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After a moment Red Arrow exclaimed: "My medicine says go with White Otter, and do what he says. It is good." "Come, then; we will take the war-ponies from beside the blue-and-yellow tepee. They belong to a chief and are good. We will strike an Absaroke if we can. Come with me." White Otter then glided forward in the darkness toward the camp.
This was the first time in years that the warrior had had a chance to wear his war-bonnet in battle. Rapidly adjusting his equipment as he sat his plunging horse, he brought his quirt down with a full arm swing and was away. By his side many sturdy war-ponies spanked along. At the ford of the river they made the water foam, and the far side muddy, with their dripping.
He cannot see what we know so well to-day: that only the northern limits of the great villages are open to his gaze; that the sheltering bluffs hide from him all the crowded lodges of the bands farthest to the south, and that while squaws and children are indeed being hurried off to the west, hundreds, thousands of exultant young warriors are galloping in from the western prairies, herding the war-ponies before them.
Not even Seet-se-be-a knew why the Bat was not sitting back against his willow-mat in the gray morning when she got up to make the kettle boil, but she had a woman's instinct which made her raise the flap to look out. The two war-ponies were gone. Glancing again behind the robes of his bed she saw, too, that the oiled rifle was missing.
They found the clip-maned war-ponies and cut the ropes. The Indian dogs made no trouble, as they walked their booty very slowly and very quietly away, as though they wandered in search of food. When well out of hearing, they sprang on their backs and circled back to the creek-bottom. Nearing this, they heard the occasional inharmonious notes of an Indian flute among the trees.
Down in the very ravine in which the bodies were buried, full four hundred yards from the scene of their desperate stand, the soft, sandy soil was pawed and trodden by waiting war-ponies, whose riders, lying flat on their stomachs along the bank above, had kept their watch upon the besieged, firing whenever head or hand appeared above their carcass fortification.
As they rode on, White Otter spoke: "I shall wear the eagle-feather standing up in my scalp-lock, for I struck him with a hand-weapon standing up. It shall wave above the bat and make him strong. The little brown bat will be very brave in the time to come. We took the clipped and painted war-ponies from under the chiefs nose, Red Arrow."
"Indians don't like to fight in the snow, especially when their families are with them and their war-ponies are feeding on cottonwood bark. Besides, their head chief will be sharp enough to see that he'll have to treat and not fight if he wants to save the necks of his favourites. Then, as far as the safety and comfort of my men are concerned, everything is being done.
This constantly talked to him in his brown study, saying: "Look look at the war-ponies the big dogs are fat and kick at each other as they stand on the lariats. They are saying you are too old for them; they are saying that the Fire Eater will ride on a travvis. They think that the red hands will no more be painted on their flanks."
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