On the morning of the second day the Cheyennes awoke to find the Fire Eater gone, but he had left his horses on their hands. “The young chief’s heart is bad. He has gone away by himself. He will not want us to follow him. He cannot go into the village with our dead and wear the mourning paint,” whispered they, one to another.
This was true—for the fierce spirit of the young man could not brook defeat. The Chis-chis-chash should never see blackened ashes on a cheek which was only fitted for the red paint. The shield of the Fire Eater should never face to the lance—the little brown bat flapped fiercely in the wind and screamed for blood and scalp braids. The warrior traveled lazily on his journey—light-hearted and fiercely resolved.
After many days of wolfish travel he saw signs of the vicinage of the Shoshone Indians. They were a hungry band who had come out of the mountains and were hunting the buffalo. He followed the pony tracks where they were not lost in the buffalo’s trails, finding picked bones, bits of castaway clothing and other signs until he saw the scouts of the enemy riding about the hills. Approaching carefully in the early night and morning he found the camp and lay watching for depressions in the fall of some bluffs. But the young men were ceaselessly active, and he did not see an opportunity to approach. During the night he withdrew to a pine-clad rocky fortress which promised better concealment, and his surprise was great in the morning to see the Sho-shones preparing to make a buffalo-surround in the valley immediately in front of him. From all directions they came and encompassed the buffalo below.
The Fire Eater carefully pressed down the tuft of loose hair which sat upright on the crown of his head after the manner of his people, and leaving his rifles he walked down toward the seething dust-blown jumble where the hunters were shearing their bewildered game. No one noticed him, and the dust blew over him from the milling herd. Presently a riderless pony came by, and seizing its lariat he sprang on its back. He rode through the whirling dust into the surround and approaching an excited and preoccupied Shoshone stabbed him repeatedly in the back. The Indian yelled, but no one paid any attention in the turmoil. The Fire Eater slung his victim across his pony, taking his scalp. He seized his lance and pony and rode slowly away toward the bluffs. After securing his rifle he gained the timber and galloped away.
On his road he met a belated scout of the enemy coming slowly on a jaded horse. This man suspected nothing until the Fire Eater raised his rifle, when he turned away to fly. It was too late and a second scalp soon dangled at the victor’s belt. He did not take the tired horse for it was useless.
Swiftly he rode now for he knew that pursuit was sure, but if one was instituted it never came up and before many days the Cheyennes rode along his own tepees, waving the emblem of his daring, and the camp grew noisy with exultation. The mourning paint was washed from each face and the old pipe-men said: “The Bat will be a great leader in war—his medicine is very strong and he eats fire.” The chiefs and council withheld their discipline, and the Fire Eater grew to be a great man in the little world of the Chis-chis-chash, though his affairs proportionately were as the “Battles of the Kites and Crows.”
