"Far Thunder! Almost-brother! Listen to me!" Pitamakan exclaimed. "Not uselessly are we members of the Pikuni; we have but to let our people know what danger we are in, and a hundred of them will come to help us as fast as their horses can carry them. They are just two days' ride from Fort Benton at their camp on Bear River. Send for them, Far Thunder, and we will do our best to survive the dangers here until they join us." "Ha! That is a life-saving plan you have in that good head of yours! I will get a letter about it ready right away; a steamboat may turn the bend down there at any moment! Carroll and Steell will lose no time in getting a messenger off to camp for us!" "One more thing," Abbott interposed as my uncle rose to leave us. "If those cut-throats are going to sneak back into the grove again to-night and attack us, we have to know it. I propose that these two boys and I stand watch down there until morning." My uncle agreed to that, and we went in to eat supper. At early dusk Abbott, Pitamakan, and I went down into the grove, accompanied by all the men and women in a compact group. Then all the others turned back to camp. If the enemy were watching us from the breaks, they could not possibly count those who went to and from the grove, and so learn that three of us were remaining in it. More than once during the night our hearts went thumpety-thump at the approach of dim and shadowy objects, but the objects always proved to be elk or deer. Pitamakan watched the river trail, I the breaks from the middle edge of the grove; Abbott had his stand at the upper end. Along toward morning I got a real scare when an animal that I thought was a stray buffalo proved to be a big grizzly coming straight toward me. I did not know what to do. If I ran, he would probably chase me; if I fired at him, I might only wound him--it was too dark to shoot accurately. I looked about for a tree small enough to climb, saw one, and was on the point of running to it, when the bear turned off sharply and I heard him slosh through the river. We maintained our watch until my uncle came down with the men in the morning and stationed some of them to take our places. We thus had only six men at work; at that rate we should be all summer and winter building the fort! As we three were starting toward camp, my uncle told us that Tsistsaki was to stand watch there over the picketed horses and that we were to sleep as long as we could.