On the trail――A pursuit――The mark is overshot――A
night march――Morning――The curtain rises――We are
prisoners――Blackfeet――Penoquam――The Far-Off Dawn――His history――His
medicine robe――Interrogations――New arrivals――The trader again.
Well watched by sharp and restless eyes were we that evening as our
figures grew fainter in the grey of the prairie.
Tashota had already laid his plans; and although no overt act had yet
been taken, everything was ready to ensure a rapid pursuit when the
proper moment had arrived.
Two hours passed, and darkness began to close over the plains. Then
over both sides――the travellers and the camp――a marvellous change
suddenly passed.
It is true that, long before darkness had begun, preparations must have
been rife within the camp; and horses ready for a foray, and braves
busy getting arms and ammunition together, must have been visible on
all sides. The red man is ever more or less equipped for war, and it
takes little time for twenty men to be in all respects ready for a
week’s raid.
As the sun went down, each man of the war-party stood ready by the
lodges for the signal to pursue, and many anxious eyes doubtless
followed us and our band of led horses, grudging every step that
daylight permitted us to take farther on our way.
But darkness was not thus descending upon us to find us wrapt in a
false sense of security. Scarcely had the camp been left behind, ere
the Sioux imparted to me all his forebodings of evil and his plans for
averting it.
“When night has come,” he said, “these men will pursue us. If they fail
to overtake us to-night, they will continue on our trail day after day.
It is impossible we can escape them by fair riding, encumbered as we
are with these horses. They will, in the long-run be certain to outpace
us.
“At the same time it is impossible for us to leave the direction we
are now following and to strike on a new line home. We have not food
sufficient to last us six days, and we could not draw upon our horses
for more, except in case of actual starvation. What I intend to try is
this. When it is quite dark, we will turn abruptly from the present
line and seek shelter in the ravine of that stream on our left. The
pursuing party will push on in the darkness thinking we will have
travelled all through the night.
“At daybreak they will separate to seek our trail. They will search
all day, but will not find it; their horses will then be dead tired;
they will rest, but they will not give up the attempt to overtake us.
As we have not been found in front or to the right or left, they will
determine to seek us on the back trail; but they will not have come
to that decision until to-morrow evening, when their horses will be
useless for pursuit.
“On to-morrow evening at nightfall we will start from here with horses
all fresh, and we will direct our course to the right of the line we
followed when leaving the camp. So as to hit off the buffalo two days
from here. We will travel all night, change saddles at daybreak, and
travel all day to-morrow; by that time we should be far away from our
pursuers.”
Soon the evening hour drew on. The short twilight rapidly deepened into
night, and as the last glimmer of light vanished, the plan was put into
operation. Turning sharp to the left, we plunged down amid some broken
ground that led to the ravine by the stream, and were soon securely
ensconced amid the bluffs and rocks that fringed its lowest levels.
It was a dark moonless night, and once amid the broken ground all
objects became a shapeless blank.
The Sioux pulled up as soon as he found himself at the bottom of the
ravine. He dismounted, and gave me his horse and the larêt which ran
through the bits of the three he led.
“I will go back on foot and lie near the trail,” he said. “Sit you down
here until I return.” So saying he vanished on foot into the darkness,
and reaching the neighbourhood of his former trail, lay down in the
grass to watch.
He had not long to wait.
Through the gloom there suddenly passed, riding at a hard pace, a body
of men. They had swept by almost as soon as the keen ear of the Sioux
had detected their approach, and quick as they had come they were gone.
The Sioux came back to the ravine and the night passed slowly away.
When dawn revealed the features of the surrounding neighbourhood, we
moved into a more sheltered position, where, amid rock and bushes, we
remained perfectly screened even from any observer who might have stood
at the edge of the ravine. Here during the day we relieved each other
in the work of allowing the horses to graze with a larêt passing from
one to another.
At length evening came again. The meal of dried meat was eaten, with
water from the rill that trickled through the bottom of the glen; then
saddles were adjusted; girths were drawn, and as night wrapped its
black mantle around the waste, we emerged upon the level prairie to
begin our long march to the north.
It was quite dark; not a sound stirred over the wilderness. The Sioux
led the advance; he had three horses to his larêt. I followed, leading
two. The pace was a sharp trot, and the course lay with undeviating
precision to the east of north.
At last the long monotony of the night was over.
Light, faint enough it is true, but still light, began to show itself
along the line where the prairie and the sky touched each other in
the east; then it grew into a broader band of pale yellow, and soon
stray tints of rose began to streak it, and to push the first faint
reflection still higher into the heavens.
