With a mighty leap the stag sprang aside, whirled, and charged the
yellow pony. His bristling horns were down, his eyes shone greenly.
Around whirled the yellow pony, also, and scrambled for safety. Scar
Head, clinging and urging, gazed backward and laughed to show that
he was not afraid. Chief Pike, his pistol held high, pursued, to the
rescue.
But the elk chief changed heart. The yellow pony nimbly dodged, and he
went on. Scar Head closed in on him once more. Chief Pike was coming;
the arrow should be sped now or never.
The elk chief was spattered with froth from shoulder to haunch; his
great horns, polished at the tips but still ragged with their velvet,
lay flat, reaching to his back. Scar Head forged on farther and
farther, his bow arched from arrow notch to arrow point; he leaned,
aimed quickly, and loosed. It was a warrior’s bow, and the recoil
jarred his whole arm, but the arrow had sunk to its feathers in the
right spot, just behind the elk’s fore shoulder.
“Hi!” cheered Scar Head. He whipped another arrow from his quiver;
without slackening speed he fitted it to the bow.
The elk chief had given a tremendous bound; for a moment it seemed as
though he would get away yet. On thudded the yellow pony, in the rear
at the other side on thudded Chief Pike, ready to use his pistol.
Before, the Pawnees were yelling. Scar Head feared that he was going to
lose his kill to them, or to Chief Pike. That would never do. He kicked
his pony fiercely. Ha! The old chief was failing, as the arrow point
worked. The pony drew up on him. Now another arrow. Whang! It buried
itself almost out of sight behind the elk chief’s ribs.
[Illustration: WHANG! IT BURIED ITSELF ALMOST OUT OF SIGHT BEHIND THE
ELK CHIEF’S RIBS]
The elk chief bounded high, screamed, turned blindly, and with one more
bound crashed headlong to the ground. The yellow pony leaped right
across him as he struggled to rise. But he rose only half way, still
screaming with rage. Then, just as Chief Pike arrived, and Scar Head,
twisting the yellow pony, leveled a third arrow, he collapsed, gushing
blood from his mouth, and quivered and died.
Scar Head yelled the scalp halloo. He had killed the elk chief, a
mighty animal indeed.
Chief Pike, out of breath, swung his hat and cheered, too. He got off
his horse, and walked around the elk, examining it. He examined the
arrow wounds, with the reddened feather tips just showing.
“That was well done,” he said.
Scar Head sat happy, breathing fast. The scar under his white mark
throbbed and burned, as it always did when he worked hard or played
hard, but he was happy. His heart glowed at the praise by Chief Pike.
He felt like a man.
“Yours,” he panted. “I kill. You keep.”
“It is much meat,” replied Chief Pike.
Baroney and the medicine-man were chasing hither-thither. The Pawnees
were killing. Chief Pike galloped away to see. But he would see no
arrows buried deeper than these.
After the hunt was over, the Pawnees cut up their animals, and the Pike
party cut up the big elk. With Scar Head riding proudly, they four
caught the column under the second chief. The camp feasted, this night,
upon a spot where the Spanish also had camped. There was only one alarm
call, from the guard, on account of two Pawnees who came in by mistake.
They had not eaten for three days and thought that this was a camp of
their own people.
Chief Pike sent them out again, with food for a sick comrade. He was
kind as well as brave.
VI
LIEUTENANT WILKINSON SAYS GOOD-BY
“Chief Pike asks you to go back with one man and find John Sparks.”
These were the words of Baroney, to Scar Head, who was just finishing
breakfast so as to be ready to march.
A number of days had passed since the elk hunt, and several things had
happened. Although the Americans were brave, the Great Spirit seemed
to be angry with them for marching through the country. He gave them
hungry camps, without wood and water. He sent rain on them, and made
them sick. Chief Pretty Bird and another Osage man had left. They
said that they wanted better hunting――but it was plain that they were
afraid. And on the same day the Spanish trail had been blotted out by
buffalo hoofs, and the Americans had lost it.
