"'Well, then,' she said, 'if that is so I will step out a minute and then go to bed.'
"Now the door to this room was fastened from the inside, when we wished it, by two wooden bars; outside we closed it merely by a rawhide thong and pin. Some of us were always at home, and when we all left this room we fastened the door with the thong to keep the dogs and the cold air out. As the woman started to go out I went up to the counter and took my six-shooter, intending to follow her out, but quicker than a flash she darted through the door, and closed and fastened it with the thong and pin. Of course all the boys in the room made a rush, and two of us getting our fingers between the door and the jamb gave a strong jerk, snapped the fastening and we all ran out. The woman had disappeared in the darkness, but we could still hear her footsteps as she ran toward the brush. Suddenly she gave a peculiar kind of a whistle and from all around in the brush she was answered by the hooting of owls. We all rushed back into the fort, put out the lights and made ready for an attack.
"After an hour or so the boys began to talk. 'I knowed,' said one, 'that she was a spy.'
"'Didn't I say to hang her,' exclaimed another. 'You fellers that thought she was all right are sure soft.'
"We all sat up until long after daylight, and not until eight or nine o'clock did any one turn in. But we were not attacked, nor did we see the woman again.
"Several weeks afterward, when Hamilton went to the Yellowstone after supplies, he learned that this woman had stopped at the 'Circle N' ranch and that they had lost one hundred and forty horses."
CHAPTER V
BUFFALO HUNTING WITH THE BLACKFEET
Early next morning the camp was in motion, and they travelled south all day, making a long march. Hugh left the pack horses in charge of Fox Eye's people, who drove them along with their own, while he and Jack and Joe joined the flankers, who marched off to one side, and who killed a few antelope, a few bulls, and hunted out the stream bottoms that they passed. Each day these hunters killed just about fresh meat enough to support the camp, which as yet had plenty of dried meat, so that there was no suffering. That night Hugh told Jack that the next day they would strike the Musselshell, and very likely buffalo, but if not, they would cross the river and move on down toward the Yellowstone, where, on the Dry Fork, or Porcupine, they would be sure to get what they wanted.
"We can't stop very long with these people, son," he said; "not if we're going into the mountains, and going to work our way down through them back to the ranch. Of course we've got lots of time, but then we don't want to stay up here too long, and be rushed at the last, so that we'll have to hurry along and make our horses poor, and keep ourselves tired all the time. We can stop here for a while and kill buffalo, and then we'll leave the people, and strike west into the mountains."