki ran to the grove to let my uncle know of its coming.
He hurried up to the barricade and eagerly watched the approaching smoke. "We shall have help now; you boys will not have to stand night watch much longer. That old tub is bringing plenty of men!"
The boat soon rounded the bend above and drew in to our landing. Two men leaped ashore, and the roustabouts threw their rolls of bedding after them. From the pilot-house Henry Page tossed out to us a weighted sack. "I'm sorry, Wesley, that we couldn't get more men for you. There's a letter that explains it all!" he called. "Well, keep up a good heart; your Blackfeet will soon be with you. So long!" Then the surly captain, standing beside him, rang some bells, Page whirled his big wheel, and the boat went on. The two men came up the bank and greeted us. I had been so intent upon our few words with the pilot that I had not noticed who they were.
Now I was glad when I saw the rugged, smooth-shaven faces of the Tennessee Twins, as they were called all up and down the river. The Baxters, Lem and Josh, were independent bachelor trappers who roamed where they willed, despite the hostile war parties of various tribes that were ever trying to get their scalps. They seemed to bear charmed lives. As a rule the American Fur Company had not been friendly toward independent trappers, but those two men were so big-hearted and had done us so many favors that we all thought highly of them; and Pierre Chouteau himself had given orders to all the factors up and down the river that they were to be treated with every consideration.
"Well, Wesley, here we are," said Lem Baxter after we had shaken hands all round.
"You don't mean that you have come to work for me?" my uncle exclaimed.
"That's about the size of it," Josh put in.
"You see, 't was this way," Lem went on. "When we heard of the trouble you were in, and Carroll and Steell couldn't engage any men for you, we saw it were our plain duty to come down and lend you a hand."
"Who said that we were in trouble?"
"Why, that there steamboat captain, Wiggins," Lem answered. "You see, 't was this way: Henry Page bawled the captain out fer not allowin' him to put in here in answer to your hail. So to kind of play even the low-down sneak begins to blow about the battle you are expectin' to have with the Assiniboins. Yes, sir, makes a regular holler about it as soon as his boat ties up in front of the fort. Well, I guess you know them French engagés. The minute they hear about the Assiniboins Carroll and Steell can't hire nary a one of 'em for you."
"Well, now, that Wiggins man is a real friendly kind of chap, isn't he?" my uncle exclaimed. By the tone of his voice I knew that that captain was in for trouble when the two should meet.
"Still, Wesley, you're in luck," Lem went on. "Who but your own brother-in-law, White Wolf, should happen to be in the fort when Page delivered your letter to Steell. As soon as he was told what was up he said to us, 'You tell Far Thunder that we shall all be with him for that battle with the cut-throats! Tell him to look for us to come chargin' down by the Crooked Creek Trail!' Then he lit out for his camp as fast as he could go."
"Ha! Down Sacajawea Creek. They will cross the river at Fort Benton. Down the north side would have been the shorter way," said my uncle.
"We mentioned that to him, and he answered that better time could be made on the south-side trail," said Josh.
"And there you be! Don't worry!" cried Lem. "Now, Wesley, is it sartin sure that you plunked that there Slidin' Beaver?"
"His body is somewhere down there in the river!" I replied.
"You bet! Wesley finished him!" Abbott exclaimed.
"Glory be! Look how near that there cut-throat got me!" cried Lem, and pointed to a bullet crease in the side of his neck.
"Hurry! Tell me the news they brought!" Pitamakan demanded of me as we all turned toward the barricade. He fairly danced round me when he learned that his own father had taken word of our need to the Pikuni and that the warriors would come to us as soon as possible by the south-side trail.
Presently Tsistsaki called us to supper. During the meal we told the Twins all that had happened to us since we landed there at the mouth of the Musselshell. Then, having learned the details of our day-and-night watch, they declared that they wanted to stand watch in the grove that night and laughed when we said that we thought three men were needed to guard it.
We three were only too glad to let them have their way. However, we relieved the engagés from watch duty in the barricade, dividing the night between us, and they were therefore in good shape the next morning for a day of real work. Beginning that day, they were all ordered to cut and haul logs while the rest of us performed what guard duty had been their share. In consequence the heaps of logs round the site of the fort grew rapidly, and we began to look forward to the day when we should begin work upon the walls. My uncle said that at least one side of the fort must soon be put up, in which to store the trade goods that would surely be landed for us within six weeks.
A day came soon, but not too soon for Pitamakan and me, when the camp required more meat. I asked to be allowed to ride Is-spai-u, but my uncle shook his head.
As we were saddling our horses, the men started for the grove and Henri Robarre called out to us: "Eet is halways ze buf' dat you keel! Why not sometames ze helk, ze deer, ze hantelopes?"
"Kyai-yo!" Tsistsaki exclaimed. "He knows that real meat is the best; it is only that he must be continually making objections that he talks that way. Pay no attention to him; kill real meat for us as usual."
"Oh, kill elk or deer along with the buffalo! Kill some badgers if they want them! Anything for peace in camp!" my uncle exclaimed.
It was easy enough to get the buffalo; they were always in the valley within sight of camp. That morning we found a herd within a mile of it, killed five fat animals and had the meat all loaded upon the following wagon by nine o'clock. The teamster then headed for camp, and we went on to kill what our horses could pack of some other kind of meat.
Now, we did not want to ride into the brush-filled groves along the river in quest of elk and deer, for as likely as not we should be ambushed by some wandering war party. We therefore turned back through the grove in which the men were at work and thence went on down the big game trail running from the mouth of the Musselshell down the Missouri Valley. Where it entered the first of the narrow bottoms we turned off. We had gone no more than a couple of hundred yards when four bull elk rose out of a patch of junipers on the hill to our right and inquisitively stared at us. I slipped from my horse, took careful aim, and shot one of them.
We tethered our horses close to my kill and were butchering it when we were startled by a loud but distant hail and sprang for our rifles, which were leaning against some brush several steps away. We looked down into the bottom under us and there, just outside the narrow grove that fringed the river, we saw five Indians standing all in a row.
"Ha! Another war party, and no doubt another invitation to a smoke that would be the end of us!" Pitamakan exclaimed indignantly.
