"You do not! He is our shield, it seems. You ride your own runner!"
We had saddled up and were ready to start within five minutes. Day had come. To the west and east there was not a single body of the enemy. Abbott could hardly believe his eyes.
Tsistsaki, ever thoughtful of us, had tied little sacks of food to our saddles, and now we mounted our runners. Nowhere along the bank of the river was there the least sign of the enemy, but we were certain that many a pair of eyes was watching the barricade from clumps of rye grass and sweet sage.
"You'll better lie low on yer horses an' go out flyin'; they'll prob'ly shoot at you," Abbott warned us.
My uncle came and grasped my hand. "It is a terrible risk you are taking. I wish I could take it for you, but my place seems to be here. I've got you all in a bad fix, my boy, but I hope you and Pitamakan will pull us out of it." His voice was unsteady.
"We'll do our best," I answered.
"Go, I am praying for you both!" Tsistsaki called out to us.
We took a running start, hanging low upon the right side of our animals, and went out through the passageway with a rush. We turned sharply to the right, and in no time had the barricade between us and the river. Not a shot was fired at us. We rode straight up the valley for fully a mile before we turned out on the plain. There we halted for a last look at camp. How peaceful it seemed! But how terrible was the situation! There were at least two hundred enemies between our few people and water.
As we rode on we kept looking for the trail of dust raised by thousands of dragging, sharp-pointed lodge poles and travois and horses' hoofs, that would mark the advance of the Pikuni. We were not long in reaching Crooked Creek, and there at the rim of the valley we parted, Pitamakan to go due west toward the buttes of It-Crushed-Them Creek, I to follow up the stream. At the head of it, close to the foot of the mountains, he said, I should find the deep, well-worn trail of the Pikuni, which ran straight east past the foot of Black Butte to the Musselshell. If I should fail to meet the Pikuni along Crooked Creek I was to go west along the trail until I found them or the place where they had turned northeast in the direction of the buttes toward which he was heading.
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I struck the big east-and-west trail at the head of the creek, not more than a mile from the foot of the Moccasin Mountains. My horse went on more easily in one of the broad, smooth tracks, and I was more expectant. The Pikuni could not be far from me now, I thought.