As the first cold gray streaks of light appeared in the east, the Indian chief awoke, mounted his horse and rode off, this time shaping his course almost directly west. On he rode, from the early dawn until the sun’s warm rays showed the noon at hand; then he halted by the side of a little hollow in the prairie from which a spring gushed forth, gave his horse water, partook again of the buffalo-meat, let his horse graze for an hour or so on the fresh young grass and then again pursued his way.
Two hours more of hard riding brought the “White Vulture” to the bank of the Big Horn river, to an Indian encampment.
Some hundred warriors of the Crow nation had there tethered their horses, while the braves themselves lay upon the grass, or walked listlessly up and down by the turbid stream, now swollen high by the spring rains.
From the fact that no squaws were with the party, nor lodges, nor dogs—those usual accompaniments to stationary Indian encampments—one acquainted with their customs would instantly have pronounced them to be on the war-path. And if further evidence was wanted, the gayly-painted faces of the warriors, bedecked with crimson, yellow, black and white tints in all the hideous fashions of the savages when on the war-trail, would have confirmed it.
The “White Vulture” dismounted from his horse, tied him to a shrub, and with stately steps walked to the river’s bank, where, under the shade of an oak tree, sat ten warriors, evidently the principal chiefs of the party. The “White Vulture” sat down in the circle.
“My brother is late,” said an old chief, who was known among the Crows as the “Thunder-Cloud,” probably from his dark color; he was one of the oldest and best warriors in all the Crow nation.
“Yet the ‘White Vulture’s’ horse is like the wind; he could not come before.”
“Has the great chief been on the war-trail?” asked another brave.
“The ‘White Vulture’ has been to the lodges of the blue-coated whites, on the Powder river; he has seen the white wagons start for the great mountains. If his brothers will open their ears the ‘White Vulture’ will speak.”
Then the chief gave a detailed account of his visit to Fort Bent and what had occurred there. When he spoke of the riches of the emigrant wagons, the eyes of the Indians sparkled with greed, but when he spoke of the number of fighting men attached to the train, their brows grew dark, and when he told them that the famous Indian-fighter, the terror of all their nation, the dreaded “Crow-Killer” was with the train, their faces showed their disappointment and their unwillingness to encounter the old guide.