That morning I had not forgotten to sling on my telescope before leaving camp. I got it out, then took a good look at the men, and said to Pitamakan, "They don't appear to be a war party; they are all old men, and some have large packs upon their backs!"
"Ha! It is well-planned deception, but I shall take no chances with them. I am sure that the brush behind them is full of warriors!" Pitamakan replied.
I somehow believed that for once he was mistaken, and when a moment later the five men started toward us, all making the peace sign and singing a strange, quaint, melancholy song, so weird, so strangely affecting, that it almost brought tears to my eyes, Pitamakan himself said, "I was mistaken! They are men of peace! I believe that they are men of the Earth-Houses People."
We met the strangers at the foot of the slope. They continued their quaint song until we were face to face with them; then their leader, first making the sign that he was one of the Earth-Houses People, as the Blackfeet call the Mandans, embraced me and Pitamakan, and so did the others, each in his turn.
"We are glad to meet you this good day," said the leader to me in the sign language. "We have often heard about you. We know that you are the Fox, the young relative of Far Thunder. We know that your companion is the young Pikuni, Running Eagle. We have come a long way to see and talk with Far Thunder. His camp is close by, there where the two rivers meet, is it not? Yes? We are glad!"
"Our hearts are the same as yours," I replied. "We are glad to meet you this good day. Just up there we have killed an elk. Wait for us until we have butchered it and loaded the meat upon our horses; then we will go with you to Far Thunder."
The old leader signed his assent to the proposal, and Pitamakan and I hurried back up the hill to our work. We were not long at it, taking only the best of the meat; then I told Pitamakan to hurry on ahead and notify my uncle of the Mandans' coming, so that he could meet them with fitting ceremony at the barricade. I then rejoined the visitors, leading my horse and walking with them, and in the course of an hour we were greeted by my uncle at the passageway into camp. One after another they embraced him; then he signed to them that his lodge was their lodge, and he led them into it, where Tsistsaki greeted them with smiles and turned to the big kettles of meat and coffee that she was cooking for them and broke out a fresh box of hard bread.
With due formality my uncle got out his huge pipe, filled it with a mixture of l'herbe and tobacco and passed it to the old leader of the party to light. The old man capped it with a coal from the fire, muttered a short prayer, and, blowing great mouthfuls of smoke to the four points of the compass, started it upon its journey round the circle. The Mandans made no mention of the object of the visit to us, but said that, having heard from the men of the first down-river fire boat that my uncle was building a fort on the great war trail where it crossed Big River, they had thought that a visit of peace should be paid to him. In turn, my uncle asked how the Mandans were faring and told of our troubles with the Crows and Assiniboins. The news of the passing of Sliding Beaver was good news to them; they greeted it with loud clapping of hands and with broad smiles. "Far Thunder," their leader signed, "you must surely have strong medicine. The gods have been very good to you to give you the power to wipe out that terrible, bad man, worst of all the men of the cut-throat tribe. Far Thunder, for what you have done the Earth-Houses People owe you much!"
"I wish that they were all here, all your warriors, for I am expecting to have a big fight with the cut-throats!" my uncle signed.
"We have sent for the warriors of my people to hurry down here and help us, but fear that they will not arrive before the cut-throats appear," Pitamakan put in.
After some inquiries about just what we had done toward getting the help of the Pikuni, the old leader turned to my uncle. "Far Thunder," he signed, "you see us, five old men and almost useless; our weapons, five old north stone sparkers [Hudson's Bay Company flintlock guns] and four bows. But such as we are, Far Thunder, we are yours in this fight with the cut-throats, if you want us!"
"You are very generous. We will talk about that later. Just now you are to eat. I see that the food is ready for you," my uncle replied; and Tsistsaki passed to them plates piled with boiled meat, hard bread and dried-apple sauce, and huge bowls of sweetened coffee.
The men now came up from the grove for their dinner. In the afternoon our guests rested, and it was not until evening that we learned the real object of their visit to us. "Far Thunder," the old leader then signed, when we were all gathered in our lodge, "no doubt you wonder why we five old men have come the long way through dangerous country to enter your lodge. It is because we are old and are soon to die that we chose to take the place of young and useful men on a mission to you from our people, to bring you gifts and to ask a gift from you."
"Ha! Now I know what is coming; they are after Is-spai-u!" Pitamakan whispered.
"Far Thunder," the old man continued, "no doubt you know that the Spotted-Horses People [the Cheyennes] visit us every summer with their robes and furs and tanned leathers to buy some of the corn that we raise and the pots of clay that we make. Also they come to race their fastest horses against our fastest horses. Know, chief, that for the last five summers they have won every race they made with us, and have gone their way with great winnings, laughing at us and saying, 'Poor Earth-Houses People! Your horses are of little account; even the best of them are only travois horses for our women!' Thus we are made poor and greatly shamed. Recently we counseled together about this. 'We do not,' said one of the chiefs, 'much need the things that the Spotted-Horses People bring here. Let us send them word that they need not come again to trade with us; thus will we be saved from again losing all that we have in racing our horses against theirs and being told that our best animals are of no account.'
"We all agreed that this plan should be followed. Messengers were selected to take our decision to the Spotted-Horses People. And then—but wait, Far Thunder—"
The old man turned and spoke to his companions. They began to unwrap the bundles that they had carried and soon displayed to our admiring eyes a cream-white cow buffalo robe beautifully embroidered with porcupine quillwork of gorgeous colors upon its flesh side; a war suit of fine buckskin, quill embroidered and hung with white weasel skins; a fine shield fringed with eagle tail feathers; and a handsomely carved red stone pipe with feather and fur ornaments on its long stem. One by one the old leader took them as they were opened to view and impressively laid them upon the end of my uncle's couch. Then, straightening up in his seat, he continued:
"Those, Far Thunder, are gifts to you from your friends, the Earth-Houses People!
"The messengers were about to start to the camp of the Spotted-Horses People," he said, resuming his story. "Then the first fire boat of the summer came back down the river, and we learned from its men that you and yours were coming down to the mouth of this little river, to this great war-trail crossing of Big River, where you were to build a fort, and that you had with you your fast, black buffalo-runner. Again we counseled together. This is what we said: 'Far Thunder is a man of generous heart. We will go to him with our trouble; we will ask him to give the one thing that will enable us to wipe out the shame that the Spotted-Horses People have put upon us.' Far Thunder, pity us! Give us your black buffalo-runner!"
