I trusted to my being able to baffle their pursuit—to keep them back while she ran forward. For that purpose, I should take with me my knife and revolvers—I trusted to these, and much to chance, or, perhaps, I should rather say, to God. My cause was good—my heart firm and hopeful.
Other precautions I intended to take: horses ready as near as they might be brought; men also ready in their saddles, rifle in hand—ready for fight, or flight.
Such was the enterprise upon which I was resolved. Success or death was staked upon the issue. If not successful, I cared not to survive it.
Chapter Eighty Four.
“Painting Injun.”
Withal, I was not reckless. If not sanguine, I was far from despondent; and as I continued to dwell upon it, the prospect seemed to brighten, and success to appear less problematical.
One of the chief difficulties I should have to encounter would be getting into the camp. Once inside the lines—that is, among the camp-fires and tents, if there should be any—I should be comparatively safe. This I knew from experience; for it would not be my first visit to an encampment of prairie-Indians. Even in their midst, mingling with the savages themselves, and under the light of their glaring fires, I should be less exposed to the danger of detection than while attempting to cross their lines. First, I should have to pass the outlying pickets: then within these the horse-guards; and within these, again, the horses themselves!
You may smile when I assert that the last was to me a source of apprehension as great as either of the others. An Indian horse is a sentinel not to be despised. He is as much the enemy of the white man as his master; and partly from fear, and partly from actual antipathy, he will not permit the former to approach him. The human watcher may be negligent—may sleep upon his post—the horse never. The scent of a white man, or the sight of a skulking form, will cause him to snort and neigh; so that a whole camp will either be stampeded or put upon the alert in a few minutes. Many a well-planned attack has been defeated by the warning-snort of the sentinel mustang.