The fact was that the Indians who had captured the horses belonging to Pierre and his party were a small band of robbers who had travelled, as was afterwards learned, a considerable distance from the south, stealing horses from various tribes as they went along.

As we have seen, in an evil hour they fell in with Pierre's party and carried off their steeds, which they drove to a pass leading from one valley to the other.

Here they united them with the main band of their ill-gotten gains, and while the greater number of the robbers descended farther into the plains in search of more booty, four of them were sent into the mountains with the horses already procured.

These four, utterly ignorant of the presence of white men in the valley, drove their charge, as we have seen, almost into the camp.
Cameron immediately organized a party to go out in search of Pierre and his companions, about whose fate he became intensely anxious, and in the course of half-an-hour as many men as he could spare with safety were despatched in the direction of the Blue Mountains..