“Yes; what do you think of him?” asked Dave.
“Wal, I don’t exactly know,” replied the “Crow-Killer,” thoughtfully; “but ef I were to meet that Injun, a hundred and fifty miles west from hyar, I’d say he was a Crow an’ be willin’ to bet my life onto it.”
“A Crow!” cried Dave.
“That’s so, hoss; though I noticed he’s ripped off the trimmings of his moccasins and leggins, so as to make ’em plain and disguise his tribe. Now, if he were a Sioux, why does he come skulking hyar in disguise—that’s what I want to know?”
Just then the “Crow-Killer” was interrupted by a horseman dashing into the little village from the upper trail leading up the bank of the Yellowstone. The horse was covered with lather, showing that he had been ridden hard; the horseman, a sturdy-looking fellow but pale as death in the face, drew rein in the center of the little square formed by the fort, the trading-houses and the wagon-train; then tumbled from his horse exhausted. A crowd gathered around him.
“What’s the matter?” “What is it, stranger?” were the questions poured in upon him by the bystanders.
“The devil’s to pay!” gasped the stranger. “The Injuns are up again on the Yellowstone trail, thick as grasshoppers in summer.”
“What Injuns?” yelled half a dozen excited voices.
“The Crows!” replied the stranger, who thereupon proceeded to tell his story. He had left Montana with a party, composed of two wagons loaded with furs, and ten men; they had not seen signs of Indians until after passing Great Falls and striking across to the Yellowstone; then they came across an Indian trail, which one of the trappers pronounced to be that of a war-party and about three days old; but, as the trail led directly southward across their line of march they did not anticipate any danger. But, on the first night after striking the Yellowstone river, they were attacked by a large party of Crow Indians; the trappers fought bravely but they were overpowered and forced to leave their wagons and seek safety in flight. How many of his companions had escaped he knew not; but he, possessing a very swift horse, had succeeded in passing the line of the encircling savages and in escaping by reason of the fleetness of his horse; but, in escaping from the Indians, he had been compelled to leave the lower trail and go northward, and had been five days in reaching the fort, which, had he come straight by the bank of the Yellowstone, he might easily have made in four.