I believe that Pitamakan was the first to fire and I second; and then all up and down our line guns boomed and bowstrings twanged. With wild yells of, "Now, Kit-Foxes!" "Now, Crazy Dogs!" "Now, Soldiers!" we rushed out into the open timber after the fleeing enemy. I noticed several of them dead as we passed their camp-fires. If shots had been fired at us I had not heard them. We had stampeded the cut-throats by our sudden attack, and they were running in the one direction that they could go, straight for the bank of the Missouri at the upper edge of the grove. There, for several moments, they made a stand and killed one of our men and wounded three. But we kept pressing closer, and the right of our line gained the edge of the grove at the river, from which they obtained a clear view of the bank and the shore. Numbers of the enemy still under the bank came running down the shore toward the grove to join their comrades who were in the point of it. Some of them fell as our right fired into them. The river-bank was no longer a shelter for them; they had not the courage to attempt to force us back, although, had they known it, they far outnumbered us and could have broken through our line. There seemed to remain but one thing for them to do, and they did it: they broke out from the point of the grove and headed up the valley, intending no doubt to gain the shelter of the tall sagebrush, in which they might stand us off until nightfall and then in the darkness make their escape. We all halted at the edge of the timber and let them go, well knowing what was about to take place. Hurriedly we reloaded our weapons. As I rammed home a ball on top of a charge of powder poured in by guess I looked out at our barricade and saw the lodges standing in it intact. "Pitamakan, our relatives survive!" I cried. "Of course! I so signed to you! See, they are wheeling the loud-mouth out from the passageway!" But I had no time to look. Our mounted party had followed on after us pretty closely and now broke out from the timber and charged at the enemy. How we yelled when the enemy came to an abrupt stand and then turned and headed back toward the river, shedding their robes, pouches, ropes, everything they carried except their weapons! Right then was my uncle's one chance to fire into them without our being in the line of his aim, and he seized the opportunity. _Boom!_ went the old cannon, and _Bang! Bang! Bang!_ sounded the rifles of his men. Though the enemy were far from him, several of them went down. On sped the others toward the river while we fired into them. Meanwhile our riders were rapidly gaining on them, but not rapidly enough to overtake them before they went leaping down the bank and into the water with furious pawings and kickings and cries of terror and despair. Our whole force soon lined the bank and fired at them, but the treacherous, sand-laden, swirling current of the river took more toll of their number than our shots did.