blew over the plains--the thunder rumbled--the rain came splashing
and beating and then fell in blinding sheets. The Fire Eater arose
and standing on the edge of the bank raised his arms in thanks to the
Thunder Bird for his interposition in their behalf, saying: “Brothers,
the Thunder Bird has come to his poor warriors to drive our enemies
back as was promised to the prophet. He will put out the fires of the
Yellow-Eyes, behind their medicine-logs. We are not afraid--our medicine
is strong.”
The rain poured for a time but abated gradually as the crashing Thunder
Bird hurried away to the rising sun, and with a final dash it separated
into drops, letting the sunlight through the departing drizzle. The
warriors began drying their robes and their weapons--preoccupied with
the worries so much dampness had wrought for their powder and bow
strings. Suddenly one of them raised his head, deerlike, to listen. As
wild things they all responded, and the group of men was statuesque
as it listened to the beat of horses’ hoofs. As a flock of blackbirds
leaves a bush--with one motion--the statuary dissolved into a
kaleidoscopic twinkle of movement as the warriors grabbed and ran and
gathered. They sought their ponies’ lariats, but before they could mount
a hundred mounted Yellow-Eyes swept down upon them, circling away as
the Indians sowed their shots among them. But they were surrounded. The
Thunder Bird had lied to the Chis-chis-chash--he had chosen to sacrifice
the Fire Eater and the twenty Red-Lodge braves. There was now no thought
of arresting the blow--there was but to die as their people always did
in war. The keepers of the Red Lodge counting robes might cross the red
pipes out with black, but they should not wash them out entirely.
[Illustration: 12 The Fire Eater raised his arms to the Thunder Bird]
The beaver-men--the traders--the creoles and the half-breeds slid from
their horses and showered their bullets over the washout, throwing
clouds of wet dirt over the braves crowding under its banks. The
frightened Indian ponies swarmed out of one end of the cut, but were
soon brought back and herded together in the sagebrush by the moccasin
boys of the Yellow-Eyes.
In maddened bewilderment the Fire Eater leaped upon the flat plain, made
insulting gestures and shouted defiant words in his own language at the
flashing guns. Above the turmoil could be heard the harsh, jerky voice
which came from the bowels of the warrior rather than from his lips. No
bullet found him as he stepped back into cover, more composed than when
he had gone out. The nervous thrill had expanded itself in the speech.
To his own mind the Fire Eater was a dead man; his medicine had
departed; his spiritual protection was gone. He recognized that to
live his few remaining hours was all--he had only to do the mere act of
dying; and that he would do as his demon nature willed it. His last sun
was looking down upon him.
The Yellow-Eyes knew their quarry well. They recognized of old the
difference between an Indian cooped up in a hole in a flat plain and one
mounted on a swift war-pony, with a free start, and the whole plain for
a race-track. They advanced with all caution--crawling, sneaking through
sage and tufted grass. Occasionally as an Indian exposed himself to
fire, a swift bullet from a beaver-man’s long rifle crashed into his
head, rolling him back with oozing brains. The slugs and ounce balls
slapped into the dirt from the muskets of the creole _engages_ and they
were losing warrior after warrior. By cutting the dirt with their knives
the Indians dug into the banks, avoiding a fire which raked the washout;
and by throwing the dirt up on either side they protected their heads as
they raised to fire.
A man walking over the flats by midday would have seen nothing but
feeding ponies and occasional flashes of fire close to the grass, but a
flying raven would have gloated over a scene of many future gorges.
It would have seen many lying on their backs in the ditch--lying quite
still and gazing up at his wheeling flight with stony gaze.
The white men had no means of knowing how successful had been the
rifle-fire and they hesitated to crawl closer. Each party in turn
taunted the other in unknown tongues, but they well knew that the
strange voices carried fearful insult from the loud defiance of the
intonation. The gray bears or the mountain cats were as merciful as
any there. As the sun started on its downward course the nature of the
Gothic blood asserted itself. The white men had sat still until they
could sit still no longer. They had fasted too long. They talked to each
other through the sagebrush, and this is what happened when they cast
the dice between Death and Dinner: A tall, long-haired man clad in
the fringed buckskin of a Rocky Mountain trapper of the period,
passed slowly around the circle of the siege, shouting loudly to those
concealed among the brush and grasses. What he said the Chis-chis-chash
did not know, but they could see him pointing at them continually.
