"First, straight to the head of the breaks yonder, from which we can see far up and down Big River and the plains to the north of it," he answered. We passed through the grove in which the men were working, crossed the Musselshell and began the steep climb, following a game trail that was sure to keep us out of trouble in the maze of bad-land breaks ahead. Two thirds of the way up the breaks we entered the lowermost of the scrub-pine and juniper growths that concealed the heads of most of the coulees, from which great numbers of mule deer and occasionally some fine-looking elk fled at our approach. Within an hour we arrived at the summit, and there in a dense grove found a war lodge that had been put up not more than three nights before. By its size, and the signs within, we judged that it had been the one night's resting-place of a party of between fifteen and twenty men, and the pattern of the beadwork of a pair of worn-out moccasins that we found partly charred in the fireplace proved to us that they were Assiniboins. Circling the place, we found their trail in the spongy, volcanic ash of which the bad lands are mainly composed. They were going south, and I said to Pitamakan that they would doubtless come back the same way from their raid against the Crows, or whatever tribe they were heading for, and would, of course, discover our camp. "Well, what else can you expect? I should not be astonished if some enemies already have their eyes upon it," he answered. After watching for some time the valley of the Missouri and the great plains to the north of it we turned south along the heads of the breaks and traveled at a good pace for an hour or more along a rolling plain. We then turned westward into the valley of the Musselshell and saw across it the narrow and sparsely timbered valley of a small stream putting in from the Moccasin Mountains, the eastern end of which, Black Butte, seemed very near to us. I had read the journal of the Lewis and Clark expedition many times, and so recognized that small and generally dry watercourse by their description of it. The sun was near setting when we struck the small grove of timber at the junction of the two streams, and there in a dusty game trail we found the moccasined footprints of men--a war party, of course--traveling north. We could not determine how recently they had passed, but upon following the trail to the shore of the river we saw where they had sat down to remove their moccasins and leggings, and we found the tracks of their bare feet in the mud at the edge of the stream. In several of the footprints the water was still muddy; in others the mud had settled. [Illustration: WE FOUND THE TRACKS OF THEIR BARE FEET IN THE MUD] "They have crossed here since we left the head of the breaks!" Pitamakan exclaimed. "Yes!" I said. "We must get to camp with the news as fast as our horses can carry us!" CHAPTER III FAR THUNDER RIDS THE PLAINS OF A RASCAL