The eyes of all five of the old men were now upon my uncle, eyes full of wistful anxiety, and he hesitated not a moment to give his reply to their request, the one reply that he could make.
"My friends," he signed, "I must tell you about my black horse. A dying man gave him to me, the man who seized him in the far south country. With his last breath that man—you knew him, One Horn—asked me to promise that I would always keep the horse. I promised. I called upon the sun to witness that I would keep my promise!"
The old men slumped down in their seats in utter dejection, and oh, how sorry we were for them! Their long and dangerous journey, their gifts of their most valued possessions, were all for nothing!
Finally, the old leader spoke a few words to the others; one by one they answered, and several of them spoke at some length and with increasing animation. We wondered what they were saying, in that strange, soft-sounding language. At last the old leader turned again to my uncle.
"Far Thunder!" he signed, "when you told us of your promise to the dying man, and that it was a sun promise you gave him, not to be broken—when you told us that—our hearts died. But now, chief, our hearts rise up. Failing one thing, we gain another. We now see that the gods themselves sent us to you, that in our old age we should have one last fight with the cut-throats. Chief, we will remain with you and help you fight them with all the strength that we have left in our poor old arms. If we die, how much better to die fighting than in sickness and pain in our lodges!"
"I am glad that you will stay with us and help fight the cut-throats. These valuable things that you have laid here, you will take them back," my uncle replied.
"No! We give, but do not take back!"
It was all very affecting. There was a lump in my throat as I looked at those old men, simple-minded, kind-hearted, still eager in their old, old age to face once more their bitter enemies and, if need be, to die. Tsistsaki threw her shawl over her head and cried a little in sympathy with them. They presently broke out in a cheerful song of war.
Pitamakan and I took up our rifles and went out to our guard duty. "Those ancient ones, what real men they are!" he said to me.
The night passed quietly. In the morning when the Tennessee Twins came from guard duty in the grove and learned about our evening talk with the old men, they shook hands with them one by one. "You are the strong hearts! We shall be glad to fight alongside with you," Josh signed to them.
Cramped as we were for space within the barricade, Tsistsaki insisted that the old men should have a lodge of their own. The women set up one of the lodges of the engagés, and all contributed to its furnishings of robes and blankets and to its little pile of firewood beside the door; then the widow of poor Louis volunteered to cook their meals. Thus were the ancient ones made perfectly comfortable. At noon of that day, when the men came in for their dinner, our guests went to my uncle and told him that they wanted to help him not only in the coming fight with the cut-throats, but in other ways as well. Old though they were, their eyesight was still good; therefore they would do all the daytime guard duty, three of them in the grove and two in camp. We were glad enough to accept their offer, for, as the engagés were now entirely relieved from all share in our constant watch for approaching enemies, the work on the fort progressed rapidly.
The leader of the old men, Lame Wolf, was a medicine man and had with him his complete medicine outfit, the main symbol of which was a stuffed raven, to the legs of which were attached bits of human scalp-locks of varying lengths. To Pitamakan, who became a great favorite with him, the old man said that the raven was his dream, his sacred vision, and very powerful. It had by its great power brought him safe through many a battle with the enemy and had four times in his dreams warned him of the approach of enemies, so that he and his warriors had been able to surprise them and count many coups upon them. Every evening now he prayed the raven to give him a revealing vision of the cut-throats and any other enemies who might be approaching us, and his companions joined him in singing the songs to his medicine.
"Far Thunder, my man," said Tsistsaki, the first evening that we heard the old men praying and singing, "I feel that the gods are with us in this matter of our fort-building upon this hostile war trail. As fast as our troubles have come we have conquered them, and now come these five old men, whose leader is favored of the gods, to help us. I have great faith in his raven medicine."
"All right. You put your faith in that raven skin. I put mine in our watchfulness and in our rifles," my uncle laughed.
"Ah, well," she answered, "the day will come when your eyes will be opened to these sacred things."
During the next few days three different steamboats passed up the river en route to Fort Benton, and when the first of them came down it answered our hail and put in to shore. The captain had intended to put in, anyhow, for he had a letter to us from Carroll and Steell. My uncle handed him a letter for the Fort Union traders, asking them to tell the Mandans that their five old men were staying with us to help fight the Assiniboins, and that they were unable to get Far Thunder's fast runner because of his vow to the sun that he would never part with it. He had prepared the letter at the request of Lame Wolf, and the old man heaved a sigh of satisfaction when he saw it pass into the captain's hands.
Our letter apprised us that the Pikuni, the whole tribe, warriors and all, had forded the river at Fort Benton, on their way to us, only four days before. That news made us low-hearted, for, if the warriors continued on with the tribe at the slow rate it was obliged to travel, we feared that they would never arrive in time to help us in the big fight that every rising sun brought nearer to us.
My uncle declared that, short of logs as we still were, a beginning must be made at once upon the walls of the fort; and after dinner Pitamakan, Abbott, and I went out to assist him in laying the first four logs of what was to be the southwest corner building of the fort, the one that was to be my uncle's quarters, and Pitamakan's and mine as well. We rolled the two bottom logs into place and made them level by putting flat stones under the ends; and then Abbott, with quick and skillful axe, saddled the ends; that is, cut deep notches in them. We then rolled on them two end logs and cut notches in the ends to match the saddles in the others. The first fitted snugly down into place; the second did not fit well and was notched deeper at one end; and then, when it fitted into place and we rested, Tsistsaki, who had come to watch, raised her hands to the sky and cried out: "O sun! this home that we are starting to build, let it be a home of peace and plenty; a home of happy days and nights. Have pity upon us all, O sun. Give us, we pray you, long life upon these, your rich and beautiful plains!"
Our team horses, working all day and corralled in the barricade the greater part of the night, were rapidly losing their flesh and spirits and no longer minded the flick of the whip. It was plain enough, said my uncle at our evening meal, that they must be put upon good feed at night, or else we must soon stop work. He looked at Pitamakan and me.
"Well, say it!" I cried. "What do you want us to do about it?"
