On that day Pitamakan and I slept until noon and after dinner saddled Is-spai-u and my runner and rode out for meat, I, of course, upon the black.
There were plenty of buffaloes in the valley not more than a mile above camp. Pitamakan and I rode down into the grove to notify my uncle to have a man follow us with a team and wagon, for we intended to make a quick killing. Sneaking through the timber close to a herd of buffaloes and chasing them across the flat, we killed four fat ones. We hurriedly butchered them and helped the engagés to load the meat upon the wagon; then we remounted our horses.
Off to the south lay country unknown to me. "Come! Let us ride out upon discovery," I said to Pitamakan.
"I knew that was in your mind by the way you used your knife on our kills," he replied.
We rode out upon the west rim of the valley, following it to the mouth of the Sacajawea Creek, which we crossed, then again along the rim for perhaps five miles to the top of a flat butte from which we had a wonderful view of the country. Pitamakan pointed out to me where Flat Willow Creek and Box Elder Creek, at the nearest point about forty miles to the south of us, broke into the Musselshell from the Snowy Mountains. Both streams, he said, were from their mouths to their heads just one beaver pond after another.
We had, of course, disturbed numerous bands of buffaloes and antelopes along our way up the rim, and now, turning down into the valley of the Musselshell on our homeward course, we alarmed more of them.
"If any war parties are cached along here in the timber," said Pitamakan, "these running herds are putting them upon their guard!"
"Let us keep well out from the timber," I proposed.
I had no more than spoken when two men came walking slowly out from a grove about two hundred yards ahead of us, each with his right hand raised above his head, the sign for peace.
"Ha! Maybe they mean that, and maybe they are setting a trap for us; we must be cautious," said Pitamakan.