ir guns loaded, their bows were strung, they spread out
wider--the Blackfeet were cut off and desperately scrambling up a rocky
slope--could never make it--never, never--they had halted--what were
they doing?

Aha! From the hill slope there arose answering whoops; a few guns
cracked; and at the base and half-way up, the Crows stopped and gazed
and yelled.

The plucky Blackfeet had "forted." They were in a natural fort of rock
wall. On either side of them a rock out-crop in a ridge four feet high
extended up hill, to meet, near the top, a cross-ridge ten feet high.

While half the warriors defended with guns and bows, the other half
were busily piling up brush and boulders, to close the down-hill
opening.

Now whoop answered whoop and threat answered threat, while the Crows
rode around and around, at safe distance, seeking a weak place. Chief
Grizzly Bear held council with the sub-chiefs. Away sped an express,
to get reinforcements from the camp.

At the first charge upon the fort, three Crows had been killed, and
only one Blackfoot. That would never do: three scalps in trade for one
was a poor count, to the Crows.

They were five hundred, the Blackfeet were only ninety; but the Crows
held off, waiting their reinforcements, while from their fort the
Blackfeet yelled taunt after taunt.

"Bring up your squaws'! Let them lead you. But our scalps will never
dry in a Crow lodge!"

Here, at last, came the people from the camp: the old men, women,
boys--everybody who could mount a horse and who could find a weapon;
all shrieking madly until the whole valley rang with savage cries.

Matters looked bad for the Blackfeet. At least two thousand Crows were
surrounding them, hooting at them, shaking guns and bows and spears at
them. And the Blackfeet, secure in their fort, jeered back. They were
brave warriors.

Chief Grizzly Bear called another council. In spite of all the
gesturing and whooping and firing of guns, the Blackfeet were unharmed.
The Crows had little heart for charging in, upon the muzzles of those
deadly pieces with the fierce Blackfeet behind.

The white beaver-hunters, not wishing to anger the Blackfeet, and
curious to see what was about to happen, withdrew to a clump of cedar
trees, about two hundred yards from the fort. The white men had
decided to be spectators, in a grand-stand.

Presently Chief Grizzly Bear and his chiefs seemed to have agreed upon
a plan of battle. Had they been w