“That was the time when the hundred soldiers died. Lodge Trail Ridge is steep and narrow where it goes down to Peno Creek. It is near to where the soldiers built their town of logs, and that is where they died. I heard it told so often that when I think about it I must tell myself it was my father who was there and I was just a little boy at home with my mother.
“We had our village where Peno Creek runs into the Tongue, and Big Road was the leader of our band. The day was just coming when our warriors rode away to fight the soldiers and many others rode with them—Cheyennes, Arapahoes. They rode up Peno Creek; and when the sun was halfway up the sky, they stopped where the Wasichu road came down the steep, narrow ridge to the ford.
“It was a good place to fight; so they sent some warriors up the road to coax the soldiers out of their town; and while those were yonder, we hid in the gullies and the brush all along the sides of the ridge. No, I was just a little boy at home, but so our warriors did.
“And when they had waited and waited, there were shots off yonder and the sound of horsebacks riding fast. It is our warriors coming back. I can see them there at the top of the hill, and they have stopped to shoot at the soldiers. Then they turn and gallop down the ridge.
“The road is empty. It is still. We hear iron hoofs yonder. Now the soldiers come out of the sky up there. They stop and look. Now they are riding two together down the ridge, walking their big horses. There is a long blue line of them. Their breaths are white; their horses’ breaths are white. They are looking here and looking there, and they are seeing nothing. They are listening and listening. They are hearing their saddles whine. They are hearing iron hoofs on the frozen road. Maybe a horse shakes its head, and they hear the bridle bit.
“It is still. There is no sound in the gullies and the brush. We are holding our ponies’ noses so that they cannot cry out to the big Wasichu horses.
“The first soldiers are at the bottom of the ridge.”
Eagle Voice paused. Leaning forward tensely, with a hand at his brow, he gazed beyond the tepee wall, listening open-mouthed and breathless.
“What do you see, Grandfather?” I urged.
He threw both hands aloft and in a high excited voice, cried: