It was going to be a mighty pleasure to run that band of varmints into the ground. August first, they reminded one another the next day. and vanished in all directions from the post. Sam was again well-equipped but he missed the familiar feel of the gun he had lost, of the saddle, of the horse under him. He was in buckskin garments so new that the smoke-and-tanning smell of them was stronger than that of horse lather and tobacco smoke. It was Crow smell. After he had ridden a few hours the Rawhide Buttes were on his right, the North Platte on his left; and as far as he could see was only the pale light above the vast area between the Platte and the Powder and Belle Fourche. The Belle Fourche and the Powder were the heart of Crow country. Because of what Cy had told him Sam had decided to ride across the Sparrowhawk nation clear to the Yellowstone.
Cy had told him that the Crows were frantic with frustration and disgust. Even: girls were vowing to take the warpath against him. The old chief didn’t know how many of the twenty Sam had killed but a dozen warriors had been found with Sam’s mark on them. As though that were not humiliation enough, the rum—guzzling Blackfeet had let him slip out of their halter and were now saying that they had captured him only to let him go so that they could capture him a second time. It was an unspeakable shame for the proud Sparrowhawks. They had not yet with their bravest men been able to put as much as an arrowhead in Sam, yet the Blackfeet had taken him, spat in his face, slapped him with tomahawks starved and frozen him, and let him go. Cy said the Blackfeet were saying that capturing Sam had been so easy that they intended to capture him once a year as long as he was fool enough to stay in the country. They would get huge ransom, including rum, and show their ancient enemies, the Crows, that as lighters they were no better than sick old women. The Crow chief knew that there would be a vengeance wreaked by mountain men and begged for a chance to exterminate the band that had captured Sam. If denied that. the Crows would vow on their medicine bags and by all their ancestors that they would take Sam’s trail and never sleep day or night till they had brought him down.
"They flgger twenty aren’t enough?" said Sam, grimly amused. "You say about a dozen of them are still after me?"
"They kallate."
"A1l the best ones?"
Oh, hell no, Cy said; Sam had slain three of the best ones, maybe four.
"And the girls are coming after me?"
"Some of them."
"Mebbe I can capture one for a wife," Sam said.
He didn’t know how he would feel if he saw a girl trailing him. He didn’t know how much of Cy’s gossip to believe or whether to believe any of it. North of Lightning Creek in an area so forsaken that he saw no sign of any living thing he tried his new weapons; when with the rifle he was able at two hundred yards to hit an object the size of a beaver hat nine times in ten he turned to the revolver. He was not the kind of revolver shot who knocked the heads off grouse at fifty feet but he had learned during his years in the mountains that the man who saved his life in a pinch needed a cool head more than expert marksmanship. There actually had been greenhorns out from the East who at target practice could outshoot most of the mountain men but when they went out for big game and were charged by a bull buffalo or a grizzly bear their trembling hands dropped their weapons. Boom—boom! they said, when miles from danger. They had hunted tiger in India and lion in Africa (they said), but the next day they went to pieces with buck fever and shook all over when an old bull turned in the chase and looked at them with half-blind eyes.
Sam thought his weapons would do. He was not so sure of his horse.
30
THE STUD DID not fail him when a week later he had one of his narrowest escapes. He had reached the upper waters of Powder River and was in the heart of Crow land when his senses told him he was being followed. He had seen no fresh Indian tracks and no ashes of recent fires. On his way up he had rolled in sage and rubbed various plant essences over his weapons, the saddle, and the horse. He had made no fires since entering Crow country.
He looked round him and studied the physical situation. Powder River flowed north through a lovely valley, with the Bighorns on the west and the Black Hills on the east. It was prime buffalo land. Except for the growth along the river there was no heavy cover between him and the foothills, thirty or forty miles distant. He thought of hiding and waiting and trying to shoot the leader off his horse but his sixth sense told him that that would not be enough to stop them. They were desperate and they were bolder than they had been. If he were to shoot one in a party of four or five he would then have to ride at top speed while reloading; and all the while they would be firing at his horse.
At the post he had been told that his packhorse was such a well-trained beast that he could turn him loose and he would follow. He guessed he would have to do that, for in a race for his life he could not hang onto the rope of a packhorse. While thinking of his problem and wondering why he was here he kept a sharp eye on the landscape and studied the river. He thought his best chance was to plunge into the river and cross and flee to the mountains. A few moments later he was no longer allowed to sit and think; a decision was abruptly forced
on him.
A mile southwest of him an Indian rider appeared on the crest of a hill. In no time at all there were two, then three, and four; and at last there were seven. He could tell that it was a war party in full paint, well-horsed and well-armed. He supposed that they were all picked warriors. Pretending not to see them, he now followed the river path at a slow pace and studied the river bottoms. The river along here had cut deep in the earth and was fifteen or twenty feet below the top of its bank. Would his horse take a leap from that height? Would the packhorse follow? Most of his fixens were on the packhorse, as well as Kate’s rifle and food for her. The seven Indians had disappeared. Sam would have risen to an elevated spot and waited for them but there was none around him.
He now took a branch path leading toward the river, which was fifty yards from him; and leaving his horses, he went back to the main trail. When at the edge of the woods he peered out he had a good view of the country, except the river bottoms. The main buffalo trail here skirted the edge of the woods, with many paths meandering through them. He knew that seven Indians would not try to approach him on horses; some would detour and come in from the north, others would come up from the south; and somewhere they would have a lookout watching the river. He still had time to plunge in and cross, while they were scouting his position, but he had never run from a fight and he didn’t like to run from this one. There were only seven of them, he told himself, and Lost-Skelp would say they were only an hour’s work for a boy. He was thinking bravado and he knew it. He wondered a moment if the ordeal of captivity and flight had impaired his faculties, for he didn’t seem to be his usual self. Convinced that he was being stupid, he ran to the horses, led the packhorse to the edge and with one heave shoved him off. He then mounted, faced the river, dug with his heels, and with no hesitation at all the beast made the plunge to the swirling waters. The horse went under and Sam with it, except his right hand, which held his rifle high. The moment his eyes came up out of the water and he had shaken the wet off his lashes he saw something that so astounded him that he could only stare. On the high bank above him stood a naked Indian, with nothing on him but some kind of headdress, and nothing in his hands but an object that looked like a knife. If Sam was astonished by sight of the red youth he was utterly amazed by what the youth now did. He stood only an instant on the bank, tall and red and naked, when with the war cry of his people, he put the knife between his teeth and plunged in, and at once was swimming like an otter, his absurd headdress and the knife flashing above the waters. Sam’s horse was swimming toward the far bank, almost side by side with the packhorse. Sam hung his rifle from the horn, swung his right leg across the beast’s neck, and turned in the saddle to face the swimmer. The stud was a strong one but the Indian was gaining. As Sam watched the headdress coming closer he could no longer doubt the incredible fact that this brave, a mere youngster, was determined to count coup on Sam Minard.