CHAPTER XIII.
THE MENAGERIE TO THE RESCUE.
About the time that Snowdrop returned to her teepe, a scout came running into the Sioux camp with the intelligence that a large herd of buffalo were in sight, a few miles to the east; and within five minutes two-thirds of the Sioux, including the chief, Red Pine, had gone in pursuit of them.
Those within the cave knew nothing of this movement, while the Blackfeet at the top, though aware of it, were afraid to make an attack.
Had they been allowed to make use of the pass through which Kelly and the trapper went up and down, every one of them could have left the hill and given battle to the few Sioux who were left to guard the pass and the camp.
Two days without food had not produced a very enviable state of feeling among the Blackfoot braves. Treason was rife among them. Mutterings of discontent arose on every hand, and those who all their lives had been accustomed to render the strictest obedience, now felt the spirit of rebellion.
The young chief, who had led the party from their village, was loud in his denunciations of the policy adopted by the old chief. He used every argument in his power to prove that the old man was in his dotage, and unfit to be intrusted with the government of the nation.
It is quite probable that had he put the question to an actual vote, at that time, the "house" would have been divided in his favor; and it is equally probable that had Gray Eagle known what was "in the wind," the young chief's head would have had something in it besides brains.
But Red Pine was not the first man who has stood aghast at that big little word, If.