“Sart’in; now you’re talkin’. We’ve got to stand a siege here, I reckon,” said Abe.
The gray streaks of the coming day were now seen in the eastern clouds, and the dense gloom vanished rapidly from the face of the prairie.
Abe divided the camp into watches, as before, attended in person to the wounded men, and imposed watchfulness upon the guards.
As the morning advanced, the emigrants looked out with anxious eyes for traces of the foe.
Far beyond rifle-range on the prairie, the Crows had formed a cordon of men around the camp of the emigrants, so as to cut off all hope of escape.
Abe looked at them with an evil expression in his dark eyes.
“If I don’t wipe out some of your big chiefs afore I’m a day older, then I’m a sucker,” and he shook his fist savagely toward the foe.
Abe then directed the breakfast to be prepared.
“We can’t fight unless we eat, and thank gracious, we’ve got enough for the humans if we haven’t for the beasts.”
So the women went busily to work getting the breakfast. Then, for the first time, the absence of Leona was discovered. Of course, Mrs. Grierson and Eunice had noticed her absence from the wagon, but thought she had taken refuge in some other one, but now it was discovered that she was not in the camp!