Abbott said he thought we should do that, but my uncle decided against it. If we did not night-herd the horses, he said, they could not work. He thought that the Pikuni would arrive in time to fight the cut-throats. "I think you are making a mistake, Wesley; you had better let them go for help; we'll probably be needing it sooner than you think," Abbott told him. If my uncle had a fault, it was that he relied too much upon his own judgment. In reply to Abbott he merely said: "No, we'll take a chance on another day of good, hard work. Then if the Pikuni don't show up, the boys can go look for them." Pitamakan and I had not much enthusiasm for the afternoon work, and when, about two o'clock, the old Mandans came to us and told us that they were going to scatter out upon discovery we so longed to go with them that we fairly hated our log-laying. Tsistsaki stood by, watching us with pitying eyes, but my uncle, never noticing our dissatisfaction, whistled as he skillfully swung his axe. "Thomas, boy," he said, "this log-laying reminds me of a church-raising that I attended long ago, 'way back in the States. It was a little log meeting-house that they were putting up, and your father and I lent a hand with the chinking. Your grandfather was the preacher of that sparse congregation, and a mighty man with the axe as well as with the Word." "How did you happen to leave the States?" I asked. "Your father and I were different," he answered. "Somehow, the farm life there did not appeal to us. We made a break for the West. Your father, poor fellow, never got beyond St. Louis. If he had only come on with me! How he would have enjoyed this life!" "You know well why he didn't come," I said. "Of course. It was your mother, dear soul! He promised her that he would never engage in the Far West trade, and he was a man of his word." During the afternoon we brought the walls of the building up to a height of five logs,--about the height of my shoulder,--and as we knocked off work my uncle said, "Two more rounds of logs, well chinked, and we'll have a pretty respectable defense against the enemy." Returning to the barricade, we found that three of the Mandans had come back, unnoticed by us. They reported that they had been some distance up the Musselshell Valley and had seen no signs of enemies. Later, while we were eating supper, old Lame Wolf and his companion came in, and the moment they passed through the doorway I knew from the expression of their faces that they had something important to tell. They hurriedly took seats upon my couch, and Lame Wolf signed to my uncle: "Far Thunder, chief, enemies are here! We climbed to the top of the point between the two valleys, the point there across from the grove, and upon the very top of it found where enemies have been lying, looking down and watching us!" "Probably a small war party, too small to attack us and gone upon their way," my uncle answered.