Before sunset we came upon the tracks of buffalo, though the animals themselves were nowhere to be seen.
“We’ll soon find them,” observed the Indian; but though we went on some distance, neither buffalo nor hunters could we discover, and we were glad, just as night fell, to take shelter under the lee of a thick clump of poplars and spruce pine. To cut sufficient wood for our fire and clear away the snow was the work of a few minutes, and, with our pot boiling, we were soon sitting round a cheerful blaze discussing our supper. We continued sitting round the fire, wrapped in our buffalo-robes, with our feet close to the embers, every now and then throwing on a stick, while we talked and Red Squirrel smoked his pipe.
I proposed that two of us should lie down and go to sleep, while the third kept watch, when Red Squirrel, getting up, said he would take a look out.
Climbing up the bank, he went to the top of a knoll a short distance off. We could see his figure against the sky. In a short time he came back.
“See fire out there,” he said, pointing to the southward. “May be friends, may be enemies, may be Blackfeet. If Blackfeet, sooner we get ’way better.”
“But how are we to find out whether they are friends or foes?” I asked.
“Red Squirrel go and see,” he answered. “You stay here;” and taking up his gun, he quickly disappeared in the darkness, leaving us seated at our camp fire.