[Illustration: 10 He rushed the pony right to the barricade]
They took the dead and wounded and deposited them near where the led-horses were kept. The injured men were attended to, and the dead buried carefully in robes.
“One warrior lies dead near the feet of Yellow-Eyes; if they get his scalp he will go to the hungry islands in the middle of the Big Water and we shall never see him in the spirit-land. We must not let them touch his hair, brothers. If the Yellow-Eyes come from behind their packs we must charge--we must eat the flying fire or all be rubbed out. If they do not come out the ravens will not have to wait long for the feast.” Thus said the Bat. He had kept his word about going farther toward the enemy than any other and was now moved to resort to strategy. He did not martial his warriors in a line but deployed them about the citadel of the plains. That place, robbed of its horrors, gave no sign of life except a burned and injured pony which half raised itself and slowly moved its head from side to side in its agony. But behind it there was promise of deadly rifles and the bursting fire.
The warriors stood like vultures on the plains, by twos and threes, smoking and feeding their ponies from their lariats. They spoke of the chief no longer as the Bat, but called him “Fire Eater,” or “The man who eats the flying fire.” The ravens hovered about the place and wise gray wolves sat haunched in a still larger ring without. Slowly the sun moved across the heavens. The scene was quiet and pitiful.
Night came on, but nothing happened. Before the moon rose out of the darkness a rifle flashed behind the bales, when again the quiet became intensified by the explosion. The wolves sang their lullaby of death, but on the prairie that was as the ceaseless, peaceful surging of the waves on the ocean sand.
When the warriors returned in small parties to their camp for refreshment they saw the dead body of Owl Bear--he who had fallen outside the barricade of the Yellow-Eyes. The “Fire Eater” had brought it in during the night--having approached and carried it away--drawing the fire of the rifle but saving the hair and shadow-self of his brother.
For seven days the Chis-chis-chash stood about the doomed place. Twice they had approached it and had lost another warrior, shot by the fatal rifle of the beaver-men. Then they had drawn off and given up in the face of the deadly shooting--concluding to let nature work for the victory.