“They may turn back without coming this far,” Little Eagle suggested. “Our trail there is old.”
“They’ll come to this stream,” Angry Wolf stated as positively as if he had heard the Crows planning. “Here they will find the new trail we will make as we leave.”
Little Eagle saw the wisdom of the other’s words. The Crows knew of this stream. Probably they had planned to camp here but had been delayed on the way. If the warrior who had attacked Angry Wolf and him had been able to return to camp, he had reported to them. If the man hadn’t returned to camp, the other Crows had found his body by now. Yes, they would come on.
“We’ll have to leave the horses we have captured,” Angry Wolf said. “We can’t drive a herd of horses and outrun the Crows. They have swift horses and strong medicine.”
“We would have powerful medicine if I had studied more with Clawing Bear,” Little Eagle thought to himself.
Aloud he said, “They may catch us even if we leave the other horses.”
“They may,” Angry Wolf agreed grimly.
Little Eagle looked toward the herd of horses. It had seemed a great victory when he and Angry Wolf had escaped with them. He remembered how he and Angry Wolf had wanted to sing the Victory Song. Now the Crows would get the horses back. It would be a tremendous triumph for them. Little Eagle had pictured in his own mind how proud he would be to ride into winter camp with the herd of captured ponies. But it wouldn’t happen. The Crows were going to win again.
Little Eagle’s face set with determination. He and Angry Wolf could lie in ambush. They couldn’t defeat the big Crow war party, but they could make the Crows pay for their victory.
“If the Crows take our scalps, it will make them an even greater victory,” Angry Wolf said as though he were reading Little Eagle’s thoughts.