They raced in pursuit. The one Indian was searching for his gun; the other Indians, coming in, halted, confused. Mrs. Pursley was there first--already on the ground and bending over Ranger Tom, trying to lift him to her saddle. They had no time to waste. One helped her--slung Tom across in front of a saddle; and fighting a rear action they gained the block-house without a wound. Tom Higgins was the hero, but Mrs. Pursley was the heroine. Two of his bullets were taken out, and he got well, except for a limp and considerable "botheration" from a third bullet. After the war he made a day's ride to find a doctor and have the ball extracted. "What's your fee, Doc?" "It'll be fifty dollars." "What? Not much, by golly! That's more than half a year's pension. For less I'll fetch it out, myself." He wrathfully rode home again; the ball seemed to have worked toward the surface--yes, he could see it, away in. "Old woman, hand me my razor, will you?" he bade. "And jest put your fingers on this hole and stretch it." Without a quiver he cut into his thigh, put in his two thumbs, "and," he said, "I flirted that ball out as slick as a whistle, at the cost of nary a cent!" In his later years Veteran Ranger Tom Higgins was assistant doorkeeper for the Illinois legislature. His sturdy form and the story of his fight with the three Indians when he covered the escape of Comrade Burgess made him a famous character. [1] For the story of the Prophet and Tecumseh, see "Boys' Book of Indian Warriors." CHAPTER XIII JOHN COLTER'S RACE FOR LIFE (1808) THE TRAPPER AND THE BLACKFEET In all the planning for possession of the country north and west of the Ohio River the Indians were far out-stripped by the white men. By the treaty of peace with England, in 1783, at the close of the Revolution, the United States obtained the lands west to the Mississippi River. When beginning in 1805 the Shawnee Prophet, or Open Door, tried to league the red people together, the Long Knife nation of the Thirteen Fires had extended clear to the Rocky Mountains. There was no stopping them. In the spring of 1803 President Thomas Jefferson, for the United States, had succeeded in buying the great Louisiana Territory from France. This Province of Louisiana covered from the Mississippi to the summits of the Rocky Mountains, and from Texas to Canada. The messengers sent out by Open Door traveled even to the Blackfeet Indians of present Montana; but messengers sent out by President Jefferson had traveled farther. Starting from near St. Louis, in June, 1804, they had carried the new flag and the new peace word clear up the Missouri River, through Sioux country, through Blackfoot country and through Snake country, and had explored on to the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River in present Washington. They had beaten the Open Door by several years.