The War-Trail Fort _Further Adventures of Thomas Fox and Pitamakan_ BY JAMES WILLARD SCHULTZ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE VARIAN BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY PERRY MASON COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY JAMES WILLARD SCHULTZ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED [Illustration: WE SAW HIM STOOP OVER THE FALLEN MAN, THEN RISE WITH A BOW AND A SHIELD THAT HE WAVED ALOFT] Contents I. A COMPANY DISSOLVES AND A NEW VENTURE STARTS 1 II. A HOSTILE TRIBE LEAVES FOOTPRINTS 22 III. FAR THUNDER RIDS THE PLAINS OF A RASCAL 41 IV. THE STEAMBOAT REFUSES TO STOP 61 V. TWO CROWS RAISE THEIR RIGHT HANDS 79 VI. ABBOTT FIRES INTO A CLUMP OF SAGEBRUSH 99 VII. LAME WOLF PRAYS TO HIS RAVEN 119 VIII. THE MANDANS SING THEIR VICTORY SONG 139 IX. BIG LAKE CALLS A COUNCIL 158 X. THE RIVER TAKES ITS TOLL 174 Illustrations WE SAW HIM STOOP OVER THE FALLEN MAN, THEN RISE WITH A BOW AND A SHIELD THAT HE WAVED ALOFT _Frontispiece_ WE FOUND THE TRACKS OF THEIR BARE FEET IN THE MUD 40 AT LAST WE HAD ALL THE HORSES IN LEAD AND WITH FAST-BEATING HEARTS ... STARTED TOWARD THE RIVER 102 AWAY WE WENT, LEAVING BEHIND US MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED FINE HORSES 178 The War-Trail Fort CHAPTER I A COMPANY DISSOLVES AND A NEW VENTURE STARTS One of the most vivid impressions of my youth is of a certain evening in the spring of 1865. It was the evening of May 21. Just before sundown the first steamboat of the season, the Yellowstone II, arrived from St. Louis and brought the astounding news that the American Fur Company was going out of business and was selling its various trading-posts, forts and stocks of goods, good-will and all, to private individuals. To most of us in Fort Benton, factor, clerks, artisans, voyageurs, trappers and hunters, it was as if the world were coming to an end. The company--by which we meant the Chouteaus, father and sons--was the beginning and the end of our existence. We revered the very name of it; we were faithful to it and ready to die for it if need be. Now we were left to shift for ourselves. What were we to do? Boylike, I had gone aboard the boat as soon as it landed and had passed an hour in wandering about it from end to end and from hold to pilot-house. Up in the pilot-house I found Joe La Barge, the most famous and trusted of the Missouri River pilots. "Well, Master Thomas Fox," he said to me, "it is bad news that we have brought you, isn't it? What is your Uncle Wesley going to do, I wonder, now that the company is selling out?"