ss. The
chief stepped forward, and with signals that were a command beckoned the
hunters ashore.

As is nearly always the case, the rash man was the one to lose his head,
the cautious man the one to keep his presence of mind. Potts was for an
attempt at flight, when every bow on both sides of the river would have
let fly a shot. Colter was for accepting the situation, trusting to his
own wit for subsequent escape.

Colter, who was acting as steersman, sent the canoe ashore. Bottom had
not grated before a savage snatched Potts's rifle from his hands.
Springing ashore, Colter forcibly wrested the weapon back and coolly
handed it to Potts.

But Potts had lost all the rash courage of a moment before, and with one
push sent the canoe into mid-stream. Colter shouted at him to come
back--come back! Indians have more effective arguments. A bow-string
twanged, and Potts screamed out, "Colter, I am wounded!"

Again Colter urged him to land. The wound turned Pott's momentary fright
to a paroxysm of rage. Aiming his rifle, he shot his Indian assailant
dead. If it was torture that he feared, that act assured him at least a
quick death; for, in Colter's language, man and boat were
instantaneously "made a riddle of."

No man admires courage more than the Indian; and the Blackfeet
recognised in their captive one who had been ready to defend his comrade
against them all, and who had led the Crows to victory against their own
band.

The prisoner surrendered his weapons. He was stripped naked, but neither
showed sign of fear nor made a move to escape. Evidently the Blackfeet
could have rare sport with this game white man. His life in the Indian
country had taught him a few words of the Blackfoot language. He heard
them conferring as to how he should be tortured to atone for all that
the Blackfeet had suffered at white men's hands. One warrior suggested
that the hunter be set up as a target and shot at. Would he then be so
brave?

But the chief shook his head. That was not game enough sport for
Blackfeet warriors. That would be letting a man die passively. And how
this man could fight if he had an opportunity! How he could resist
torture if he had any chance of escaping the torture!

But Colter stood impassive and listened. Doubtless he regretted having
left the well-defended brigades of the fur companies to hunt alone in
the wilderness. But the fascination of the wild life is as a gambler's
vice--the more a man has, the more he