By the talk, this was bad. According to what Scar Head understood,
Chief Pike depended upon the Spanish trail to guide him by the best
road into the south and to the Comanches. The Spanish knew this country
better than the Americans did.
The rain kept falling, and the men straggled. Yesterday afternoon the
warrior Sparks had dropped behind. He had pains in his joints, which
the medicine-man had not been able to cure: “rheumatism.” He could not
ride a horse and he could scarcely walk, using his gun as a crutch.
Last night he had not come into camp. The Spanish trail was lost,
again; and Sparks was lost, too.
Scar Head was glad to go back and look for him. He liked Sparks. He
liked all the men and was getting to know them by their names: queer
names. Each man had two――one for each other and one for the chiefs.
There was “Jake” and “Carter”; the same man. And “Jerry” and “Jackson”;
and “Tom” and “Dougherty”; and “John” and “Brown”; and “Hugh” and
“Menaugh”; and “Bill” and “Meek”; and “Joe” and “Ballenger”; and
the others. The last two were head warriors, called “sergeant.” The
medicine-man’s names were “John” and “Doctor Robinson.” The second
chief’s names were “the left’nant” and “Lieutenant Wilkinson.” Chief
Pike was “the cap’n” and “Lieutenant Pike.”
The warriors spoke only American, but they knew Indian ways. The
most of them, Baroney said, had been on a long journey before with
Lieutenant Pike, far into the north up a great river, into the country
of the Sioux.
The medicine-man, Doctor Robinson, was popular, but he was not a
chief. The men did not seem to fear him. He rode well and shot well.
Lieutenant Pike and he rode and hunted together, while the second
chief, Lieutenant Wilkinson, stayed with the men. Scar Head also had
grown not to fear the medicine-man, who frequently asked him about his
white spot and where he had come from, to the Utahs and Pawnees, and
tried to teach him American words.
Some of the American words were hard and some easy. On some days they
were harder than on other days; and again Scar Head suddenly spoke
words that he didn’t know at all――they arrived to him of themselves.
That was odd. He was getting to be an American; he felt as though he
had been an American in his heart all the time, but that his heart had
been shut up. The times when his spot throbbed and burned were the
times when he knew the fewest words.
The men had given him a new name. His Pawnee name was not good enough
for them. The new name was “Stub.” John Sparks had told him of it,
first, by saying it.
“Hello, Stub? How goes it, Stub?”
And the other men laughed and repeated:
“Here, Stub.”
“Hello, Stub!”
“You’re the boy, Stub.”
“What is ‘Stub’?” he asked, of the medicine-man, Doctor Robinson.
“It is ‘short,’ ‘cut off,’ coupé,” carefully explained the
medicine-man. “They like you. It is a good name, because you are small.”
“American?”
“Yes.”
“Sure, an’ we mane no harm, doctor, sir,” called “Tom,” whose other
name was Dougherty. “If sawed-off he is, a rale little man he is, too.”
And while Scar Head (whose other name was now “Stub,” in American
language) did not understand all those words, he knew that they were
kindly spoken. So his name pleased him.
John Brown was the man who rode with him to look for Sparks. They took
the back trail and rode for a long time. Everything was wet from the
rains. Sparks must have spent a miserable night, alone on the prairie,
without food or fire. Finally they saw him, far ahead, hobbling slowly,
trying to catch up with the march.
He grinned when they met him, and shouted cheerfully, although he made
faces.
“Mornin’ to ye, boys. ’Rah for Stub!”
“H’lo, John. No walk; ride. My pony.” And Stub sprang off.
“Can you ride, John?” asked John Brown.
“Sure, I’ll try. At this rate I dunno whether I’m goin’ or comin’.
You’ll all be to the mountains an’ back ag’in before I ever ketch up.
Hey, Stub?”
