“The gale made it useless for him to try to call to them, but he felt that he must do something, for at any time they might see his white clothing and shoot at him. He gave a shout, calling, ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,’ and holding both his hands above his head, ran forward and found himself in the midst of a party that had been sent out to look for him. A raid on the town had captured a few horses and had cost the life of a white man, while two of the Indians had been killed, but among the horses lost was Lone Wolf’s bay pony, which, so far as I know, was never heard of again.”
“That certainly is a bully story, Hugh,” said Jack.
“Yes,” said Joe, “that story is good. I have heard the people talk about it sometimes, but I never heard it all, as White Bull has told it to us to-night. I like it.
“Those Indians were Gros Ventres,” he went on, “and at that time they were still enemies of my people, but soon after peace was made.”
CHAPTER XVI
AN ICE RIVER
EARLY the next morning, while they were eating breakfast, Hugh said, “Now, boys, let’s saddle and ride up this middle fork. I don’t think it goes far, and I reckon we’ll not see much up there. We can come back and maybe pack up and get to the head of the other fork to-night. You boys go out right after breakfast and picket the pack horses and bring in the saddle animals, while I’m washing up the dishes and rigging up a scare over this meat, to keep off the birds.”
When the boys got in with the saddle horses, after tying the pack horses so that they could not follow, they found that Hugh had put up a pole which slanted over the meat on the scaffold, and to that pole he had tied a cross-stick from which a long strip of cloth was waving merrily in the breeze.
“There,” said Hugh, “as long as this wind blows, no bird or animal will bother that meat. Now let’s start along.”
They rode fast up the valley of the middle fork, for in most places it was fairly open; sometimes in pretty park-like meadows, where the tall white-crowned flower stems of the soap grass waved in the wind, sometimes in broad flat meadows of wet ground, which looked suspiciously like beaver meadows, and sometimes in scattering pine timber growing from low mounds. As they advanced, the valley grew narrower, and on both sides the mountains rose high and steep, but here and there on the heights above they could see the edges of snow fields, and when they reached the head of the valley they found themselves under a tall precipice, over which flowed two great water-falls, which had their sources in the snow banks far above. It was a cold, gray place, grim and grand, but not picturesque nor beautiful, and soon all three were glad to turn about and gallop down the valley toward the sunlight, which was flooding the lower country.
It was not yet noon when they reached the camp, and Hugh said they would just stop for dinner and then move on.