"Through you we survive!" Tsistsaki said to us, and we could barely hear her strangely pitched voice.
Behind the engagés were their women and children; they, it seemed, had been served first from the two buckets of water that Abbott had brought from the river as soon as the bank was clear of the enemy. I looked over the little crowd, missed the Mandans and asked for them.
"They are down at the river; they will not kill themselves drinking, as these worthless rascals would if they could git to it!" said Abbott.
"There! They have all drunk," said Tsistsaki, taking the cup from Henri Robarre, who was begging wildly for just a little more of the water. Turning, she held a cupful up to my uncle.
"No! You first," he signed. She drank and then he did. Then his voice came back to him and he hoarsely roared to the engagés: "Now, then, you all get back out of my sight until you are called to drink again! I am mighty sick of you and your contemptible whinings!"
"Leave 'em to us, Wesley; we'll herd 'em for you!" Lem called; and with a sigh of relief my uncle turned away from them.
Some of the women were leading the half-dead horses toward us.
"Look at that! They've got a whole lot more heart than their men, those women have!" Abbott exclaimed.
My uncle took Tsistsaki by the hand, and we all four went out to the river-bank. The fight was over, and the Pikuni on horseback and on foot were going about counting the dead cut-throats and counting coup upon them, too. Whereupon Pitamakan cried, "How could I have forgotten? I have a coup to count down there in the timber."
He went from us as fast as he could run.