We will leave him for a time to pursue these investigations, while we return to Reginald and War–Eagle, whom we left deliberating as to the most advisable course to be pursued for the rescue of Prairie–bird.
Mahéga spying the Camp of the Delawares
P. [398]
The Delaware chief having been soon informed by his scouts of the enemy’s retreat to another and stronger position, lost no time in pushing forward his party to the point in the valley where it had (as above mentioned) been descried by Mahéga and his guide. Reginald and the other white men were at a loss to imagine why War–Eagle had selected for his halt a spot where a dense thicket on the side of each hill seemed to offer to an enemy, familiar with the country, a favourable opportunity for attacking him unawares; and even Baptiste, when questioned upon the subject, shook his head, saying: “Wait till to–morrow; we shall know by that time what hole the coon is making for.”
As for the Delawares, they ate their bison–meat and smoked their pipe with as much indifference as if they were in the heart of their own hunting–ground, being confident in the skill of their leader, from the experience of many a foray and fight. The latter, having thrown forward two or three of his men as outposts, to guard against surprise, summoned Wingenund, to whom he gave, in an earnest voice, some minute directions, which did not reach the ears of others in the party; and the youth, as soon as he had received them, went up to Reginald, and said to him, “Will Netis lend Nekimi to Wingenund? He will be back before the moon is up,—and if he meets the Upsarokas, he must leave them behind.”
Reginald testified his willing assent to the youth’s request, and in a few minutes Nekimi was bounding over the prairie beneath his light burthen with a speed that soon brought him to a point whence he could command a view of the two heights, upon and between which the Crows were encamped.
The sand–hills in that region project in many places from the base of the Great Mountains into the open plain, like the promontories of an indented shore into the ocean, and it was by skirting one of these until he reached its extremity that he contrived to watch the encampment of the Crows without being observed by their scouts; for several hours he stood motionless by the side of Nekimi, under the shade of a pine, with that untiring patience which renders an Indian unequalled as a spy, when he saw four horsemen emerge from the camp, and gallop off towards the base of the mountains. As soon as they entered a valley where they were screened from his view, he put Nekimi to his speed, and by a shorter cut reached the head of the same valley before them; then leaving his horse behind a thicket of junipers, he crept forward, and hiding himself in some brushwood, waited for the passing of the horsemen.