"Night-herd them. Night-herd the whole outfit, saddle-horses and all, up west on the high plains where the feed is good. Leave here after dark so that any wandering war party hanging about will not know just what way you are going or be able to follow you."
"Oh, my man!" Tsistsaki exclaimed, "I do not like them to do that. Think! Just they two against all the travelers upon this great war trail!"
"Many are the hunters of the fox; he eludes them all," said Pitamakan.
"We shall strike out with the outfit as soon as it is dark," I said to my uncle, and that settled the matter.
Of course I rode Is-spai-u when we started out, driving the loose stock ahead of us. We headed southwest—almost south up along the gentle slope, then, when well out from the valley, northwest—and finally brought the animals to a stand at the head of the breaks of the Missouri, about two miles due west from camp. We then hobbled all but two, Is-spai-u and Pitamakan's buffalo horse, which we picketed with long ropes. By turns we watched our little band during the short night and at sunrise drove them back to the barricade.
"Boys," Tsistsaki said to us after we had finished breakfast, "I have something to say to you before you sleep."
"Say it! We are all but asleep now," Pitamakan answered from his couch.
"It is this: you must not take your horses to-night to feed where you had them last night; every night you must drive them to a different place."
"As if we didn't know enough to do that! We decided upon to-night's grazing-ground when we were coming in this morning!" Pitamakan exclaimed.
"Wise almost-mother. What good care you have for us!" I told her.
And what a loving, cheerful smile she gave me! Ah, that was a woman, let me tell you!
There was too much going on in our lodge for us to sleep well; so we took a robe and a blanket apiece and sneaked quietly into the lodge of the old Mandans, who were sleeping after their night watch in the barricade.
At about four o'clock the old men aroused us, and Lame Wolf signed that they were going to bathe; would we go with them? We did, and were refreshed. Then, after we were back in the lodge and dressed, old Lame Wolf painted our faces with red-earth paint, the sacred color, and prayed for us. We could not, of course, understand what he said, for he did not accompany the prayer with signs, but Pitamakan said that made no difference; it was, of course, good and powerful prayer.
At supper that evening we talked about the big fight we were expecting to have with the Assiniboins, and wondered whether our people would arrive in time for it. It was possible that the warriors were coming on ahead, and if they were they might come riding down at any moment.
"If we could only figure the probable time of the coming of the cut-throats as well as we can that of our people!" my uncle exclaimed.
"Wal, now, Wesley, you're goin' to know what I've had in my think-box for some time; I can't keep it shut any longer," Abbott said. "We've heard that the Assiniboin camp is away off on the Assiniboin River. But you can hear a lot that ain't so. Maybe it is nowhere like that far off. Ag'in, that there war party that we routed don't have to go clear home to get help to try to wipe us out; the Assiniboins and the Yanktonnais are about the same breed of pups—both Sioux stock. All those pals of Slidin' Beaver's have to do is to let the Yanktonnais know that we have that there Is-spai-u horse with us, and they'll come a-runnin' after him, even if they don't care shucks about avengin' the death of Slidin' Beaver. I'll lay four bits that the Yanktonnais camp is a long way this side of the Assiniboin River. Let's look the thing in the face. It's possible, fellers, that the ball may open this very night!"
"Let her come; we're here first!" Josh exclaimed.
"You bet you! I'm jest a-achin' for a scrap with those cut-throats!" his twin chimed in.
My uncle was not anxious for a fight with our enemies. I had never seen him so worried. When Abbott and the Twins had gone out of the lodge, he said to us: "I was too eager for this undertaking. Carroll and Steell warned me of its dangers, but I wouldn't listen. I shouldn't have come down here until I had engaged thirty or forty men to build the fort. We may all be wiped out! What would become of you, my woman, and of you, Thomas, if I were to go under now with the load of debt that I have incurred in St. Louis? And after all my years of endeavor, what a bad name would be mine!"
"Now, Far Thunder, just you quit that worrying, for everything is going to come out right for us. I know it! I just know that the gods are with us," said my almost-mother.
I could think of nothing to say. As I nodded to Pitamakan and we went out to drive the horses to their night-grazing I wished that I were not so tongue-tied.
"What was he saying?" Pitamakan asked me. I told him, and back to the lodge he went, thrust his head inside the doorway and said: "Far Thunder, you have overlooked our main helper. That loud-mouthed gun of ours can defeat the cut-throats and all their brother tribes, too."
"Maybe so, if they give us time to point and fire it at them," my uncle answered; and my almost-brother came back to me lightly humming his favorite war song.
A cloudy sky made the night very dark. We mounted and drove the loose stock straight west out of the valley, then went southwest for a couple of miles and hobbled them. We picketed Is-spai-u and my runner, which Pitamakan had saddled that evening. We then drew back outside of the sweep of the long ropes, and were about to spread our buffalo robe and lie down when we heard the whir of a rattlesnake close in front of us and another at our right. "Ha! This is worse than facing a war party!" Pitamakan exclaimed. At the sound of his voice the snakes rattled again, and a third somewhere close on our left answered them. We were afraid to move lest we step upon one of the rattlers and get a jab in our moccasined feet from its poisonous fangs.
"We must get back upon our horses and move on," I said.
"Well, you have matches. Begin lighting them and we will do that," said Pitamakan.
I felt in the pocket of my buckskin shirt where I usually carried a few matches wrapped in paper and waterproof bladder skin. The pocket was empty. I felt in my ball pouch and in my trousers pockets, although I knew it was useless to do so, and Pitamakan groaned, "You have lost them?"
"Yes!"
"We just have to pray the gods to guide us," he said.
As we turned, it seemed to our straining ears that snakes rattled upon all sides of us.
"Go slowly!" Pitamakan cautioned. "Stamp the ground hard, and keep swinging your rifle out in front of you."
Thus step by step we drew away from the rattlers, fearing all the time that we should encounter one that would strike before warning us of its presence.
At last we came to Is-spai-u, a dim shadow in the darkness, and took up his rope and led him on to the other picketed animal. Our scare was still with us as we went among the horses and removed their hobbles, but, getting into our saddles, we drove the stock on for fully a mile. Before hobbling them again, we circled round and round and made sure that we were not occupying another patch of snake-infested plain.
