“Yes. They were a fine-looking set of men.”
“No finer anywhere. Every man of ’em nigh onto six feet high, straight as a pine, soople as a painter, and jest built up a-purpose fur fightin’.”
“They are, certainly, the best-formed and the most athletic Indians I have seen on the plains.”
“Kerlectic! I don’t adzackly swaller that word; but, if thar’s any kerlectic red-skins livin’, it’s them. Why, boy, the Crows are puny alongside of them, and the crook-legged Comanches ain’t worth shucks off thar hosses. How clean they all war! and how keerfully they war painted and ’iled!”
“They would be dangerous fellows in a close fight. I should dislike to meet one of them in a hand-to-hand tussle.”
“They’re powerful tough customers in a skrimmage, sartin. We would all have been chawed up afore this, ef thar game hadn’t been bust into jest as it was. Thar’ll be a right sharp tussle, I’ve a notion, afore we’ve done with ’em.”
“I don’t suppose that they mean to give up what they came for.”
“Not a bit of it. They came arter Dove-eye, and they came arter you and me. They hev got a notion of the colonel’s plunder, too, and Crow skelps and white skelps are what they’re allers wantin’. They mean to hev some of those things, boy, or bust thar gizzards a-tryin’! Hullo! What’s the matter now? Are the cusses comin’ at us?”
There had been one lack in the camp. There was enough meat and enough ammunition; but Colonel Wilder, with the forethought of a soldier, saw that it might be necessary to stand a siege, in which event a scarcity of water would be a serious inconvenience. The creek was near at hand; but they would be cut off from it in case of attack, and a supply must be secured before the appearance of the enemy.
He sent a squad of dragoons to the creek, with a guard of Crow Indians, to get water to fill all the vessels that were available for that purpose. Twice they went and returned in safety; but, the third time, while they were filling their buckets, a party of Arapahoes, who had been lurking in the timber, rose from their ambush, and poured into them a deadly fire. Three of the soldiers were killed outright, and one was severely wounded. The Crows, after an ineffectual attempt to make a stand, were driven back, with their white companions, toward the camp. The Arapahoes pursued them at once, and, as they were incumbered with their wounded comrade, their progress was slow and difficult.