TWO CROWS RAISE THEIR RIGHT HANDS
We got back into the timber in no time.
"The crazy ones! They think that we are enemies!"
"Well," I said in answer to this dismayed exclamation of Pitamakan's, "you know what we have to do now; swim across with our letter."
"And be shot as soon as we are seen!"
"Not a shot will be fired at us. I'll see to that. Come, let us picket the horses outside the timber and hunt for a couple of dry logs for a raft," I told him.
Let me tell you that it was no fun blundering along that shore in the darkness, testing the logs we stumbled against for their dryness and trying to roll them into the water, always with the fear of feeling rattlesnake fangs burn into our hands. At last we got two logs of fair size into the water side by side and lashed them firmly together with willow withes. Lashing our clothing and weapons on top of a pile of brush in the center, we pushed out into the current—but not until Pitamakan had called upon his gods to protect us from the dread Under-Water People. He clung to the front end of the unwieldy logs with one hand, pawed the water with the other, and kicked rapidly. I did likewise at the rear of the raft, but for all our efforts we could make the raft go toward the other shore little faster than the current would take it.
It was absolutely certain that the raft would not waterlog and sink during the time that we had use for it, yet it was with feelings of dread and suspense that we worked our way well out into the center of the stream. Then Pitamakan suddenly yelled to me: "The Under-Water People! They are after us! Kick hard! Hard!"
"Oh, no! You are mistaken!" I told him.
"I am sure that they are after us!" he cried. "I touched one of them with my hand, and he hit me in my side. O sun, pity us! Help us to survive this danger!"
"Take courage! So long as we cling to the logs they can't drag us down," I told him.
"Oh, you don't understand about these Under-Water People! They can do terrible things. They are medicine."
He said no more, nor did I. It was useless for me to tell him that he had encountered a big catfish or sturgeon swimming lazily near the surface.
From where we pushed out into the river to the point where we landed must have been all of a mile. We dragged the raft out upon the sand as far as we could in case we should want to use it again and then put on our clothes and started off up the shore. In a little while, looking out through the brush and timber, we saw the ghostly outline of the steamboat close upon our left. Silently we stole to the edge of the sloping bank and looked down upon it. A reflector lantern lighted the lower deck and the boilers, flanked with cordwood, and there was a light shining through the windows of the engine-room; but no one was in sight, not even the watchman. I believed that a number of men were on guard and did not intend to take any chances with them. I whispered to Pitamakan that the time had not come for us to make our presence known, and we sat down right where we were in the brush.
Presently a big clock somewhere abaft the boilers struck the hour of three, and a tall, lank, black-whiskered man came out into the light of the lower deck and began to arouse men sitting or lying behind the rows of cordwood. "It is three o'clock," I heard him snarl. "Git a move on you! Light the fires under them boilers!"
Three or four men sprang to obey the command, and another went up to the hurricane deck to arouse the cook and his helpers.
"Hi, there, mate, throw out the gangplank and let us aboard!" I shouted.
Black whiskers jumped as if he had been shot and dodged behind a boiler; the men crouched in the shelter of the cordwood.
"Don't be afraid and don't shoot at us again. Let us aboard!" I said.
"Who be you?" the mate shouted from his shelter. "Git down there into the light and show yourself!"
I told Pitamakan to remain where he was, and, going down to the edge of the shore where the light streamed upon me, I explained that I was Thomas Fox, that I had an Indian with me, and that I had a letter to deliver into the captain's care.
"Sounds fishy to me," the mate began; then from the upper deck a deep voice called, "Slim, you let that boy and his friend on board! I know him!" And to me, "Hello, Thomas, my boy! I'm dressing. Come up to my room as soon as you get aboard and tell me all about it!"
"That I will, Mr. Page," I answered. I knew as soon as he spoke that it was Henry Page, long a pilot for the American Fur Company, and now, of course, piloting boats for the independents.