But Stub might only smile.
With many grunts and awkward movements John Sparks climbed aboard the
yellow pony. It was near noon when they brought him into the camp.
Lieutenant Pike and Doctor Robinson had been hunting for the Spanish
trail, again, but had not found it. There was talk of a large river,
the Arkansaw, somewhere southward yet. The Americans were anxious to
reach the river, which would guide them; but they had lost the trail to
it.
After eating, they made another march. When the sun was low, Lieutenant
Pike pointed to some trees a long way ahead and told Lieutenant
Wilkinson to march the men to that place. He beckoned to Stub.
“Come with me?” he asked.
Stub nodded. He and Lieutenant Pike and Doctor the medicine-man went
off by themselves, scouting up a creek. Lieutenant Pike was still
looking for the Spanish trail.
They all looked and looked, but did not cross it. The lieutenant
sighted some buffalo; he and the medicine-man gave chase, and before
Stub reached them they had killed two. That was good. They took the
tongues, and left a coat on the carcasses, to keep the wolves away;
but when the three rode hard, to get to camp before dark, there was
no camp. The Lieutenant Wilkinson men had not gone to the trees. Now
everybody was lost!
After searching about and speaking angrily, Lieutenant Pike ordered
camp. It was lucky that they had taken the buffalo tongues, because now
they might make a fire and cook the tongues.
What had become of the Lieutenant Wilkinson men seemed very queer.
Early in the morning Lieutenant Pike led up the creek, from the trees,
and did not find them. The three arrived at the spot where the two
buffalo carcasses were lying. The wolves were eating the carcasses,
in spite of the coat, but there were marrow bones left. Next, the
lieutenant led down the creek. Not even the smoke of any campfires
might be seen, and there were no pony tracks or footprints.
Stub used all his eyes, but discovered nothing. At night the lieutenant
and the doctor were much worried.
“Injuns, mebbe?” Stub asked.
Lieutenant Pike nodded gravely.
“I fear so. We will hunt more to-morrow.”
That night it rained, and in the morning was still raining, cold. But
they had had plenty to eat. This day they rode and rode, up the creek
again, in the rain.
“It is bad,” said the doctor. “A long way from home. Only four shots
left. No trail, no men, nada (nothing). Indian country. We look one
more day; then we find the river Arkansaw.”
“Go to ’Nited States?” Stub queried.
“Cannot tell. The Great Father sent us out. We are men; we hate to go
back.”
“Mebbe they there, on Arkansaw. Injuns chase ’em.”
“Maybe. But it is bad. Maybe Injuns chase us, next.”
“We fight,” declared Stub.
And the doctor laughed.
“You’re all right. We’ll do our best, eh?”
Stub had ten arrows; the lieutenant and the medicine-man each had four
loads for their guns. That was not much, in a fight.
Early in the morning they again rode, searching up the creek, with
their eyes scanning before and behind and right and left. When the sun
was halfway to noon, they saw two horsemen, coming from the south.
Indians? No! White men――soldiers!
Lieutenant Pike cried gladly, and fired his gun, in signal. His face
had been dark and stern; now it lighted up, and they all galloped for
the two men. Lieutenant Wilkinson was only three miles south, on the
Arkansaw.
“What! The Arkansaw?” Lieutenant Pike repeated.
“Yes, sir. It is right close.”
“Have you found the Spanish trail?”
“No, sir. But we found the river.”
The two soldiers guided. When they drew near where the river was,
Lieutenant Wilkinson galloped out. By the way in which he shook hands
with his chief and with the doctor, he, too, had been worried.
“Sure, we thought you were lost or scalped,” said John Sparks, to Stub,
in camp.
“No lost; you lost,” answered Stub.
“Well, depends on how you look at it,” agreed John Sparks, scratching
his red hair.