"Well, we survived that danger! I believe it is a sign that we are not to be bitten by the two-legged snakes that will soon attack us," said Pitamakan after we had spread our robe and were resting comfortably upon it.
Since I was no believer in signs, I did not say anything on the subject.
"You sleep; I'll take the first watch," I told him.
The heavy clouds soon disappeared, the moon came up, and I could see our surroundings very well. The horses were ripping off great mouthfuls of rich bunch-grass and lustily chewing it. Their deep, satisfied breathing gave me a glad feeling. All round us wolves were howling and coyotes were yelping in high falsetto voices. How different were these two branches of the great wolf family, I thought. The wolves were of a serious, dignified nature; they seemed never to howl except to communicate with one another. The coyotes gathered in bands and wandered aimlessly from ridge to ridge, stopping frequently and raising their sharp, pointed noses to the sky and yelping.
My thoughts were not long upon the wolves. I remembered how worried my uncle was when I had left our lodge; how serious was the expression of Abbott's eyes when he predicted that the attack by the cut-throats was about to take place.
I stared at the faint, moonlit outlines of the Moccasin Mountains, away off to the southwest. Somewhere along the trail at the foot of them the Pikuni were doubtless camping that night. Unwittingly I cried out in Blackfoot, "Oh, hurry! Hurry to us, you men of the Pikuni, else you will come too late!"
"What? What did you say? Do you see enemies?" Pitamakan whispered as he sat up suddenly at my side.
"Oh, nothing. I was just calling to our people to hurry to us. I am so afraid that they may not get here in time to help us," I answered.
"You forget that the loud-mouthed gun is of great strength. It can shoot one of those big, hard metal balls a long way. And at short range just think what it can do with a sackful of our small, soft balls!"
"Yes, true enough. But think how long it takes to move and sight and fire it! Loud-mouth is now pointing out the south side of the barricade. Should the cut-throats suddenly attack us from the north side, we should never even get a chance to fire it!"
"Ha! What a crazy head I am, never to have thought about that! Loud-mouths are of sure help only when there are two of them, each in a little outsetting house of its own, at opposite corners of a fort. Almost-brother, Far Thunder should send us at once to meet our people and get the warriors here as fast as their horses can carry them."
"You have spoken my thought, too. We will tell him about it in the morning," I answered.
"Yes, we will do that. Let us drive the horses in very early."
After a time we detected off to the west a dark, wide, cloud-like mass slowly moving over the plain. It was composed of buffaloes, of course, a large herd of them grazing straight toward the horses. It would not do to let them come on, for in the stampede that was sure to occur the frightened horses might go with them. We went slowly and silently toward them and suddenly sprang forward, waving our blankets. They paused, stared at us for a moment, then turned and went thundering off to the south. There must have been a thousand of them, judging by the noise that they made.
We returned to our watching-place, and I lay down and soon was asleep. When I awoke, I knew by the position of the Seven Persons, as the Blackfeet name the constellation of Ursa Major, that day was not far off. I said that I would take the remainder of the watch, but Pitamakan had no more than lain down when the faint, far-off boom of a gun brought us both to our feet.
"Where was it?" he asked.
"Off to the north," I answered.
Again we heard shots, four or five of them, faint and low, like distant thunder, then one that was sharper, like the crack of a whip.
"That last one was from Far Thunder's rifle!" Pitamakan exclaimed.
"Yes. Great Rider's words have come true: the cut-throats are attacking camp!"
We ran to the horses and fumbled at their hobbles; then we coiled the ropes of our picketed saddle-animals, mounted and drove the little band on the run for camp.
"There is no more shooting!" I exclaimed.
"Not another shot! It looks bad to me! Maybe our people are wiped out!" Pitamakan answered.
He expressed my own fear. We forced the horses to their utmost speed. It was all of three miles to the mouth of the Musselshell, and never were there such long miles. Day was breaking as we neared the valley rim overlooking camp. A hundred yards or so away from the edge we slowed up, dropped the loose stock, and with ready rifles rode slowly on.
When at last we looked down upon the camp, I could have yelled my relief. I saw smoke peacefully rising from the lodges and a couple of women going from the barricade to the river for water. Then we heard the old Mandans singing a song that we had not heard before, a triumphant song in quick, strongly marked time.
"All is well!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, something pleasant has happened. What can it be?"
With light hearts we turned back to our loose stock, drove them down near the barricade, and let them go to graze as they would until it was time for the work of the day to begin. I was in the lead as we drove into the barricade to unsaddle, and as I passed through the entrance Is-spai-u gave a sudden turning leap that nearly unseated me, and then stood staring and snorting at a huge grizzly that lay at one side of the path. My uncle and Abbott came out of our lodge and grinned broadly at us.
"Well, boys," said my uncle, "that's a real bear, isn't it!"
"We've had some excitement here, and 't isn't all over yet. Listen to the old boys in there, singin'!" said Abbott.
"We heard the shots and thought that you were all wiped out, they ceased so suddenly," I said.
We unsaddled and followed the men into the lodge, where Tsistsaki, who was preparing breakfast, gave us cheerful greeting.
"This is what happened, as near as we can make out from the old Mandans and from what we saw of it," my uncle said to us.
"It was about an hour back when old Lame Wolf, who was on guard at the north side of the barricade, saw a big bear close in front of him. It was a chance to count a coup that he couldn't resist. Taking good aim with his old fuke, he fired and let out a yell. But his yell wasn't so loud as the roar of the bear when the bullet spatted into his side. We all waked and rushed outside, but the other old watchers were ahead of us. They ran to Lame Wolf, and the first of them fired at the bear, which was growling and biting at its wound. At that, the bear came with a rush over the logs right in among them. He was badly hurt, but would surely have mauled and killed some of them had it not been for the powder smoke from their fukes, which blinded him and made him cough. The old men were running away in all directions, but he couldn't see them. He sat up to get his bearings, and just then the smoke lifted; and there he was, a mountain of a bear close in front of me. I took quick sight at him and broke his neck. It all happened so quickly, and the old men were so intent upon getting out of reach of the bear, that they never knew that I gave him the finishing shot. One of them, looking back, shouted something to the others, and all turned and ran to the bear; and old Lame Wolf tapped him on the head with the barrel of his fuke and counted coup on him. He claimed it, no doubt, because he had fired the first shot into his carcass."
