"He lies. It is a cloak," muttered the impatient volunteers.
The camp was full of painted warriors, apparently just making their toilet for battle.
Still the old man reiterated, "We are Pio-pio-moxmox tilicum [people]."
The volunteers had their fingers on their triggers.
"Don't shoot," commanded the colonel. "Where are the murderers? "
"Fled to the land of Red Wolf," pantomimed the Indian.
"Fleeing, fleeing, fleeing," muttered the disappointed colonel. "Who can catch an Indian in his native hills?"
"This is their stock take it," said the old man, waving his hand around toward the cattle Tiloukaikt's cattle.
The hills were covered with herds. Riding up the precipitous highlands, the little army looked down on the winding Snake. It was full of horses and cattle swimming over by thousands and ascending the opposite bank.
"Collect the stock," commanded the colonel. Dark faces peeped and whispered in the shadow of the camp.
The volunteers set out to drive five hundred head before them to Fort Walla Walla.
A flash, a whoop; the land was alive with Indians in all the fury of savage warfare. The painted camp was out, the Palouses sprang from the very earth, the herds were lost in the fierce-running battle of the Tucanon.
For thirty hours the firing never ceased. At last the struggling, fighting, fleeing remnants of the almost entrapped Americans escaped beyond the Touchet. After the hand-to-hand struggle at the ford the con
