Maybe Mick and Jim hadn’t made a study of footprints. Maybe they didn’t know that the Crows were more nomadic than any other tribe. It was not unusual for these skulking thieves to be seen a thousand miles from their central village, for with their faster horses they could easily outrun their pursuers. Most of the red people occupied settlements that were more or less fixed, in the center of which might be a big lodge of buffalo skins painted red and tattooed with the secret and magic totems of the tribe. Not far from this central station there might be a scalp pole, from which the scalps, some dried and shrunken, some still wet and bloody, flapped in the winds. The scalp pole was the visible measure of a nation’s heroism. Near it was another pole from which hung the medicine bags with their strange and potent contents. Sam, like most of the mountain men, had made a study of totems, because from the nature of the totem could be inferred the character of the people—the eagle, wolf, bear, fox, serpent, wolverine, hawk—though Sam had concluded that the choice of totem was largely determined by the kind of country the tribe occupied. The skins of totems were often to be seen stuffed and set up in conspicuous places for worship. All the tribes Sam had visited seemed to be, in the way of small children, fond of strong bright colors, particularly red, yellow, vermilion, and blue. Sometimes for black as a medicine color they used the scraped-off powder of charred wood, mixed with gunpowder, if they had it. Whitemen had laughed themselves into exhaustion when told the story of the brave who smeared his entire body with gunpowder and moved close to a fire and exploded. This was the same reckless warrior who had eaten buffalo tongue at a time when it was taboo to him, and had so paralyzed the whole village with terror that to save his people and himself he had thrust and pulled his tongue out so far that the roots of it were almost in the front of his mouth. At the same time he had bellowed with such rage and pawed the earth into such dust clouds, as he snorted and heaved, that he had cast off the malevolent spell and returned his people to safety and calm.

Few things had more astonished Sam and the other trappers, or brought from them more vigorous expressions of contempt, than the redman’s fanatical devotion to a mysterious and intricate system of ceremonial and magic. The Indian’s world was so overrun by evil spirits and wicked powers that there were times when he was immobilized: he could not shoot a rabbit or make a fire or put on his war paint without first engaging in his mystical and propitiating grunts and gestures. There was his pipe, which he passed in solemn supplication to all the directions and to every conceivable thing, including sun, moon, winds, and sky. He had many symbols attached to his lodges, utensils, and war tools. No hunting party, no war party, no journey could be undertaken, no lodge could be built or buffalo robe made, and no planting could be strewn in its furrows or harvest gathered, without first going through his interminable childish rituals. This gave to enemies an advantage they were quick to seize; now and then a band of warriors was attacked when by magic and conjuration and thaumaturgy it was simply helpless and useless and not able to fight.

Sam was thinking that now and then he might catch a few of them without their medicine bags, and find it as easy to knock them over as to knock over fool hens. His grief was so hot and his hatred so black that he did not care if when he fell on them they were not prepared to fight; he intended to shoot them and knife them and knock their heads off, as undisturbed by their cries as a wolf seizing a rabbit. Looking round him at the miracle of spring, listening to the arias of bluebird and meadow lark, gathering early flowers to press into the blanket, and thinking, over and over, of the joy with which he had looked forward to riding north with his wife, he actually turned pale with suppressed furies, and promised himself that a dozen scalps would dangle from his saddlebags within a month. To show his contempt the might even collect, and display, an assortment of their medicine bundles, such as the stuffed heads of wolves, or the skin, claws, teeth, and feathers of various birds and beasts, whose virtues the absurd creatures believed they had assimilated. Still, Windy Bill had said that they were no  more ridiculous than those white people who partook of different sacraments.

Above all, Sam wanted them to know who was about to strike, when they heard his cry; who had killed a warrior, when they found the flesh and bones. So he decided, while riding  along, to leave his mark on every dead brave—a mark that the whole Crow nation would recognize as his mark. The whole nation would also know his battle cry. He wished he had a trumpet. If only he could drive the whole damned Crow people into mourning or lunacy! That would be a sight to ennoble the heart, equal to Napoleon and his ragged army hurled back from Moscow. A Crow when mourning and lamenting a slain or mortally wounded warrior hacked at nearly all parts of his body, and sometimes cut off one or more fingers: what gouts of blood he would make flow! In what rivers of blood he would avenge his wife and child! How the men, women, and children, the whole nation, all of them, would set up a wild dismal howling and quavering and shrieking that would curdle the blood of a loon or a wolf. If ten braves came forth to take him, as a war party had once gone forth to take a Blackfeet chief, with none and nothing ever returning except the moccasin-carrying pack-dogs, what an infernal sky-filling bedlam of rage and frustration the Crow nation would be! It overjoyed him to think of it. It would be like the time Jim Clyman told of—of a camp gone wild and stark mad with woe after looking on a scene of slaughter: how the women and children had torn at their flesh and screamed, with all around them the frenzied howling of dogs, the insane neighing and braying of horses and mules, the mournful hooting of owls, and over it all the horrible sickening stench of grief and sweat and dung and warm blood and mingled coyote and dog odors.

The Crow war whoop, "Hooo-ki-hi/" that had raised the hair on Sioux, Blackfeet, and Cheyenne and made the gooseflesh swarm down their backs would be stilled in a lot of throats. A lot of braves now strutting in their gaudy war paints and battle dress would count coup no more. Coup, which in this land was pronounced coo, in the French way, was the highest heroism an Indian warrior could aspire to: to count coup he had to strike an enemy with his quirt or bow or knife or coup stick before he attacked him; or he had to take from the enemy all his weapons; or he had to slip up afoot and steal the horse of an enemy tied to his own lodge. There were a lot of ways to touch coup, all of them devised to show more than ordinary courage. After a warrior had counted coup he had the right to wear an eagle feather in his hair, and another thereafter for each coup he made. If he were so clumsy or frightened while attempting a coup that he received a wound he had to wear a feather painted red. Sam had seen a Crow chief with seven feathers in his hair. Against one of such valor he doubted that he would ever have a chance; to bring him down the nation would send only the young warriots who were the bravest, fleetest, and deadliest, or the most adept in stratagems, such as tracking and ambush.

Let them come, the cowardly unspeakable murderers of a lone woman and her unborn child! Let the chief send those who were battle-hardened; who had waged war against the Lacota or Sioux, the Striped-Feather-Arrows or Cheyennes, the Tattooed-Breasts or Arapahoes. Let them all come! Let even the Pine-Leafs come! A legend said that Pine-Leaf when only twelve years old lost a brother in battle, and thereupon vowed that she would never marry or do a woman’s work until she had killed a hundred of the enemy. Sam did not know if she had killed any or what had become of her; or indeed if such a girl had lived. And there was the squaw named She-could-be-dead, whose man had been slain; she then became as crazy as two wildcats with their tails tied together: mounting a pony and armed only with bow and arrows and knife, she had gone forth alone against the Cheyennes. Nobody seemed to know what became of her, but in legends there she was, riding—riding—riding forever, at great speed across the plains and ravines, her bronzed face smeared with red ochre, her arrows, tipped with lightning, dashing into the foe’s breast. Sam had heard at least a dozen stories of the furious intrepid assaults of red women whose men had been killed. Now and then, a tale said, one of them returned from the warpath, her face as black as night as a sign that she had triumphed over the enemy. His weeks with Lotus had acquainted him with the spirit and daring of the Indian girl.