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Show 190 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP · a noise that sounded very much like a war-hoop. I stopped my horse to li~ten. Those near me said it was a signal from one of the parties, who had discovered buffalo, and we proceeded on our journey. Soon, however, I heard the yell again, and I became satisfied there was something more than buffalo astir. I rode to a small eminence close by, and descried a party of our hunters at a distance making signals for others to succor them. I turned back to my wives, and dispatched two of them to the village for my war instruments, and then galloped on to ascertain the cause of the alarm. Not more than fifty of our warriors were then before me. I then learned that they had before them a party of one hundred and sixty Black Foot wardors, who had thrown themselves into an apparently impregnable fortress. It was a stronghold manifestly thrown up in some of Nature's grand convulsions, it would seem, for the very purpose to which it was now applied. It was a huge mass of granite, forming a natural wall in front of a graduated height, varying from twenty-five feet to six feet, the lowest part; it was solid, and nearly perpendicular all round. There was in our camp a young Kentuckian named Robert Mildrum, naturally a brave fellow, though he seldom went out in the war parties; but when the village was assaulted, he always fought like a tiger. He was a good trapper and a skillful blacksmith, and had been out in the employ of the_ American Fur Company. I met him while we were surveying the enemy's stronghold. I said to him, " Mil drum, if the adage is true, there is policy in war. These Indians make no question of our bravery; had we not better resign to them the |