ambition's haughtiest fight; it was the sun-dried, wind-shriveled,
tried-out atavistic blood-thirst made holy by the approval of the Good
God they knew.

The miniature war-party got at last into the Absaroke country. Before
them lay a big camp--the tepees scattering down the creek-bottom for
miles, until lost at a turn of the timber. Eagerly they studied the cut
and sweep of the land, the way the tepees dotted it, the moving of the
pony herds and the coming and going of the hunters, but most of
all the mischievous wanderings of the restless Indian boys. Their
telescopic eyes penetrated everything. They understood the movements of
their foes, for they were of kindred nature with their own.

Their buffalo-meat was almost gone, and it was dangerous to kill game
now for fear of attracting the ravens, which would circle overhead and
be seen from the camp. These might attract an investigation from idle
and adventurous boys and betray them.

"Go now; your time has come," said the little brown bat on White Otter's
scalp-lock.

"Go now," echoed Red Arrow's charm.

When nothing was to be seen of the land but the twinkle of the fires in
the camp, they were lying in a deep washout under a bluff, which
overlooked the hostile camp. Long and silently they sat watching the
fires and the people moving about, hearing their hum and chanting as it
came to them on the still air, together with the barking of dogs, the
nickering of ponies, and the hollow pounding on a log made by old squaws
hacking with their hatchets.