Out came the gangplank. I called to Pitamakan, and we went aboard and straight up to Mr. Page, while the mate and his men stared after us. In a few words I explained why we were there.
"I knew," he said, "it was your Uncle Wesley and his outfit there at the mouth of the Musselshell. I learned at Fort Union that he is starting a fort there, but the captain wouldn't let me turn in when you signaled. I'll bet you had a rough time coming up here and getting across the river." Then he lowered his voice. "This captain—Wiggins is his name—is the meanest steamboat man that ever headed up this river!"
"Maybe he will not set us across the river, nor even deliver the letter," I hazarded.
"Give me the letter. I'll deliver it, and I'll put you across right now," he replied, and led the way down to the lower deck and ordered a boat put into the water.
On our way across I explained to our good friend the danger we were in from a grand attack upon us by the Assiniboins and how urgent it was that the Pikuni should get our call for help without delay.
"Well, I believe I have good news for you and your uncle," he said. "I happened to hear in Fort Union that the Assiniboins are encamped over on the Assiniboin River in Canada; so they are farther from the mouth of the Musselshell than your Pikuni over on the Marias River are. I feel sure that your friends will be with you in good time for the big battle, if there is to be one."
"In that letter to Carroll and Steell that you have my uncle also asks them to send him any loose men that can be engaged in Fort Benton. I hope that your captain will give them passage and land them at our place."
"He has to land passengers wherever they wish to go. I'll try, myself, to engage some men for you," he replied.
Then we struck the shore and with a few last words parted from our good friend.
"It wouldn't do any harm to have a short sleep before we start back," said Pitamakan.
"No sleep for me until I strike my couch in our lodge," I told him.
By that time day was breaking. We went out through the timber to our horses and found that we had picketed them upon really good grass and plenty of it. We saddled them and watered them at the river, and as we rode away from it the steamboat slipped her moorings and went on upstream.
Without adventure upon the way we arrived in camp at noon just as the men were returning to it for their dinner.
"Did you deliver the letter?" my uncle shouted eagerly.
"We did!" I shouted.
Later, while we were eating, I told the adventures of the night while Pitamakan held Tsistsaki and the other women spellbound with his description of the dangers that we had encountered. They made no comment other than a casual "Kyai-yo!" when he told of the steamboat men's firing at us, but his description of our swim and his encounter with the Under-Water Person brought forth cries of horror.
My listeners were loud in their denunciation of the steamboat captain. My uncle vowed that the Pittsburgh should never carry a bale of his furs to St. Louis or bring up freight for him.
"Well, boys," my uncle said to the men as they were starting back to work, "there's this much about it: help is sure coming to us. We'll just peg along the best we can and trust to luck that all will be well with us."
Abbott was asleep, having been on guard all night. Pitamakan and I soon lay down and slept. At supper-time we got up and had a refreshing bath in the river, where Abbott joined us, and toward dusk we three went to guard the grove during the night. My uncle arranged with the engagés to stand watch in the barricade by turns, for he was completely worn out by his day-and-night work and had to have one night of complete rest.
The night passed quietly; when morning came we were all convinced that Sliding Beaver's followers and survivors had gone on to their camp. Nevertheless, we did not intend to relax our vigilance.
According to my uncle's plan of the fort, three hundred and ten logs, twenty feet long and a foot in diameter, were required for the walls and the roof supports, and for the two bastions ninety logs twelve feet long were required. Of that large number only a few more than a hundred had been hauled out. With our present force we could not possibly build the fort in less than three months. At Abbott's suggestion that he build upon a much smaller scale, my uncle had replied, "No, sir! This place calls for a real fort, a commodious fort. I am going to have it or none at all."
On that day Pitamakan and I slept until noon and after dinner saddled Is-spai-u and my runner and rode out for meat, I, of course, upon the black.
