n towards the main Missouri.

The hunting-ground was still good. Weren't the mountaineers leaving a
trifle too soon? Should the Americans follow or stay? Vanderburgh
remained, moving over into the adjacent valley and spreading his traps
along the Madison. Drips followed the mountaineers.

Two weeks' chase over utterly gameless ground probably suggested to
Drips that even an animal will lead off on a false scent to draw the
enemy away from the true trail. At the Missouri he turned back up the
Jefferson.

Wheeling right about, the mountaineers at once turned back too, up the
farthest valley, the Gallatin, then on the way to the first
hunting-ground westward over a divide to the Madison, where--ill
luck!--they again met their ubiquitous rival, Vanderburgh!

How Vanderburgh laughed at these antics one may guess!

Post-haste up the Madison went the mountaineers!

Should Vanderburgh stay or follow? Certainly the enemy had been bound
back for the good hunting-grounds when they had turned to retrace their
way up the Madison. If they meant to try the Jefferson, Vanderburgh
would forestall the move. He crossed over to the valley where he had
first found them.

Sure enough there were camp-fires on the old hunting-grounds, a dead
buffalo, from which the hunters had just fled to avoid Vanderburgh! If
Vanderburgh laughed, his laugh was short; for there were signs that the
buffalo had been slain by an Indian.

The trappers refused to hunt where there were Blackfeet about.
Vanderburgh refused to believe there was any danger of Blackfeet.
Calling for volunteers, he rode forward with six men.

First they found a fire. The marauders must be very near. Then a dead
buffalo was seen, then fresh tracks, unmistakably the tracks of Indians.
But buffalo were pasturing all around undisturbed. There could not be
many Indians.

Determined to quiet the fears of his men, Vanderburgh pushed on, entered
a heavily wooded gulch, paused at the steep bank of a dried torrent,
descried nothing, and jumped his horse across the bank, followed by the
six volunteers.

Instantly the valley rang with rifle-shots. A hundred hostiles sprang
from ambush. Vanderburgh's horse went down. Three others cleared the
ditch at a bound and fled; but Vanderburgh was to his feet, aiming his
gun, and coolly calling out: "Don't run! Don't run!" Two men sent their
horses back over the ditch to his call, a third was thrown to be slain
on the spot, and Vanderburgh's fir