IV

Why are the people crying?  Why is all this mourning?  Ah! the poor man has returned home, and told how those who went with him were killed.  He has told them the whole story.  They are getting ready for war.  Every one able to fight is going with this man back to the Snakes.  Only a few will be left to guard the camp.  The mother of that bad woman is going, too.  She has sharpened her axe, and told what she will do when she sees her daughter.  All are ready.  The best horses have been caught up and saddled, and the war party has started,—­hundreds and hundreds of warriors.  They are strung out over the prairie as far as you can see.

When they got to the Missouri River, the poor man showed them where the lodge in which they had tortured him had stood.  He took them to see the tree, where he had been bound.  The black paint was still on it.

From here, they went slowly.  Some young men were sent far ahead to scout.  The second day, they came back to the main body, and said they had found a camping place just deserted, and that there the trail forked.  The poor man then went ahead, and at the forks he found a willow twig stuck in the ground, pointing to the left hand trail.  When the others came up, he said to them:  “Take care of my horse now, and travel slowly.  I will go ahead on foot and find the camp.  It must be close.  I will go and see that old woman, and find out how things are.”

Some men did not want him to do this; they said that the old woman might tell about him, and then they could not surprise the camp.

“No,” replied the man.  “It will not be so.  That old woman is almost the same as my mother.  I know she will help us.”

He went ahead carefully, and near sunset saw the camp.  When it was dark, he crept near it and entered the old woman’s lodge.  She had placed it behind, and a little way off from, the others.  When he went in the old woman was asleep, but the fire was still burning a little.  He touched her, and she jumped up and started to scream; but he put his hand on her mouth, and when she saw who it was she laughed and kissed him.  “The Piegans have come,” he told her.  “We are going to have revenge on this camp to-night.  Is my wife here?”

“Still here,” replied the old woman.  “She is chief now.  They think her medicine very strong.”

“Tell your friends and relations,” said the Piegan, “that you have had a dream, and that they must move into the brush yonder.  Have them stay there with you, and they will not be hurt.  I am going now to get my people.”

It was very late in the night.  Most of the Snakes were in bed and asleep.  All at once the camp was surrounded with warriors, shouting the war cry and shooting, stabbing, and knocking people on the head as fast as they came out of the lodges.

That Piegan woman cried out:  “Don’t hurt me.  I am a Piegan.  Are any of my people here?”