I was wrong. The Indians looked at each other and at their leader.

“We are Nimiipuu,” he said. “Sometimes you whites call us Nez Perce.”

Weren’t those the Indians Lt. McCormack had told me not to worry my pretty head about? I shifted in the saddle to look for our lieutenant, well aware that the Indian – the Nez Perce – with the curious paint watched me.

Tom sat on a camp stool near Mother, who had been buttoning up her shoes. She still bent half over with the button hook in her hand, afraid to move. Her face was red from the exertion and she didn’t show to advantage. I turned away and noticed that the Indian was smiling again.

I couldn’t resist. “You must have a sense of humor,” I muttered under my breath.

I know he heard me. He took his hand off his bow and leaned forward as if to reply. We were both distracted then by a sudden move from the remaining wrangler.

The man stood to one side by the pack mules, partly hidden by the supply wagon. He raised his rifle and aimed it at the head warrior. Phil gasped and dropped his saddle, which made the leader jerk his horse around as someone shot the wrangler.

It roared like a double-barreled shotgun, nearly cutting the cowboy in half. I watched in horror as he worked his suddenly blood-filled mouth a couple of times, tried to grasp what remained of his middle, then seemed to collapse inside himself.

Mother shrieked like a banshee, which was echoed and outdone by most of the Nez Perce. Eugenie sobbed and clutched my stirrup, and Phil vomited. Trust Phil.

Methuselah shivered and I patted him. He seemed undecided what course of action to take, and I fully expected him to fall down in a heap. It would certainly have been in character.

I think he would have, if the smiling Indian near me hadn’t let out a scream that fully described and amplified the term blood-curdling. Call it a cliché if you must, but you weren’t there and I was.

Old Methuselah turned into another horse. With a scream of his own, old Ancient of Days reared back. Eugenie was thrown to the ground as I reached for her. As the horse reared farther and farther back, I clung to the saddle with both hands. Above the shooting and the din, I heard Father hollering at me to let go. If I had possessed a grain of sense at the moment, I would have. Instead, I threw my leg over the side saddle and gripped Methuselah tight with both knees as he went up and up.

When it seemed Methuselah would topple over backward if he reared any farther, he came down with a great thump that jarred my teeth and gave me a three-day headache.

We were off. The Nez Perce were already leaving the clearing at a gallop and that fool horse Methuselah joined them. I yanked back on the reins as I swore at that nag with some of Muskrat Watsons’s choicest tidbits. It did me no good. I was at a definite disadvantage. Methuselah obviously had a highly honed sense of herd attraction and he was constrained to follow the Nez Perce.