n their lodges and naked urchins came to the entrance to hoot
and pelt mud. Somehow, I got into sitting posture, with my head bowed
forward on my arms, so I could use the knife without being seen. At
that, the impertinent brats became bolder and swarming into the tent
began poking sticks. I held my arm closer to my side, and felt the hard
steel's pressure with a pleasure not to be marred by that tantalizing
horde. There seemed to be a gathering hubbub outside. Indians, squaws
and children were rushing in the direction of the trail to the Mandanes.
The children in my tent forgot me and dashed out with the rest. I could
not doubt the cause of the clamor. This was the morning of the warriors'
return; and getting the knife in my teeth, I began filing furiously at
the ropes about my wrists. Man is not a rodent; but under stress of
necessity and with instruments of his own designing, he can do something
to remedy his human helplessness. To the din of clamoring voices outside
were added the shouts of approaching warriors, the galloping of a
multitude of horses and the whining yells of countless dogs.

While all the Sioux were on the outskirts of the encampment, I might yet
escape unobserved, but the returning braves were very near. Putting all
my strength in my wrists, I burst the half-cut bonds; and the rest was
easy. A slash of the knife and my feet were free and I had rolled down
the cliff and was running with breathless haste over fallen logs, under
leafy coverts, across noisy creeks, through the wooded valley to the
beaver dam. How long, or how far, I ran in this desperate, heedless
fashion, I do not know. The branches, that reached out like the bands of
pursuers, caught and ripped my clothing to shreds. I had been bootless,
when I started; but my feet were now bare and bleeding. A gleam of
water flashed through the green foliage. This must be the river, with
the beaver-dam, and to my eager eyes, the stream already appeared muddy
and sluggish as if obstructed. My heart was beating with a sensation of
painful, bursting blows. There was a roaring in my ears, and at every
step I took, the landscape swam black before me and the trees racing
into the back ground staggered on each side like drunken men. Then I
knew that I had reached the limit of my strength and with the domed
mud-tops of the beaver-dam in sight half a mile to the fore, I sank down
to rest. The river was marshy, weed-grown and brown; but I gulped down a
drink an