When Little Eagle looked down onto the Crow camp, he saw that it still was as busy as it had been earlier. As the two boys watched, the warriors finished their work with their fighting equipment. The fires were allowed to die down to beds of glowing coals. It looked as though the warriors were ready to roll up in their blankets and sleep until it was time to make their attack.
Little Eagle saw several warriors leave the camp and go toward the horse corral. At first he thought they were merely going to look at their horses. He felt the icy finger of fear when he saw the men returning to camp, leading their horses. Evidently the Crows weren’t going to wait until dawn to make their attack. Little Eagle and Angry Wolf wouldn’t have time to take a warning back to camp. Little Eagle glanced toward Angry Wolf. Angry Wolf signaled that they should move back.
Hopelessly, Little Eagle obeyed the signal. Halfway down the hill, Angry Wolf stopped.
“The horses will be tied to the wrists of their owners tonight,” Angry Wolf explained. “We must think of a plan to get one of them.”
Little Eagle felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Of course that was what the Crow warriors were doing. He had heard of this custom of the Crows. The night before a Crow warrior went into battle, he slept with his horse’s long tether tied to his wrist. The Crows believed that while the owner slept, his spirit talked to the horse. In that way, the horse would know just what to do when the battle started. Little Eagle was so relieved to know there was still a chance to get a warning back to his own camp, that he could hardly wait to make the attempt.
“There will be other horses in the corral,” he said. “It would be easier to get one of them.”
“If we get a horse from the corral, it might be one that wasn’t much good,” Angry Wolf answered. “The best horses will be tied to the owners’ wrists. I must get one of them.”
Little Eagle wanted to protest that both of them should try to get horses, but he remained silent. Angry Wolf was the one who had remembered the Crow custom of keeping horses in camp the night before a battle. He had proved himself capable to be the leader. Little Eagle must obey him until he, too, proved himself.
Angry Wolf stretched out full length upon the ground. He seemed to be unworried about this expedition. He took a piece of dried meat from a leather sack at his belt. He broke the chunk of meat in two and offered a piece to Little Eagle. Little Eagle hesitated. He was ashamed that he had forgotten another lesson their warrior-teacher had taught all of the boys.
“Whenever you leave camp, be sure to take food with you,” the teacher had told them many times. “Sometime you may be hiding near enemies where you don’t dare hunt for food.”