Toward sundown I topped a long, wide, sloping ridge and looked back along the way I had come—more than forty miles. My horse was showing the strain of the long, hot ride. My throat was burning hot from want of water; my lips were cracking.
A mile or two ahead were low, pine-capped hills, and between two of them I saw a patch of the bright green foliage of cottonwoods, a sure sign of water. It was growing dusk when I arrived at the place. I slid from my horse and held his rope as he stepped into the narrow stream. He all but fought me when I pulled him away from it and picketed him near by. Then I drank and had a hard fight with myself to stop long before I had had enough.
From the description of the country that Pitamakan had given me I knew that I was at the head of the east fork of It-Crushed-Them Creek. I did not know how far it was to the other fork, but, near or far, it was impossible for me to go on until my horse had had a good rest, with plenty of grass and water. In the gathering night I found a good grazing-place a little way below the crossing, picketed him upon it and sat down beside the small clump of buck-brush round which I had fastened the end of his rope. An hour or so later I took him again to water and that time I drank all that I wanted. Then back at the grazing-place I ate the meat and hard bread that Tsistsaki had tied to my saddle while my runner greedily cropped the short, rich grass. Long and hard though my ride had been, I was too worried to sleep. As plain as if it were right in front of me, I could see our little camp at the mouth of the Musselshell and its weary watchers staring out at the river-bank, expecting every moment that the enemy would swarm up and attack them.
I fell asleep, and my dream was worse than my waking vision. I saw our camp within the barricade a wreck, with smouldering heaps of lodges, and scalped bodies strewn among them. The dream was so real, so terrible that the force of it woke me and I came to myself standing and tensely gripping my rifle.
I looked up to the north and was astonished. The Seven Persons had nearly completed their nightly course; morning was at hand. How could I have slept so long? I sprang up and saddled my horse, watered him, and, mounting in the light of the half-moon, again took up the trail to the west.
When I had gone two or three miles from my camping-place my horse raised his head and neighed loudly. I angrily checked his attempt to neigh again and probably betray my presence to some enemy near by. When he pulled on his bit and pranced sidewise, eager to go on, I fought his attempts and looked up and down the rise in front of me as far as I could see in the moonlight. I listened and heard the far-off but unmistakable howling of dogs. How my heart rose at the sound of it! Ahead was the camp of the Pikuni, I was sure. Crows or other enemies would not dare bring their women and children so far into Blackfoot country. I let my eager horse go. We fairly flew up over the next rise and then over another, and there at the foot of it, in the light of breaking day, scattered up and down a willow-fringed streamlet, were the lodges of my people and their herds of horses blackening the valley.
Smoke was rising from several of the lodges as I rushed into the camp, sprang from my horse in front of White Wolf's lodge, and dived into it.
"Hurry! Hurry! Call the warriors! The cut-throats are at our camp! Oh, why were you so slow in coming?" I all but shouted.
"Now, calm yourself! Excited ones can't talk straight—" White Wolf began.
But his head wife interrupted him by springing to my side, grabbing my arm, and fiercely crying, "My son—Pitamakan! What of him?"