The river was a wide river, flowing between cottonwood trees. The
country was flat, and the trees had hidden the size of the river. The
men began to look for trees to make boats of. Did this mean that Chief
Pike was going to travel on by boat? Baroney explained.
“Lieutenant Wilkinson travels down river by boat. The captain takes men
and marches to the Comanches.”
“Lieutenant Wilkinson, how far?” Stub asked.
“Very far, to the American forts at the mouth of the river, and to
report to the American father.”
“Captain Pike, how far?”
Baroney shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows?”
Stub made up his mind what _he_ was going to do.
Lieutenant Pike moved the camp to the other side of the river, where
the best boat-trees grew. The river was rising fast, from the rains,
and everybody had to swim and arrived very wet. Rain fell almost all
the time, but it was a good camp, with plenty of wood and meat.
While the men under Lieutenant Wilkinson cut down trees Chief Pike and
the doctor medicine-man scouted up and down the river, hunting meat and
the Spanish trail. There were buffalo and antelope, but there was no
Spanish trail.
Lieutenant Pike grew curious about the wish-ton-wish, or prairie dogs.
He found a large town of them, where the rattle-snakes and the tortoise
lived, too. He and the doctor shot them, to eat, and they were good――as
Stub well knew. It took true shooting, because unless a wish-ton-wish
is killed dead, he crawls into his hole.
The wish-ton-wish is among the smartest of animals. He digs his hole
cunningly. The lieutenant and the doctor tried to fill one hole with
water, and get the wish-ton-wish that way. Stub said, “No use”――he and
the Pawnee boys had tried it often. And the men found out that this was
true, for they spent a long time and poured in one hundred and forty
kettles of water, and it all disappeared but no wish-ton-wish came out.
Still, the towns were interesting places, where the dogs sat up
straight with their hands across their stomachs, and held councils,
like people, and whistled “Wish-ton-wish (Look out)!” whenever an enemy
was sighted.
A great deal of buffalo-meat was dried, for Lieutenant Wilkinson to
take. Making the boats required several days. The trees were too small
and soft. When one boat had at last been hollowed the men started to
build another out of buffalo and elk hides, stretched over a frame.
On the night before Lieutenant Wilkinson was to leave, Chief Pike the
captain said to Stub:
“Come here. Listen.”
“What?”
“To-morrow you go with Lieutenant Wilkinson.”
“No,” answered Stub. He had been afraid of that.
“Yes. You go with him, to the United States. That is best.”
“No.” And Stub shook his head.
“Why not?”
“No go. Stay with you.”
“Don’t you want to be an American, and see the towns of the Great
Father?”
“Be an American here,” answered Stub.
“We do not stay here. We go on, a long way, up the river, to the
mountains.”
“Yes,” said Stub.
“You will be cold.”
“Don’t care.”
“You will be hungry.”
“Don’t care.”
“We may all die.”
“Don’t care.”
“The Osage were afraid. The Pawnee were afraid. You are not afraid?”
“No. No Osage, no Pawnee; American. March, hunt, fight, stay with you,”
Stub appealed, eagerly.
The doctor medicine-man laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Good. Let him come, lieutenant.”
“He may come,” replied the lieutenant. And Stub’s heart beat gladly.
Baroney and John Sparks and Tom Dougherty and John Brown and others of
his friends were coming, too. Had he been sent away with Lieutenant
Wilkinson, in the boat, for the United States, he would have run off at
his first chance and followed the Pike trail.
Right after breakfast in the morning camp was broken. It had been a
very cold night, with snow, and ice floated thickly down the swollen
river. But by help of the Wilkinson boats Lieutenant Pike moved his men
and baggage across the river again, to the north side which everybody
said was the American side. The men worked hard, to load the boats and
swim the horses, in the slush and ice. Then Lieutenant Wilkinson made
ready to start.
He took with him, in his two boats, one of the head soldiers, Sergeant
Joe Ballenger; the soldiers John Boley, Sam Bradley, Sol Huddleston,
and John Wilson; the Osage man and woman who had come this far, and
corn and meat for twenty-one days.
