st shot had killed the nearest Indian,
when another volley from the Blackfeet exacted deadly vengeance for the
warrior Vanderburgh had slain years before.

Panic-stricken riders carried the news to the waiting brigade. Refuge
was taken in the woods, where sentinels kept guard all night. The next
morning, with scouts to the fore, the brigade retreated cautiously
towards some of their caches. A second night was passed behind barriers
of logs; and the third day a band of friendly Indians was encountered,
who were sent to bury the dead.

The Frenchman they buried. Vanderburgh had been torn to pieces and his
bones thrown into the river.

So ended the merry game of spying on the mountaineers.

As for the mountaineers, they fell into the meshes of their own snares;
for on the way to Snake River, when parleying with friendly Blackfeet,
the accidental discharge of Bridger's gun brought a volley of arrows
from the Indians, one hooked barb lodging in Bridger's shoulder-blade,
which he carried around for three years as a memento of his own
trickery.

Fitzpatrick fared as badly. Instigated by the American Fur Company, the
Crows attacked him within a year, stealing everything that he
possessed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 32: This is no exaggeration. Smith's trappers, who were
scattered from Fort Vancouver to Monterey, the Astorians, Major Andrew
Henry's party--had all been such wide-ranging foresters.]

[Footnote 33: Fitzpatrick was late in reaching the hunting-ground this
year, owing to a disaster with Smith on the way back from Santa Fe.]

[Footnote 34: By law the Hudson's Bay had no right in this region from
the passing of the act forbidding British traders in the United States.
But, then, no man had a right to steal half a million of another's furs,
which was the record of the Rocky Mountain men.]

PART II

CHAPTER IX

THE TAKING OF THE BEAVER

All summer long he had hung about the fur company trading-posts waiting
for the signs.

And now the signs had come.

Foliage crimson to the touch of night-frosts. Crisp autumn days, spicy
with the smell of nuts and dead leaves. Birds flying away southward,
leaving the woods silent as the snow-padded surface of a frozen pond.
Hoar-frost heavier every morning; and thin ice edged round stagnant
pools like layers of mica.

Then he knew it was time to go. And through the Northern forests moved a
new presence--the trapper.

Of the tawdry, flash clothing in which