Presently one of our men fell off his horse. The enemy charged forward in a
body to touch him, and our few men rushed to meet them, to keep them from
striking the fallen one, and from taking the head. And now the women began
to be frightened, and some of them ran away. My mother rushed to the lodge,
caught up my little sister, and threw her on her back, and holding me by
the hand, ran toward the river. By this time I was afraid, and I ran as
hard as I could; but my legs were short and I could not keep up, even
though my mother had a load on her back. Nevertheless, she pulled me along.
Every little while I stumbled and lost my feet; but she dragged me on, and
as she lifted me up, I caught my feet again, and ran on.

Before long I began to tire, and I remember that I wanted to stop. In after
years mother used to laugh at me about this, and say that I had asked her
to throw away my sister, and to put me on her back and carry me instead.
She used to say, too, that if she had been obliged to throw away either
child I should have been the one left behind, for as I was a boy, and would
grow up to be a warrior, and to fight the enemies of our tribe, I might
very likely be killed anyway, and it might as well be earlier as later.

When we reached the river, my mother threw herself into it. Usually it was
not more than knee-deep, but at this time the water was high from the
spring floods, and my mother had to swim, holding my sister on her back,
and at the same time supporting me, for though I could swim a little, I was
not strong enough to breast the current, and without help would have been
carried away.

After we had crossed the river and come out on the other side, we looked
back toward the village, and could see that the enemy were retreating. They
might easily have killed or driven off the few warriors of our small camp,
but not far from us there was a larger camp of our people, and when they