There were plenty of buffaloes in the valley not more than a mile above camp. Pitamakan and I rode down into the grove to notify my uncle to have a man follow us with a team and wagon, for we intended to make a quick killing. Sneaking through the timber close to a herd of buffaloes and chasing them across the flat, we killed four fat ones. We hurriedly butchered them and helped the engagés to load the meat upon the wagon; then we remounted our horses.
Off to the south lay country unknown to me. "Come! Let us ride out upon discovery," I said to Pitamakan.
"I knew that was in your mind by the way you used your knife on our kills," he replied.
We rode out upon the west rim of the valley, following it to the mouth of the Sacajawea Creek, which we crossed, then again along the rim for perhaps five miles to the top of a flat butte from which we had a wonderful view of the country. Pitamakan pointed out to me where Flat Willow Creek and Box Elder Creek, at the nearest point about forty miles to the south of us, broke into the Musselshell from the Snowy Mountains. Both streams, he said, were from their mouths to their heads just one beaver pond after another.
We had, of course, disturbed numerous bands of buffaloes and antelopes along our way up the rim, and now, turning down into the valley of the Musselshell on our homeward course, we alarmed more of them.
"If any war parties are cached along here in the timber," said Pitamakan, "these running herds are putting them upon their guard!"
"Let us keep well out from the timber," I proposed.
I had no more than spoken when two men came walking slowly out from a grove about two hundred yards ahead of us, each with his right hand raised above his head, the sign for peace.
"Ha! Maybe they mean that, and maybe they are setting a trap for us; we must be cautious," said Pitamakan.
We advanced slowly until we were about a hundred yards from the signalers and brought our horses to a stand.
"Who are you?" I signed to them.
One of them, dropping his bow and arrows, extended his arms and rapidly raised and lowered them several times in imitation of the wings of a bird, the sign for the Crow tribe. Then he waved his right hand above his shoulder, the query sign that I had made.
"We want nothing to do with them," Pitamakan said to me hurriedly.
I signed that I was white.
"The rider with you, who is he? Where are you camped? Let us be friends and go together to your camp," the Crow signed. Then his companion added, "Come, let us meet and sit and smoke a peace pipe. We are two, you are two. It will be good for the four of us to be friends and smoke."
"What a lie! Now I am sure they want to trap us! Signing to us that they are but two! Close behind them the timber is full of Crows!" Pitamakan muttered.
"What shall we do?" I asked him. "Cross the river, ride off beyond the breaks, where they can't see us, and then turn homeward?"
"It would be useless to do that. They are bound north and will see our camp; we may as well make a straight ride to it."
"Well, then, we go," I said and pressed a heel against Is-spai-u's side.
Away we went, circling out from the grove; and our horses had not made four jumps when a number of Crows—at least twenty, we thought—sprang from the timber and discharged their few guns at us while the bow-and-arrow men raised the Crow war cry and uselessly flourished their weapons. Several of the bullets whizzed uncomfortably close to us.
Pitamakan was about to return their fire when I checked him. "Don't fire! We have enough trouble to face!" I cried.
Our swift horses carried us out of their range before they could load and fire their guns again.
"More trouble for us, I'm sure!" my uncle exclaimed, as we halted our sweating horses in front of the barricade just before sunset.
"Yes, a war party of twenty or twenty-five Crows fired at us. They seem to be heading this way," I replied, and told him and the men all about our meeting them, while Pitamakan answered the women's questions.
When I had finished, the engagés, Abbott excepted, of course, wore pretty long faces. They all went into Henri Robarre's lodge as we, with Abbott, answered Tsistsaki's call to supper.
We had barely finished eating, when Robarre came to the door of our lodge and asked my uncle to step outside. We all went out and found the men lined up near the passageway in the barricade.
"Huh! Still more trouble!" my uncle muttered. Then to them he said, "Well, my men, what is it?"
