Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/261

 mass of trappers struck the tips of the double lines, their rifles and pistols reechoing viciously.

Some of the squaws managed to bring up a few horses at the risk of their lives, and warriors mounted these and rode down to slow up the advance of the whites. One old hag with her gray hair streaming in the morning breeze remembered the prisoner, and with eldritch shrieks darted around the medicine-lodge with a knife in her skinny hand and dropped on her knees and raised the blade. She stared at the empty ground stupidly, then cried out with such malignant intensity as to make Lander's blood curdle.

Other women rushed up. Lander passed to the other side of the tent, thinking to escape, but found the Blackfeet in retreating had cut him off. The big lodge occupied the middle of the battle-ground and was now entirely surrounded. Turning to the packs and working with desperate vigor, Lander rearranged them in a high breastwork around him. As he finished the barricade the lodge coverings began to vanish as mounted horsemen paused long enough to salvage the sacred hides.

An Indian with a swollen nose glimpsed Lander's head disappearing behind the packs, and