"Ha! All the more reason that we should winter there!" cried Big Lake. "We have too long neglected that part of our country. It is our plain duty to go down there and clean it of our enemies and keep it clean of them. If we fail to do so, they will be soon claiming it their very own, the gift of their gods to them."
"Right you are, brother," cried Crow Foot, "and wise is Far Thunder! He could not have made a better choosing. What say you all? Is it decided that we winter down there?"
"Yes! Yes!" they all answered—all but Lone Bull and his under-chiefs.
"You still object to the choice?" said Big Lake to him.
"I do, though I shall be there with you. My silence now is my warning to you all that you are making a mistake for which we shall pay dearly with our blood!" he answered.
"Ha! Since when were we afraid of our enemies!" Calf Shirt exclaimed.
So was that matter settled. White Wolf knocked the ashes from the smoke pipe, and the chiefs filed out of the lodge to go their homeward ways. As the women returned, I said to my chum, "Pitamakan, almost-brother, we are certainly going to see some exciting, perhaps dangerous times down in that On-the-Other-Side Bear River country!"
"Excitement, danger, they make life," he answered.
Tsistsaki, coming in, heard my remark. She turned to my uncle. "So, man mine, we go to the On-the-Other-Side Bear River country, do we? Yes? Oh, I am glad! Down there grow plenty of plums. I shall gather quantities of them for our winter use!"
We went out, mounted our horses, and hurried home and to bed. That is, Tsistsaki and I did; my uncle worked all night, writing out his trade-goods orders. The steamboat men worked all night, too, unloading freight for the fort, and when I awoke in the morning the boat had left with its load of company furs.