It was an endless chain of riders, shuttling past the fort, and shooting—but that did not work.
The Blackfeet arrows and bullets caught the horses, and once in a while a rider; and soon there were ten Crows down.
The Crows quit, to rest their horses, and to talk. Their women were wailing still more loudly. War was hard on the women, too. For every relative killed, they had to cut off a finger joint, besides gashing their faces and hands with knives.
In their little fort, the Blackfeet were as boldly defiant as ever.
"Come and take us!" they gibed. "Where are the Crow men? We thought we saw Crow men among you. Come and take us, but you will never take us alive!"
"What will be done now?" the white men queried of a black man who had joined them, in the clump of cedars.
He was not all black. He was half white, one quarter negro and one quarter Cherokee. He had lived over twenty years in the Indian country of the upper Missouri River; mainly with the Crows. Edward Rose had been his name, when young; but now he was a wrinkled, stout old man, called Cut-nose, and looked like a crinkly-headed Indian.
"The Crows are losing too many warriors. They have no stomach for that kind of work," answered the old squaw-man.
The Crow chiefs and braves were seated in a circle, near the cedars, and listening to the speakers who stood up, one after another.
"Our marrow-bones are broken," some asserted. "The enemy is in a fort; we are outside. We will lose more men than he. Let us draw off; and when he is in the open, we can then attack as we please."