As we rode on we kept looking for the trail of dust raised by thousands of dragging, sharp-pointed lodge poles and travois and horses' hoofs, that would mark the advance of the Pikuni. We were not long in reaching Crooked Creek, and there at the rim of the valley we parted, Pitamakan to go due west toward the buttes of It-Crushed-Them Creek, I to follow up the stream. At the head of it, close to the foot of the mountains, he said, I should find the deep, well-worn trail of the Pikuni, which ran straight east past the foot of Black Butte to the Musselshell. If I should fail to meet the Pikuni along Crooked Creek I was to go west along the trail until I found them or the place where they had turned northeast in the direction of the buttes toward which he was heading. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I struck the big east-and-west trail at the head of the creek, not more than a mile from the foot of the Moccasin Mountains. My horse went on more easily in one of the broad, smooth tracks, and I was more expectant. The Pikuni could not be far from me now, I thought. Toward sundown I topped a long, wide, sloping ridge and looked back along the way I had come--more than forty miles. My horse was showing the strain of the long, hot ride. My throat was burning hot from want of water; my lips were cracking. A mile or two ahead were low, pine-capped hills, and between two of them I saw a patch of the bright green foliage of cottonwoods, a sure sign of water. It was growing dusk when I arrived at the place. I slid from my horse and held his rope as he stepped into the narrow stream. He all but fought me when I pulled him away from it and picketed him near by. Then I drank and had a hard fight with myself to stop long before I had had enough. From the description of the country that Pitamakan had given me I knew that I was at the head of the east fork of It-Crushed-Them Creek. I did not know how far it was to the other fork, but, near or far, it was impossible for me to go on until my horse had had a good rest, with plenty of grass and water. In the gathering night I found a good grazing-place a little way below the crossing, picketed him upon it and sat down beside the small clump of buck-brush round which I had fastened the end of his rope. An hour or so later I took him again to water and that time I drank all that I wanted. Then back at the grazing-place I ate the meat and hard bread that Tsistsaki had tied to my saddle while my runner greedily cropped the short, rich grass. Long and hard though my ride had been, I was too worried to sleep. As plain as if it were right in front of me, I could see our little camp at the mouth of the Musselshell and its weary watchers staring out at the river-bank, expecting every moment that the enemy would swarm up and attack them.