Head soldier Sergeant Bill Meek marched the Pike men up-river, but
Stub stayed with Lieutenant Pike, the doctor, and Baroney, to see the
Wilkinson men leave. He had no fear of being put aboard, now, for Chief
Pike always spoke the truth.
Lieutenant Wilkinson shook hands all ’round, stepped into the boat,
made of four buffalo hides and two elk hides, and with his crew pushed
off, after the other boat. The floating ice did not matter.
Lieutenant Pike watched them out of sight, in a bend. Then he turned
his horse toward the west.
“Come,” he said.
He and Doctor Robinson led; Baroney and Stub followed.
“Now to the mountains,” cheered Baroney. “Huzzah!”
“Huzzah!” Stub echoed.
The mountains were far, through Comanche country, maybe through Spanish
country, perhaps into Utah country; and after that, what? Nobody had
said. Winter was here, as if the Great Spirit were still angry. The
men had shivered, this morning, in their thin clothes; but nobody had
seemed to care. Young Chief Wilkinson, with a few men, was going one
way, on an unknown trail; young Chief Pike, with the rest of the men,
was going the other way, on another unknown trail. So, huzzah! To be an
American one must be brave.
VII
“THE MOUNTAINS! THE MOUNTAINS!”
The Spanish trail again! They struck it toward evening of the day after
Lieutenant Wilkinson had left――and they struck it just in time, too.
Snow was falling once more, and dusk was at hand.
The trail came in from the north, and crossed the river. Lieutenant
Pike ordered camp made. Then he and the doctor forded the river,
through the floating ice, to see where the trail went on the other side.
They returned in the dark. They had lost the trail, among the buffalo
tracks, but were going to try again in the morning.
“We’ll have to take Stub, and use his eyes, too,” said the doctor.
This was another cold night. The snow had quit, after falling two
inches deep. The horses groaned, where they were picketed to graze;
before rolling themselves in their blankets and buffalo robes, on the
ground, the men huddled about their fires. There were now thirteen
soldiers, and Chief Pike, the doctor, Baroney and Stub.
“Heap winter, b’gorry; eh?” spoke Pat Smith, to Stub, and holding his
hands to the blaze.
Stub gravely nodded.
“Winter come soon,” he answered.
“An’ aren’t ye cold, boy?” queried John Sparks. “In only your skin an’
a buff’lo robe?”
“No cold,” Stub asserted. That was all the Pawnees wore. He was used to
it.
The day dawned clear. After eating, Sergeant Meek marched the men up
along the river. With Lieutenant Pike and the doctor, Stub crossed to
help find the Spanish trail. They had to break a way through the ice.
The ice cut the horses’ legs, the stinging water splashed high, soaking
moccasins and drenching the lieutenant and the doctor above the knees.
The lieutenant wore thin blue cotton leggins――a sort of trousers called
overalls; now these clung to him tightly.
Stub rather preferred his own skin, for it shed water.
The Spanish had camped over here. There were lots of horse sign showing
through the snow, in a space of more than a mile. The Spanish seemed to
have grown in numbers. It was an old camp, and the trail out of it had
been flattened by buffalo tracks, and by the snows and rains. So they
three――Lieutenant Pike, the doctor, and Stub――made circles, as they
rode up river, to cut the trail farther on.
They did not find it until noon. But they found something else: Indian
signs which were not older than three days. A party of warriors were
ahead. Stub picked up a worn moccasin: “Pawnee――Grand Pawnee,” he
announced, when he handed it to the lieutenant “War party. All on foot.
Mebbe so many.” And he opened and shut his fingers five times.
The lieutenant and the doctor examined the moccasin. After that they
rode more rapidly, as if anxious to get to their soldiers.
