“I went to sleep. Just at sunrise I woke up with a jump. Reub had yelled――and there was an Injun runnin’ off with my gun and his, and Reub in chase. Drouillard was up and yellin’, too――‘Let go my gun! Let go my gun!’ he bawled, and I see him wrestlin’ with another Injun, and the cap’n aimin’ at another with his pistol. But I had to have my gun, so I ran after Reub and the fust Injun. Before I got there, Reub had caught him and knifed him, and had both guns. Drouillard had his gun by this time, and all the Injuns came pourin’ out of the lodge, makin’ for the hosses, with the cap’n and his pistol followin’ the third Injun.
“We drew a bead on the fellow, but he dropped the cap’n’s gun, and the cap’n wouldn’t let us shoot. ‘Look out for those other rascals!’ he ordered. ‘They’re trying to drive off the hosses!’ So Reub and Drouillard and I ran after six who were roundin’ up the most of the hosses; and the cap’n set out after his Injun and another who were drivin’ away a bunch. He made ’em leave twelve, but they kept on, with his hoss, and that he was bound to get. He didn’t have his bullet pouch or his hat; and when they were just ’bout to disappear in a little gully he told ’em to surrender the hoss or he’d fire. With that they turned on him, and fire he did, downin’ one of ’em slick as a whistle, but the fellow had life enough to fire back an’ sent a ball through the cap’n’s ha’r.
“The cap’n had only his pistol, now, so he quit, and the other Injun made off with the hoss. Drouillard had turned back to help the cap’n, but Reub and I follered our Injuns till we got four of our own critters, and then we let the rest go. Didn’t matter, ’cause there were the twelve left by the Injuns, so we’d come out ahead in the little game. Besides, we had the lodge, four shields, two bows and quivers, and a gun. Likewise the flag we’d given, and the medal――but we left the medal on the neck of the Injun Reub had killed, so as to show what kind of people we were.
“Well, we didn’t hang ’round there long, you bet. The Injuns had said the main band was only a day and a half away, and when the cap’n had invited ’em to bring their chiefs to council he of course told ’em where our camp was――at the mouth of the Maria’s. Now we were desperate afraid the Injuns’d out-foot us and attack you-all at the river. We took four best horses, and only what meat we could carry, rode a hundred miles, with an hour and a half of rest, camped at two in the mornin’, then rode another twenty miles and struck Ordway comin’ down with the canoes. We got aboard and here we are――and the cap’n is in a powerful hurry to join Cap’n Clark below.”