They looked at one another and at us hesitatingly, and several of them nudged Henri Robarre. After much urging he stepped forward and said to my uncle:
"Sare, M'sieu' Reynard! We hare mos' respec' hask dat we have hour discharge. Dat we hembark for Fort Benton on ze firs' boat dat weel take hus."
"Ha! You want to quit, do you? What is the trouble? Am I not treating you well?"
"Wait! They are to have a big surprise," said Tsistsaki and turned from us back to the lodges.
"Sare, M'sieu' Reynard," Henry continued, "eet ees no you. You hare one fine mans. Les sauvages, Assiniboins, Crows, many more zat wee' come, he are ze troub', m'sieu'."
"But you can't go back on your contracts!" my uncle exclaimed. "You all agreed to come down here and work for me a year; you signed contracts to that effect."
"Sare, honneur, we hare no sign eet ze pap' for fight heem, les sauvages. We no sign eet ze pap' for work all days and watch for les sacrés sauvages hall ze nights. Pretty soon we hall gets keel, m'sieu'. We hare no pour le combat; we hare jus' pauvre cordeliers, engagés in ze forts. M'sieu', you weel let hus go?"
I knew by the set expression of my uncle's face what his answer was to be, but he never gave it. Out came the women; their eyes were blazing, long braids were streaming, and they carried lodge-fire sticks in their hands. They charged upon their men, crying, "Cowards! You shall not desert our chief! Stay in the lodge and do our work; we'll build the fort! Give us your clothing; you shall wear our gowns!"
Never shall I forget that scene! The poor engagés shrank from the attack. Wild-eyed, they begged the women to desist, all the while getting painful whacks from their sticks and the most terrible tongue-lashing that could be given in the Blackfoot language! My uncle and Abbott laughed at their plight, and Pitamakan and I actually rolled upon the ground in a perfect frenzy of joy. When, at last, we sat up and wiped our eyes, there were the engagés heading for their lodges, and each one was followed by his woman, still shrieking out her candid opinion of him.
"Well, I guess that settles it!" Abbott exclaimed.
It did! When my uncle called the men together and gave out the detail of the night watch, not one of them made objection, and never again did they ask for their discharge.
With the setting of the sun, Abbott, Pitamakan, and I went down into the grove to our accustomed place, Abbott at the head of the grove and we at its east side. We fully expected that the Crow war party, repeating the tactics of the Assiniboins, would sneak into the grove during the night with the intention of making a surprise attack upon the men when they resumed work in it in the morning. It was agreed that, if they did come, we were to withdraw without letting them know, if possible, that we had seen them. That would mean, as my uncle remarked with a heavy sigh, that the grove would be given over to the enemy for an indefinite time, during which work on the fort would, of course, be suspended. Pitamakan said that, in his opinion, the war party, having had a good view of Is-spai-u and doubtless believing him to be the wonderful buffalo-runner they had heard about, would be far more likely to try to sneak him out of our camp than they would be to ambush us in the grove.
To our great astonishment the night passed without the Crows appearing either at the grove or at the barricade. We did not know what to think. Was it possible, Abbott asked, that the party was homeward bound to the Crow country across the Yellowstone after an unsuccessful raid north of the Missouri?
"War parties seldom go home on foot," Pitamakan well replied.
As soon as my uncle came into the timber with the men and placed his guards and set the six to work we three watchers returned to the barricade, had breakfast, and turned in for the sleep we so much needed. The day and the following night passed quietly; and when the next day and night passed without our detecting any signs of the Crow war party, we said to one another that it had gone its way without discovering our camp.
The third day after our meeting the Crows came. After watering and picketing the saddle-horses close to the barricade, the men hitched up the teams as usual and came into the grove, and Pitamakan, Abbott, and I went to camp, had our morning meal, and as usual took to our couches. We had not been asleep more than three hours, when Tsistsaki came into the lodge and shook us by turns until we were wide-awake. "Take your gun and hurry out!" she said with suppressed excitement. "Several clumps of sagebrush are moving upon us!"