How weird and distant it used to look, that first dawn over the
virgin wilderness! Shadow-land, grim darkness going, glorious light
approaching――approaching so stilly, with such solemn steps that seemed
ever to hesitate as they trod the gloomy sands of the shore of the
night! Then gradually growing bolder, they rolled back the waves of
darkness, and drew from the abyss hill-top after hill-top, until all
the wondrous beauty of the sun was flashed upon the silent land.
Little time had I to think of these things as now, in hot haste, the
saddles were taken from the two old horses and placed upon the backs of
two of the recent purchases.
Then away we went again, and the morning wore on to mid-day, and the
evening came and found us still moving to the north-east.
When night again fell we stopped, unsaddled, and turned the weary
horses out to rest.
We were one hundred miles from the camp of the Indians.
Morning again; a thin rain fell. The south-west wind carried with it
fleecy folds of mist, that at times completely obscured the prairie and
wrapt ridges and hollows in veils of vapour.
As we pursued our course and the mid-day sun began to exercise more
influence upon the vapoury clouds, the mists drew up from the valleys
and drifted slowly along from the ridges and elevations. All at once
the wind changed; a light, dry breeze swept over the land, driving
before it all traces of fog and mist, until the whole plain stood
revealed to its depths before our eyes.
The first sight that greeted us was ominous. A little to the west a
long cavalcade of Indians was passing towards the south. Scarcely a
mile intervened between us and them; the ground on all sides was bare
and open; recognition by the cavalcade was immediate; from its front,
centre, and rear braves were seen to start simultaneously towards
us, and ere five minutes had elapsed twenty or thirty Indians had
surrounded us. The meeting was not a hostile one; the Indians were not
on a war-trail. It was the whole camp which was on the move, and though
trouble might afterwards arise from the meeting no violence was now
offered or threatened. Still there was a display of force on the part
of the new comers that made compliance with their wishes necessary, and
when they turned their horses’ heads back towards the cavalcade it was
evident that the Sioux and I were virtually prisoners.
“There is trouble before us,” said Red Cloud to me, as we rode towards
the spot where already, in anticipation of our arrival, camp was being
pitched. “These are Blackfeet; but they will not detain you.”
Upon reaching the camp, we were conducted at once into a circle of
Indians who were seated upon the ground, apparently waiting to receive
us. Prominent amid the circle sat a powerful Indian, whose dress and
bearing proclaimed him chief. He wore a deer-skin shirt beautifully
embroidered on the breast with stars, and circles of coloured
porcupine-quill work. The sleeves were fringed with human hair. On
his head he carried a sort of helmet or cap, of ermine tails and
eagle feathers, and his leggings and moccasins bore similar tokens of
elaborate handiwork.
In common with many of the surrounding braves he smoked in solemn
silence.
Penoquam, or the Far-Off Dawn, was indeed a savage well worthy of the
name he bore, and of the power which he wielded. His fame had for years
spread far over prairie land. Twenty years before the time we speak of,
his reputation for dauntless bravery had been for ever established by
an extraordinary raid which he had made alone, far down the Missouri
River, into the countries of the Mandan and Minatarree Sioux. A few
years later he had engaged in single combat with a celebrated Crow
chieftain named Octoo, or the Lightning. The combat had been in full
view of the rival tribes, and both Blackfeet and Crows had fairly kept
the conditions of the conflict and abided faithfully by its issue.
A favourite tale by Blackfeet camp-fire for many years after, was that
long and varying struggle. The old men loved to dilate upon the joy
that filled the hearts of the onlookers when they saw the horse of the
Crow chief fall pierced by an arrow, leaving his rider on foot, almost
at the mercy of his still mounted antagonist; and how that feeling of
wild exultation changed to anxious suspense when they beheld their
champion spring from his horse, disdaining to accept the fortunes thus
given to him, and advance on foot to meet his foe on equal terms of
ground and weapon.
Not less terrible were the feelings with which they watched the closing
moments of the fight. When the combatants met in the last deadly
embrace, from which one should never rise; and how at last that deadly
struggle ended in the victory of the Far-Off Dawn, who, bleeding at
many wounds, rose alone from the sandy soil, gained with a great effort
his saddle, and rode slowly back to his people, to fall into their
ready arms, while their shouts of triumph fell unheard upon his ears.
On the medicine robe of the Far-Off Dawn’s history, the central figure,
representing a man standing over the prostrate form of another man, and
holding aloft the scalp of his enemy, still commemorated that great
victory.
At the time of which I write, his power over the Blackfeet and their
confederates was very great. His possessions too, in the light of
Indian wealth, were very large. Fully four hundred horses ran in his
bands. His weapons for war and for the chase included almost every
specimen of modern fire-arms. His generosity was said to be in keeping
with his courage; he gave freely away his share of the booty that
fell to his lot. Altogether Penoquam was a chief whose reputation for
valour, capacity, and wealth, might favourably compare with that of any
Indian leader from Texas to the great Sub-Arctic Forest.
