Away we went, circling out from the grove; and our horses had not made four jumps when a number of Crows—at least twenty, we thought—sprang from the timber and discharged their few guns at us while the bow-and-arrow men raised the Crow war cry and uselessly flourished their weapons. Several of the bullets whizzed uncomfortably close to us.
Pitamakan was about to return their fire when I checked him. "Don't fire! We have enough trouble to face!" I cried.
Our swift horses carried us out of their range before they could load and fire their guns again.
"More trouble for us, I'm sure!" my uncle exclaimed, as we halted our sweating horses in front of the barricade just before sunset.
"Yes, a war party of twenty or twenty-five Crows fired at us. They seem to be heading this way," I replied, and told him and the men all about our meeting them, while Pitamakan answered the women's questions.
When I had finished, the engagés, Abbott excepted, of course, wore pretty long faces. They all went into Henri Robarre's lodge as we, with Abbott, answered Tsistsaki's call to supper.
We had barely finished eating, when Robarre came to the door of our lodge and asked my uncle to step outside. We all went out and found the men lined up near the passageway in the barricade.
"Huh! Still more trouble!" my uncle muttered. Then to them he said, "Well, my men, what is it?"
They looked at one another and at us hesitatingly, and several of them nudged Henri Robarre. After much urging he stepped forward and said to my uncle:
"Sare, M'sieu' Reynard! We hare mos' respec' hask dat we have hour discharge. Dat we hembark for Fort Benton on ze firs' boat dat weel take hus."