The soldiers also had crossed the river, on account of bad travel, and
were camped on this, the south side. In the morning they all marched
by the Spanish trail, along the river, into the west, over a country
covered with salt. There were more Indian signs. It looked as though
twenty warriors had been marching in the same direction only a short
time before; and fresh horse tracks pointed down river.
Whether the Indians were the same Pawnees or not, was hard to tell. But
the horse tracks looked to be wild-horse tracks.
“Sure, wouldn’t it be fun to ketch a few o’ them wild hosses, Stub,
lad?” proposed John Sparks, in camp. “We need ’em. Would ye know how?”
“Chase ’em; with rope. Chase ’em all day, make tired, mebbe no ketch
’em,” Stub answered.
“Or if ye shoot one jest right, through the nape o’ the neck an’ graze
the nerve there, ye’ll down him like as if lightning struck him an’ he
won’t be hurt,” asserted Hugh Menaugh.
“Yes, but it takes mighty fine shootin’,” said soldier Bill Gordon.
“You’re like to kill him, or miss him complete.”
The wild horses were sighted the next evening, from camp on an island
where there was wood and shelter. The lieutenant and the doctor and
Baroney had come in with two antelope that they had killed among their
own horses, while they themselves were lying on the ground and resting.
They might have killed more, but they did not need the meat. Now while
spying on the country around, through his long glass, the lieutenant
saw a bunch of moving figures out there on the prairie, north of the
river.
Indians? No――wild horses, more than one hundred! Good! Out he went, and
the doctor, and Baroney, and Stub followed, to get a nearer view.
They were of many colors, those wild horses――blacks and browns and
greys and spotted. They waited with heads high, as curious as if
they had never seen men before. Then they came charging, in a broad
front, and their hoofs drummed like thunder. Only a short way off they
stopped, to start and snort.
“Ma foi, quelle beauté (My gracious, how beautiful)!” cried Baroney.
“Try to crease that black, lieutenant,” the doctor proposed.
The lieutenant rested his gun upon his empty saddle, took long aim, and
fired. But he did not stun the black――he missed him entirely――he had
not dared to draw fine enough.
At that, around the wild horses wheeled, as if by command, and pelted
off, to halt and gaze again.
“To-morrow we’ll see if we can run some down,” said the lieutenant.
“Shall we, Stub?”
“Pawnee sometimes run all day. Mebbe ketch one, mebbe not. Too swift,
have too much wind.”
“Well, we can try,” laughed the doctor.
The camp was excited, to-night, with the thought of catching wild
horses. The men busied themselves tying nooses in their picket ropes.
“But we haven’t a critter that could ketch a badger,” John Sparks
complained; “unless it be the doctor’s black an’ that yaller pony o’
Stub’s.”
Stub doubted very much whether his yellow pony would amount to
anything, in racing wild horses. The Pawnees always used two or three
horses, each, so as to tire the wild horses out.
However, the lieutenant was bound to try. In the morning he picked out
the six best horses, which included the yellow pony, and appointed the
riders. They were himself, the doctor, Baroney, soldier John Sparks,
soldier Freegift Stout, and Stub. Only Baroney and Stub had seen wild
horses chased before.
All the camp, except the camp guards, followed. The wild horses were in
about the same place, a mile distant. They waited, curious, pawing and
snorting and speaking to the tame horses, until within short bow shot,
or forty steps. On a sudden they wheeled.
“After ’em!” the lieutenant shouted.
“Hooray!”
Ah, but that was sport! Stub’s yellow pony sprang to the fore; he
was nimble and he carried light. No――another horse and rider forged
alongside him. They were the medicine-man and his black; a good rider
and a good horse.
Stub hammered and yelled. “Hi! Hi! Hi!” The doctor lashed and yelled.
Already they had gained the heels of the flying herd. The clods of
earth thrown by the rapid hoofs bombarded them lustily. Baroney and
soldier Sparks and soldier Stout, and even the lieutenant had been
dropped behind.