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"I have heard the old men say, that there were bands, who hid themselves in the woods under the rising sun, because they dared not come upon the open prairies to fight with men." "Do not your traditions tell you of the greatest, the bravest, and the wisest nation of Red-skins that the Wahcondah has ever breathed upon?"
"The dog of a Saganaw asks for mercy," said a voice from within the bomb-proof, and speaking in the dialect of the Ottawas. "His pale flag bespeaks the quailing of his heart, and his attitude denotes the timidity of the hind. His warriors are like himself, and even now upon their knees they call upon their Manitou to preserve them from the vengeance of the red-skins.
Ef the worst comes to the worst, I tell yer I would rather go back and take our chance of following the Big Wind River down, and fighting the red-skins, than I would of crossing over these dog-goned hills." The other three men were of the same opinion. "Well, what do you say, chief?" Harry asked the Indian.
Fremont's men, being only armed with bows and arrows, and they beat a hasty retreat, closely followed for a distance by the soldiers, who, however, did not get any Indians on the run. When the men returned to camp, and, as usual, after a scrap with Indians, were telling how many red-skins they had killed, Uncle Kit turned to me and asked how many I had got. I said, "one."
"Many horses in valley make tracks as plain as noonday. Gold valley bad place for fight." "That is so," Jerry agreed. "We should not have a show there. Even if we made a log-house, and it would be a dog-goned trouble to carry up the logs, we might be shut up in it, and the red-skins would only have to lie round and shoot us down if we came out. I reckon we had best stay here after all, Harry.
It was his first lesson in the necessity for caution; and as darkness set in he looked round several times, half expecting to see some crouching red-skins. The careless demeanour of his companions, however, reassured him, for he felt certain that if there was any fear of a surprise, they would be watchful.
"I must now insist that you remain with us," said Major Taylor. "Now that you have no home to which to return, you must accompany us and build a new one. If the red-skins take our homes from us they are welcome to do so; but when they undertake it, I suspect they will find they are troubling a set of men that know a trick or two as well as themselves. We've all seen service among the dogs."
They were, in truth, rapidly overhauling the red-skins, who were about as much terrified as it was possible for a mortal to be, and still live. To increase their fears, the boy kept up a constant shrieking of his whistle.
His great strength and dexterity in handling the axe, and the deadly precision of his aim with the rifle, had given him a reputation among his companions, and yet they were always talking to him as if he were a boy, because he had not yet followed the Red-skins on the war-path, nor fought a grizzly bear, which deed is considered quite as honourable and more perilous.
Mad Anthony said a troop would answer, arter we had put the red-skins up out of their ambushes, or any other bushes; and so it did. I must acknowledge that I think more of the Scriptur's than ever, since Parson Amen read to me that varse."
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