hite men, themselves, they would have
stormed the fort at once, and carried the fight to close quarters; but
that was not Indian way.

To lose a warrior was a serious matter. Warriors were not made in a
day. And without warriors, a tribe would soon perish. "He who fights
and runs away, may live to fight another day," was the Indians' motto.
They preferred to play safe.

Now the Crows formed in line, two or three hundred abreast, and charged
as if they were intending to run right over the fort. It was a great
sight. But it did not frighten the Blackfeet.

Up the hill slope galloped the Crow warriors and boys, shooting and
yelling. The stout Blackfeet, crouched behind their barricade,
volleyed back; and long before the Crows drove their charge home, it
broke.

Soon several more Crow warriors were lying on the field. The wails of
the squaws sounded loudly. No Blackfeet had been hurt.

The Crows changed their tactics. They avoided the fort, until they had
gained the top of the hill. Then in a long single file, they tore past
that end of the fort, letting fly with bullet and arrow as they sped by.

Each warrior threw himself to the opposite side of his horse, and
hanging there with only one arm and one leg exposed to the fort, shot
under his horse's neck.

It was an endless chain of riders, shuttling past the fort, and
shooting--but that did not work.

The Blackfeet arrows and bullets caught the horses, and once in a while
a rider; and soon there were ten Crows down.

The Crows quit, to rest their horses, and to talk. Their women were
wailing still more loudly. War was hard on the women, too. For every
relative killed, they had to cut off a finger joint, besides gashing
their faces and hands with knives.

In their little fort, the Blackfeet were as boldly defiant as ever.

"Come and take us!" they gibed. "Where are the Crow men? We thought
we saw Crow men among you. Come and take us, but you will never take
us alive!"

"What will be done now?" the white men queried of a black man who had
joined them, in the clump of cedars.

He was not all black. He was half white, one quarter negro and one
quarter Cherokee. He had lived over twenty years in the Indian country
of the upper Missouri River; mainly with the Crows. Edward Rose had
been his name, when young; but now he was a wrinkled, stout old man,
called Cut-nose, and looked like a crinkly-headed Indian.

"The Crows are losing too many warri