“Whatever you think best, partner,” Harley said as casually as he could manage, still trying to disguise his eagerness to return to the Crow camp. They worked the rest of that day, smoking the largest portion of the fresh kill to preserve it, while keeping a generous amount of it to eat on the way back to the village.

* * *

On the second day of travel about a mile short of the South Fork of the Powder River, Cole pulled his horse up short when he discovered a thin column of smoke rising on the far side of a treeless ridge up ahead. He waited for Harley to pull up beside him on the low rise before commenting. “If I had to guess, I’d say that oughta be comin’ from beside the river.”

“I expect you’re right,” Harley agreed. They both studied the smoke that etched a thin dirty yellow line on the cloudy gray sky. “About right for a campfire, providing there’s a sizable party campin’ there,” he added.

Cole was thinking the same as Harley. They had seen signs of a hunting party in the foothills, and on one occasion, had gotten close enough to identify it as Sioux. They could play it safe and swing around far enough to strike the river south of the camp and avoid it altogether. With no wish to encounter the Sioux hunters, that would be the wisest choice to make. Cole could not ignore the natural urge to take a look, however, in case it was not the hunting party’s camp. Some innocent travelers might be under attack by Sioux warriors, although if that was the case, he and Harley were close enough to hear any shooting, and there was no sound of that. Also, if that was the case, it probably meant they were too late to help. It was not likely to be settlers traveling this time of year in that country, anyway—maybe a cavalry patrol that found itself outnumbered by the hostiles.

Still, Cole decided it couldn’t hurt to find out who was burning what, if only to determine any threat to Harley and himself. “We might best take a look.”

“I reckon,” Harley agreed, knowing his friend well enough to have been certain they would all along.