"Yes, we will stay here and watch," said Sun Bird. "If our enemies are near us, pretty soon we will see their scouts."
As time passed, and they saw nothing to indicate that either the Crows or the Blackfeet were anywhere in the vicinity, the Sioux began to discuss the advisability of moving cautiously along the bottom of the ravine. The ponies were growing frantic from thirst and were raising considerable dust by their wild pawing in the stream bed. Some were beginning to snort and whinny, and the Sioux feared that the unmanageable little beasts might betray them to their foes. Then, too, their own throats were parched and aching, and they were eager to reach the little pool as soon as possible.
"We will go," Sun Bird said, finally.
They believed that it would be folly to expose scouts upon the open plain, and they determined to keep to the shelter of the ravine until they were opposite the grove which sheltered the pool. The ponies appeared to understand that they were moving toward water, and the Sioux found it almost impossible to hold them in control. For some moments the fractious little beasts created the wildest sort of disorder, and the Minneconjoux looked anxiously upon the heavy dust cloud that rose above the ravine.
"It is bad," Sun Bird declared, uneasily, as he watched White Otter struggling to subdue the hot-tempered piebald.
When the ponies had finally been brought under subjection, several warriors who rode quieter horses dismounted and crawled to the top of the ravine to search the plain. A heavy pall of dust hung over them, and they wondered if it had been seen by their foes. The latter, however, were nowhere in sight, and the Sioux knew that unless they were watching from one of the groves they must have ridden from the locality.
"We saw no one," said the scouts when they overtook their companions.
"It must be that our enemies went away while it was dark," said a young warrior named Painted Bird.
The Sioux, however, were suspicious. They determined to take nothing for granted. As they approached the first of the little groves they sent scouts along the ravine ahead of the war party to watch the plain and guard against blundering into their foes. They were riding at a fast pace, and they realized that they would arrive opposite the pool before the day was half gone.
"It is bad," said White Otter. "We cannot go to that place until it grows dark. If we get near it, it will be hard to hold the ponies."