carefully examined the dusty game trails and every sandbar and mud slope of the river for signs of man, but not a single moccasin track did we see. That was no proof, however, that war parties had not recently passed up or down the valley. Instead of following the course of the river, they were far more likely to keep well up in the breaks on the east side of the valley, from which they could constantly see far up and down it.
I was not very keen for hunting that morning, because I was worrying about my uncle's charge to us. "Almost-brother," I said presently as I brought my horse to a stand, "the load that Far Thunder has put upon us is too heavy for our backs. Look, now, at this great country; this brush and timber-bordered stream; those deep, pine-clad bad-land breaks; the great plain to the west, seamed with coulees; the heavily timbered valley of the Big River. We cannot possibly watch it all. We have not the eyes of the gods to see right through the trees and brush and discover what they conceal. Watch as we may, a war party can easily come right down to the mouth of this stream and attack the log-cutters or charge our barricade, and we never know of their approach until we hear their shots and yells!"
"What you say is plain truth!" Pitamakan exclaimed. "But well you know that Far Thunder is a wise chief. He does not expect us to do the impossible; his heavy talk was just to make us as watchful and careful as we possibly can be. But come, we waste time. We have to provide meat for the middle-of-the-day eating!"
"All right, we go," I answered, "but I am uneasy. When we return to camp I shall say a few words to Far Thunder."
Not far ahead a band of a hundred and more buffaloes were filing down a sharp, bare ridge of the bad lands to water. Under cover of the brush we rode to the point they would strike and awaited their coming. They were thirsty; the big cow in front was stepping faster and faster as she neared the foot of the slope; then, scenting the water, she broke into a lope. The whole band came thundering after her, raising a cloud of fine, light dust.
We let our eager horses go when the buffaloes were about fifty yards from us. Pitamakan shot down the old lead cow, and I a fat two-year-old bull; then what a scattering there was!
Drawing my six-shooter, I turned my horse after another two-year-old bull and gained upon it, but just as I was about to fire it sprang sharply round and dodged back past me. My horse turned, too, with a suddenness that all but unseated me. He had the bit in his teeth. I could not have checked him if I would, and he was determined that the bull should not escape. Nor did it. I overtook and downed it after a chase of several hundred yards, but was then, of course, out of the run. Away up the flat Pitamakan was still in the thick of the fleeing band. I saw him shoot twice, and then he, too, came to a stand. In all we had shot six fine animals, meat enough to last our camp for some time. We carefully butchered them all, cutting the carcasses into portions that could be easily loaded into the wagon that would come for them, and then, packing upon our horses several sets of the boss ribs for dinner, we started back.
The day was now very hot; so we rode in the shade of the timber bordering the stream and in a short time entered the big grove at the mouth of it. We could plainly hear the incessant thudding of axes and the crash of the big cottonwood as it struck the ground. I told Pitamakan that the men were working like beavers, and then he laughed. It was a simile quite new to him.
There was here dense underbrush, much of which was higher than our heads and penetrable only by the well-worn zigzag trails of game. We were following what seemed to be the most direct of the trails and were now so near the choppers that we could plainly hear several of them talking, but still, owing to the dense, high brush, we were unable to see any of them. Then suddenly, right in front of us, a shot rang out; and in answer to it, Pitamakan brought his rifle to his shoulder and fired at something that I could dimly see tearing away from us through a thick growth of rosebushes. "Enemies! My horse is hit! Look out!"
Simultaneously we heard a piercing shriek of pain and fear, the well-known voice of Louis, the cordelier, he who had bewailed the death of the company and the loss of his promised pension. "Help! Help! I am shot! I die! Help, messieurs! Ze enemy, he comes, tousans of heem!"
I grasped the situation at once and, fearing that others of the choppers would mistake us for enemies, dashed on past Pitamakan, shouting, "Don't shoot! It is we! Don't shoot!" I cleared the high brush just as the roused men were gathering in a circle about Louis, who was still wildly shrieking for help.
"Now, what is all this about?" cried my uncle as he came running up to the group.
"I am shot! Me, I die!" Louis cried.
"He thought us enemies. He fired at Pitamakan and got shot himself," I explained.
"Let us see the wound," my uncle demanded.
"No use! I die!"
"Throw him down, men, throw him down! We'll see how badly he is hurt!" my uncle ordered; and down he went.
"Huh! Just as I thought! Nothing but a bullet scratch! Get up, you crazy scamp! Get up! Go to the river and wash yourself, and then come back to work!" said my uncle disgustedly.
"Where is his rifle?" some one asked.
"Dropped right where he fired it," I hazarded; and there it was found.
"Wal, now, me, I call Louis's hittin' that hoss a plumb miracle!" exclaimed an American engagé, Illinois Joe, so called because he was always talking about the glories of that State. "To my certain knowledge that there is the fust time Louis ever come nigh hittin' what he aimed to kill!"
The men resumed their work, and my uncle went to the camp with us. We unloaded the boss ribs and picketed our horses, Pitamakan rubbing some marrow grease into the wound of his animal. I then told my uncle that I thought that we could not possibly guard the men from sudden surprise by the enemy.
"You will do the best you can, and that is all I ask from you," he answered. "From now on, one of the engagés shall stand guard while the others work, and I will take a turn at it myself. You have meat up there? Take a team and wagon and bring it in."
We had the meat in camp by two o'clock; then my uncle advised us to ride out upon discovery. As Pitamakan's runner would be of no service for some time to come, I borrowed Is-spai-u and let him have my fast horse. We could, of course, have ridden the scrub horses of the engagés, but did not care to trust our lives to their slow running in case we should be surprised by a war party.
Is-spai-u was a horse with a history. Four summers before, in the spring of 1861, a war party of seven of the Pikuni, led by One Horn, a noted warrior and medicine man, had gone south on a raid with the avowed intention never to turn back until they had penetrated far into the always-summer land and taken fine horses from the Spanish settlers of that country. That meant a journey southward on foot of all of fifteen hundred miles and an absence from us of at least a year. They chose to go on foot because they could thus most surely pass through that long stretch of hostile country without being discovered by the enemy.
Fifty—yes, a hundred—warriors begged One Horn to be allowed to join his party, but he had had a dream in which the Seven Persons, as the constellation of the Great Bear was called, had appeared and advised him what to do, and he would take only six men. Each one of the six was a man of proved valor and intelligence.
The summer passed and the winter. One Horn and his party were to return in the Moon of Full-Grown Leaves, but they came not. With the appearance of the Berries-Ripe Moon they were long overdue, and some said that without doubt their bones were whitening on the sands of the grassless plains far to the south. Still, hoping against hope, the old medicine man prayed on for them at setting of the sun, and all the people prayed with him.
It