Such was the man in whose presence we now found ourselves. A buffalo
robe was spread for us in a break of the circle directly facing the
spot where Penoquam sat, and the discourse began at once.
Interrogated as to place from whence we had come, destination, and
object of our journey, the Sioux replied in answers as short as they
could well be made, consistently with replying to the main questions
put to him. He was coming from a camp of the Blood Indians near the
Cypress hills. He was returning to the banks of the Red Deer river, and
the object of his journey had been to get horses. He had purchased some
of his present band from the chief.
When Red Cloud had finished replying to the questions which had been
put to him in the Sioux language, some conversation was carried on in
Blackfeet among the men who sat around. Presently one of them spoke:――
“Our young men who have lately been to their cousins the Sircies, have
spoken about a wandering Sioux having built himself a hut at the forks
of the Red Deer and Pascopee rivers, and of war that was carried on
between him and their tribe. Are you not that Sioux against whom our
cousins have had war?”
To which Red Cloud replied,――
“I built a hut at the spot you speak of, and dwelt in it during the
past winter; but I made no war on the Sircies or with any other tribe.”
The others consulted together for a few minutes, and then the chief
spoke,――
“Our cousins the Sircies are only two camps’ distance behind us on this
trail,” he said; “they can be here by to-morrow’s sunset. If they have
no quarrel with you, I shall be your friend; but my cousins’ quarrel
must be mine also. You can stay in my lodge until our cousins have
arrived, and then you shall be free to go if your hands are clean of
their blood. As for the white man who is your companion, we have no
quarrel with him; he is at liberty to depart or to stay with you, as he
pleases.”
In fact the Sioux was a prisoner. His horses and arms were taken away,
and he found himself treated, it is true, with no indignity of durance,
but bereft of any means of flight or of fight, and constrained to
await the arrival of those very foes whose unprovoked attack on him a
few days before was now to be brought as evidence against him of enmity
to the Blackfeet confederated tribes.
In the lodge which was now given to us (for it is needless to say
I gave not a second thought to the permission to depart) there was
ample time to con over the position, and to realize fully its dangers.
The arrival of the Sircies would undoubtedly be the signal for an
outbreak of angry feeling against the Sioux on the part of the united
camps of Blackfeet and Sircies. The defeat and disappointment which
the latter had suffered at his hands, to say nothing of the wounds he
had inflicted upon at least two of their braves, would now be counted
heavily against him――all added to whatever incentive to his destruction
the trader had originally held before them. These thoughts were by no
means reassuring as we sat moodily through the night in the lodge;
but long before morning he had determined upon a plan which would at
least defeat in some measure the machinations of his enemies, and might
eventually be the means of freeing him altogether from danger.
From two quarters next day there arrived at the Blackfeet camp enemies
to the Sioux. A party of Bloods from the Cypress hills, and the Sircies
from the Medicine, appeared upon the scene ere the sun had set.
As may be supposed, their joy at hearing of the capture of the Sioux
was very great; but there was this difference between them――that
whereas the Bloods only sought the property of their enemy, the Sircies
longed for his life.
The trader had laid his schemes this time with no uncertain purpose,
and the price to be paid to the Sircie chief was for the life of his
enemy, not for his horses or weapons. Little wonder was it then that
when they found actually in their possession the same man who had
recently completely baffled all their machinations, escaping from their
snares in a most mysterious and unaccountable manner at the very moment
they had deemed his capture most assured, that they should give vent to
their feelings in loud yells and shouts of savage triumph, the sounds
of which told but too surely to Red Cloud the confirmation of his worst
anticipations.
In a large council held this evening, and at which all the chiefs and
leading men were present, it was almost unanimously resolved that the
Sioux was a lawful prize. Firstly, by reason of the aggression made
by the Ogahalla tribe upon the Bloods; and secondly, by the wounds
inflicted upon the bodies of two Sircies at the hut at the forks of the
Red Deer river.
It was decided, however, that before any final decision was come to
with reference to the punishment which the captive was to suffer he
should be heard in full council, and an opportunity given him of
putting forward anything he had to say in his defence. This was done
more on account of my presence in the camp than from any idea of
justice to the Sioux. It was thought that the white man might carry to
the forts on the Saskatchewan information that might afterwards lead
to trouble between the white man and the Indians, and it was therefore
advisable to carry out as many of the forms of justice as it was
possible to arrange.
This council was to meet on the following day, and to it were summoned
the chiefs and leading men of the Bloods, Sircies, and Blackfeet here
assembled.