"And what did the engagés do?" Pitamakan asked.
"What did they do! You should have heard Henri Robarre praying to be saved. The others joined in and ran about among the lodges, carrying their guns as though they were so many sticks!" Abbott exclaimed.
"They did better than that in our Sliding Beaver fight," I said.
"So they did, and they probably will be of some help when another real fight takes place. I have just given them my opinion of their actions in a way they will not soon forget," said my uncle.
We washed and had breakfast while the old men still sang their quaint song of victory. Afterwards, when we went out, old Lame Wolf was cutting the claws from his coup. He did not want the hide, nor did we; the hair was the old, sunburned, and ragged winter coat. So the engagés hitched an unwilling team to the carcass, dragged it to the edge of the river-bank, and rolled it into the water. They all then went down into the grove, and the Tennessee Twins came up from it for their breakfast and their sleep. The night had been quiet down there. One of them had come to learn the cause of the firing in camp and had gone back, my uncle said, almost bursting with anger at the cowardly and disgraceful exhibition the engagés had made of themselves.
That day Pitamakan and I had Tsistsaki waken us shortly before noon, and when my uncle and Abbott returned to the lodge for dinner we proposed that we be allowed to go to meet the Pikuni and bring them on—a part of the warriors, at any rate—with all haste.
Abbott said he thought we should do that, but my uncle decided against it. If we did not night-herd the horses, he said, they could not work. He thought that the Pikuni would arrive in time to fight the cut-throats.
"I think you are making a mistake, Wesley; you had better let them go for help; we'll probably be needing it sooner than you think," Abbott told him.
If my uncle had a fault, it was that he relied too much upon his own judgment. In reply to Abbott he merely said: "No, we'll take a chance on another day of good, hard work. Then if the Pikuni don't show up, the boys can go look for them."
Pitamakan and I had not much enthusiasm for the afternoon work, and when, about two o'clock, the old Mandans came to us and told us that they were going to scatter out upon discovery we so longed to go with them that we fairly hated our log-laying. Tsistsaki stood by, watching us with pitying eyes, but my uncle, never noticing our dissatisfaction, whistled as he skillfully swung his axe.
"Thomas, boy," he said, "this log-laying reminds me of a church-raising that I attended long ago, 'way back in the States. It was a little log meeting-house that they were putting up, and your father and I lent a hand with the chinking. Your grandfather was the preacher of that sparse congregation, and a mighty man with the axe as well as with the Word."
"How did you happen to leave the States?" I asked.
"Your father and I were different," he answered. "Somehow, the farm life there did not appeal to us. We made a break for the West. Your father, poor fellow, never got beyond St. Louis. If he had only come on with me! How he would have enjoyed this life!"
"You know well why he didn't come," I said.
"Of course. It was your mother, dear soul! He promised her that he would never engage in the Far West trade, and he was a man of his word."
During the afternoon we brought the walls of the building up to a height of five logs,—about the height of my shoulder,—and as we knocked off work my uncle said, "Two more rounds of logs, well chinked, and we'll have a pretty respectable defense against the enemy."
Returning to the barricade, we found that three of the Mandans had come back, unnoticed by us. They reported that they had been some distance up the Musselshell Valley and had seen no signs of enemies. Later, while we were eating supper, old Lame Wolf and his companion came in, and the moment they passed through the doorway I knew from the expression of their faces that they had something important to tell. They hurriedly took seats upon my couch, and Lame Wolf signed to my uncle: "Far Thunder, chief, enemies are here! We climbed to the top of the point between the two valleys, the point there across from the grove, and upon the very top of it found where enemies have been lying, looking down and watching us!"
"Probably a small war party, too small to attack us and gone upon their way," my uncle answered.
"Not so! Decidedly not so!" the old man signed on. "They have watched there for several days—at least five men. They sneaked away when they saw us coming. Why did they do that when they could easily have surprised and killed us? Because they are the scouts of a multitude coming to attack us, and are to tell the chiefs just how to do it."
"I believe that the old man is right!" Abbott exclaimed.
"He may be, but I doubt it," said my uncle. "Up there is the lookout place for all the war parties passing along this great trail. I doubt not that one was recently there. I can't believe, however, that five or six enemies withdrew from the point upon the approach of these two old men. Had they been there at that time, they would certainly never have overlooked such an easy opportunity to count two coups."
"Well, whether you believe they are right or not, I advise you to keep a good guard round the barricade to-night and to keep the horses in, too," said Abbott.
"The horses must go out to feed as usual. In any event, they will be safe off there upon the dark plain."
Abbott threw out his hands with a gesture of despair. "All right, you for it! I've said my say."
Old Lame Wolf, of course, understood nothing of what was being said. He waited until the talk apparently was ended, got my uncle's attention once more and signed, "What shall you do?"
"We shall some of us stand watch with you to-night," my uncle answered.
"That is good. Be sure that the loud-mouthed gun is well loaded and ready to fire," the old man concluded, and the two went out to their evening meal.
When supper was over, my uncle called the engagés together, told them the old Mandans believed that the enemy might attack us during the night, and ordered them to look well to their guns. He then called the names of those he wanted for extra guard duty, and of those who were to help him with the cannon. But to this plan Tsistsaki made strong objection.
"No," she said; "let each man use his rifle. We will help with the gun." And my uncle promised that she should have her way.
As Pitamakan and I were preparing to take the horses out, I had a last word with my uncle.
"If you are attacked to-night, what shall we do?" I asked.
"I would not be sending you out if I believed that was to happen. However, if it does happen, you must do the best you can; your own judgment must guide you," he answered.
It was quite dark when Pitamakan and I drove the horses out from the barricade for their night-grazing. We flicked them into a lope up the rise to the plain, but when we were nearly to the top they suddenly shied at something ahead and dashed sharply off to the left. I was riding Is-spai-u as usual, and he was so frightened that it was all I could do to keep him from running ahead of the loose stock. Pitamakan and I went some distance before we managed to head the horses up the slope; and as soon as we were well out on the plain I asked Pitamakan what he thought had frightened our animals.
"I will tell you my real belief," he answered. "It was the enemy, maybe a number of them, lying there to see in what direction we would drive the horses, so that they could trail on and take them from us."
"It may have been a bear."
"If a bear had been there, we should have seen him; there is starlight enough for that. The low, sweet sage growth along the slope could not have hidden a bear from us, but it is high enough to conceal men lying flat in it. Almost-brother, I believe with old Lame Wolf that trouble is about to break upon us!"
"Well, they shall not get these horses," I declared.
When, at last, we hobbled the loose animals and picketed Is-spai-u and Pitamakan's runner we felt sure that no enemy could find us. But there was to be no sleep for us that night; we settled down to listen for the far-off boom of the cannon, which would tell us that the cut-throats had attacked our camp.
About midnight we nearly started for the west and southwest and the Pikuni, but we decided to wait a little longer and listen for the boom of the cannon. We watched the Seven Persons swinging round in the northern sky, and at last they warned us that day was not far off. The attack upon camp had not opened; so we decided to urge my uncle to allow us to go at once in search of the Pikuni. We unhobbled the loose stock and drove them in with a rush. There was only a faint lightening of the eastern horizon when we arrived at the barricade, and Abbott, standing on watch at the passageway, let down the bars for us.
"You are in plenty early this mornin'," he said as we drove past him.
"We have reason for it. We want to persuade my uncle to let us start right now after the Pikuni," I answered.
"You said it! That is just what he should have you do!" he exclaimed.
As we got down from our horses we saw dimly here and there the other watchers approaching to learn whether we had anything to tell of the night. Then in the direction of the grove we all heard the patter of feet striking harshly upon the stony ground.
"It's the Twins!" Abbott exclaimed.
"Behind them the cut-throats!" said Pitamakan, and at the same time our ears caught the faint thudding of many moccasined feet.
Then the Twins loomed up hugely in the dusk. They dashed in through the passageway, and Josh gasped out, "They're right at our tails! Run that cannon out!"
The cannon was in the center of the barricade, loaded with trade balls, fused, and covered with a piece of canvas to protect it from the weather. As Abbott, the Twins, and I ran to it, Pitamakan hurried on to our lodge to rouse my uncle; and the engagés, who had been on watch with the Mandans, quietly slipped round awakening the inmates of the other lodges. I flipped the cover on the cannon, and, just as we got it into the passageway, the fight opened with shots and yells on the west side of the barricade. The thought flashed into my mind that Pitamakan had been right. It had been some of the enemy, lying concealed upon the slope, that our horses had shied from when we were driving them out to graze.
"Never mind the racket back there; our job is right here! Now! Swing her round!" Abbott shouted to us, and he had to shout in order to make himself heard.
We swung the gun round. I kept hold on the tailpiece while Abbott sighted and called, "To the right a little! Left a trifle! There!"
As he lighted the fuse I sprang out of the way of the recoil and for the first time looked ahead. Out of the dusk of the morning, less than a hundred yards away, a horde of warriors were coming toward us swiftly yet with cautious, catlike steps. There was something terribly sinister in their approach, far more so than if they had come with the usual war songs and shouts of an Indian attack. Boom! went the cannon. The flash of it blinded us; the smoke drifted into our faces. Lem, who was carrying our rifles in his arms, shouted to us to take them.
"No! Lay 'em down! Help load! Where's the powder for this gun?" Abbott yelled.
"Right here!" cried my uncle as he and Tsistsaki and a couple of other women joined us. "Use your rifles!"
We snatched them from Lem, and, lo! as the smoke drifted away we could see no one to shoot at, nor could we hear anything but the hollow murmur of the river, as if it were mocking us.
"By gum! They've just flew away!" Lem exclaimed.
"Not they!" said my uncle, proceeding to thrust a charge powder into the cannon and ram it home. "Just step over to the river-bank and look down, and you'll see them."
"Ha! So that's their scheme, is it? Goin' to shut us off from water! I might have knowed it! What beats me is, why didn't they come on? If they had, 't would have been all over with us in about two minutes!" said Lem.
"What say they?" Pitamakan asked me, and I told him.
The Mandans and the engagés now came to us from the other side of the stockade, with the women and children trailing after them.
"The cut-throats ran down over the river-bank," old Lame Wolf signed to my uncle.
"Sare, M'sieu' Reynard," Henri Robarre said to him, "hon our side ze cut-throats were but few. Zey holler much, zey fire deir guns no at us. Zey shoot hup at ze stars, an' zen run hide behin' ze bank of ze riv' M'sieu', what hit means, dat strange conducts?"
"I don't understand it myself, except that when the Twins discovered them their plan of attack went all wrong," my uncle answered in a puzzled voice.
"I know all about it," Pitamakan said in the sign language so that the Mandans should understand.
"Well, let us hear," said my uncle.
"This is it," he went on. "The cut-throats want our scalps, but they want also Is-spai-u. A few of them laid in wait for my almost-brother and me, hoping to seize the runner when we drove the herd out last night; but they failed. The chiefs then planned to wait until we should bring the horses back into the barricade and kill us in a surprise attack as we all stood fighting their few men on the west side. Thus they would take no chances of shooting the black runner. They would have wiped us out, had not the Twins discovered them down there in the timber. Now they plan to make us go mad from want of water and then wipe us out."
"You women, how much water have you?" Tsistsaki asked.
One by one they answered; there was not a bucketful in any lodge!
"Far Thunder, it is now time for my almost-brother and me to go after our people," Pitamakan said to my uncle impressively.
"It is! Go—as fast as you can!" he replied.
"I ride Is-spai-u," I said.
"You do not! He is our shield, it seems. You ride your own runner!"
We had saddled up and were ready to start within five minutes. Day had come. To the west and east there was not a single body of the enemy. Abbott could hardly believe his eyes.
Tsistsaki, ever thoughtful of us, had tied little sacks of food to our saddles, and now we mounted our runners. Nowhere along the bank of the river was there the least sign of the enemy, but we were certain that many a pair of eyes was watching the barricade from clumps of rye grass and sweet sage.
"You'll better lie low on yer horses an' go out flyin'; they'll prob'ly shoot at you," Abbott warned us.
My uncle came and grasped my hand. "It is a terrible risk you are taking. I wish I could take it for you, but my place seems to be here. I've got you all in a bad fix, my boy, but I hope you and Pitamakan will pull us out of it." His voice was unsteady.
"We'll do our best," I answered.
"Go, I am praying for you both!" Tsistsaki called out to us.
We took a running start, hanging low upon the right side of our animals, and went out through the passageway with a rush. We turned sharply to the right, and in no time had the barricade between us and the river. Not a shot was fired at us. We rode straight up the valley for fully a mile before we turned out on the plain. There we halted for a last look at camp. How peaceful it seemed! But how terrible was the situation! There were at least two hundred enemies between our few people and water.
As we rode on we kept looking for the trail of dust raised by thousands of dragging, sharp-pointed lodge poles and travois and horses' hoofs, that would mark the advance of the Pikuni. We were not long in reaching Crooked Creek, and there at the rim of the valley we parted, Pitamakan to go due west toward the buttes of It-Crushed-Them Creek, I to follow up the stream. At the head of it, close to the foot of the mountains, he said, I should find the deep, well-worn trail of the Pikuni, which ran straight east past the foot of Black Butte to the Musselshell. If I should fail to meet the Pikuni along Crooked Creek I was to go west along the trail until I found them or the place where they had turned northeast in the direction of the buttes toward which he was heading.
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I struck the big east-and-west trail at the head of the creek, not more than a mile from the foot of the Moccasin Mountains. My horse went on more easily in one of the broad, smooth tracks, and I was more expectant. The Pikuni could not be far from me now, I thought.
Toward sundown I topped a long, wide, sloping ridge and looked back along the way I had come—more than forty miles. My horse was showing the strain of the long, hot ride. My throat was burning hot from want of water; my lips were cracking.
A mile or two ahead were low, pine-capped hills, and between two of them I saw a patch of the bright green foliage of cottonwoods, a sure sign of water. It was growing dusk when I arrived at the place. I slid from my horse and held his rope as he stepped into the narrow stream. He all but fought me when I pulled him away from it and picketed him near by. Then I drank and had a hard fight with myself to stop long before I had had enough.
From the description of the country that Pitamakan had given me I knew that I was at the head of the east fork of It-Crushed-Them Creek. I did not know how far it was to the other fork, but, near or far, it was impossible for me to go on until my horse had had a good rest, with plenty of grass and water. In the gathering night I found a good grazing-place a little way below the crossing, picketed him upon it and sat down beside the small clump of buck-brush round which I had fastened the end of his rope. An hour or so later I took him again to water and that time I drank all that I wanted. Then back at the grazing-place I ate the meat and hard bread that Tsistsaki had tied to my saddle while my runner greedily cropped the short, rich grass. Long and hard though my ride had been, I was too worried to sleep. As plain as if it were right in front of me, I could see our little camp at the mouth of the Musselshell and its weary watchers staring out at the river-bank, expecting every moment that the enemy would swarm up and attack them.
I fell asleep, and my dream was worse than my waking vision. I saw our camp within the barricade a wreck, with smouldering heaps of lodges, and scalped bodies strewn among them. The dream was so real, so terrible that the force of it woke me and I came to myself standing and tensely gripping my rifle.
I looked up to the north and was astonished. The Seven Persons had nearly completed their nightly course; morning was at hand. How could I have slept so long? I sprang up and saddled my horse, watered him, and, mounting in the light of the half-moon, again took up the trail to the west.
When I had gone two or three miles from my camping-place my horse raised his head and neighed loudly. I angrily checked his attempt to neigh again and probably betray my presence to some enemy near by. When he pulled on his bit and pranced sidewise, eager to go on, I fought his attempts and looked up and down the rise in front of me as far as I could see in the moonlight. I listened and heard the far-off but unmistakable howling of dogs. How my heart rose at the sound of it! Ahead was the camp of the Pikuni, I was sure. Crows or other enemies would not dare bring their women and children so far into Blackfoot country. I let my eager horse go. We fairly flew up over the next rise and then over another, and there at the foot of it, in the light of breaking day, scattered up and down a willow-fringed streamlet, were the lodges of my people and their herds of horses blackening the valley.
Smoke was rising from several of the lodges as I rushed into the camp, sprang from my horse in front of White Wolf's lodge, and dived into it.
"Hurry! Hurry! Call the warriors! The cut-throats are at our camp! Oh, why were you so slow in coming?" I all but shouted.
"Now, calm yourself! Excited ones can't talk straight—" White Wolf began.
But his head wife interrupted him by springing to my side, grabbing my arm, and fiercely crying, "My son—Pitamakan! What of him?"
"Somewhere near here, looking for you," I answered; and with a queer, choking croon of relief she sank back upon her couch.
"If we are too late, it is Far Thunder's fault," White Wolf said to me sternly. "His message was that the cut-throats were encamped upon their own river in the north. Why should we hurry, then, when they were more than twice as far from you as we were? Well, tell us how it is!"
I explained our situation in a few words, but, few as they were, they set White Wolf afire. "There is no time to lose! Come! Quick to Big Lake's lodge!"
We ran and burst in upon the head chief, who was still lying under his robes. I had not half finished telling why I had come when he had one of his women running for the camp-crier. Five minutes later the crier and several volunteers were hurrying up and down the long camp calling out the warriors and ordering the clan chiefs and the chiefs of the bands of the All Friends Society to hurry to a council in Big Lake's lodge.
They came, running and eager, and in a very short time it was decided what bands of the society should hurry on to fight the cut-throats and what ones should guard the following camp. About six hundred men were ordered to be ready to start as soon as possible, each one with his two best horses.
The boys and the old men were running in the herds as White Wolf and I returned to his lodge. I told one of the women to catch for me two certain horses in our band and fell upon the food that was set before me. Then, just as we began eating, we heard a great outcry near by, and Pitamakan came in and sat beside his father, who fondly patted him on the shoulder. His horse had played out at the It-Crushed-Them Creek buttes, and he had remained there all night.
Now the warriors were beginning to gather out in front of the center of the camp, each band round its chief. We soon joined them with our fresh mounts. Raising the war song, and followed by the cries of the women calling upon us to be of good courage and win, we set out upon our ride to the Musselshell.