The Fire Eater raised his voice: “Brothers, keep your guns full of
fire; lay all your arrows beside you; put your war-ax under you. The
Yellow-Eyes are going to kill us as we do the buffalo in a surround.
Brothers, if the Thunder Bird does not come our fires will go out now.
We will take many to the spirit-land.”
Having completed the circle the tall white man waved a red blanket and
started on a run toward the place where the Indians lay. From all sides
sprang the besiegers converging with flying feet. When nearly in contact
the Indians fired their guns, killing and wounding. The whites in
turn excitedly emptied theirs and through the smoke with lowered heads
charged like the buffalo. The bowstrings twanged and the ravens could
only see the lightning sweep of axes and furious gun-butts going over
the pall of mingled dust and powder smoke. If the ravens were watching
they would have seen nothing more except a single naked Indian run out
of the turmoil, and after a quick glance backward speed away through the
sagebrush. He could not fight for victory now; he only sought to escape;
he was deserted by his Gods; he ran on the tightened muscles of a
desperate hope.
A bunch of horses had been left huddled by a squad of the enemy who had
gone in with the charge on post and for these the Fire Eater made. No
one seemed to notice the lone runner until a small herds-boy spied him,
and though he raised his childish treble it made no impression. The Fire
Eater picked up a dropped pony-whip and leading two ponies out of the
bunch, mounted and lashed away. He passed the screaming boy within
killing distance, but it was an evil day.
Before the small herder’s voice asserted itself he was long out of
rifleshot though not out of pony-reach.
A dozen men dashed after him. The warrior plied his whip mercilessly
in alternate slaps on each pony-quarter and the bareback savage drew
steadily away to the hills. For many miles the white men lathered their
horses after, but one by one gave up the chase. The dice doubtless said
dinner as against an Indian with a double mount and many will think they
gave a wise choice.
On flew the Fire Eater. Confusion had come to him. The bat on his
scalp-lock said never a word. His heart was upside down within him. His
shadow flew away before him. The great mystery of his tribe had betrayed
and bewitched him. The Yellow-Eyed medicine would find him yet.
From a high divide the fugitive stopped beside a great rock to blow
his horses and he turned his eyes on the scene of ill-fate. He saw the
Yellow-Eyes ride slowly back to their medicine-logs--he saw the ravens
lighting down on the dry watercourse and for a long time he stood--not
thinking--only gazing heavy-headed and vacant.
After a time he pulled his ponies’ heads up from the grass and trotted
them away. Growing composed, with his blood stilled, thoughts came
slowly. He thanked the little brown bat when it reminded him of his
savior. A furious flood of disappointment overcame him when he thought
of his lifelong ambitions as a warrior--now only dry, white ashes.
Could he go back to the village and tell all? The council of the Red
Lodges would not listen to his voice as they had before. When he spoke
they would cast their eyes on the ground in sorrow. The Thunder Bird had
demanded a sacrifice from him when he returned. He could not bear the
thoughts of the wailing women and the screaming children and the old men
smoking in silence as he passed through the camp. He could not wash the
ashes from the faces of his people. The thoughts of it all deadened his
soul, and he turned his ponies to the west. He would not go back. He had
died with his warriors.
When the lodges lay covered with snow the Chis-chis-chash sang songs to
the absent ones of the Fire Eater’s band. Through the long, cold nights
the women sat rocking and begging the gods to bring them back their
warriors. The “green-grass” came and the prophet of the Red Lodges
admitted that the medicine spoke no more of the absent band. By
“yellow-grass” hope grew cold in the village and socially they had
readjusted themselves. It had happened in times past that even after two
snows had come and gone warriors had found the path back to the camp,
but now men saw the ghost of the Fire Eater in dreams, together with his
lost warriors.
Another snow passed and still another. The Past had grown white in the
shadows of an all-enduring Present when the Chis-chis-chash began to
hear vague tales from their traders of a mighty war-chief who had come
down to the Shoshones from the clouds. He was a great “wakan” and he
spoke the same language as the Chis-chis-chash. This chief said he had
been a Cheyenne in his former life on earth, but had been sent back
to be a Shoshone for another life. The Indians were overcome by an
insatiate curiosity to see this being and urged the traders to bring
him from the Shoshones--promising to protect and honor him. The traders
dominated by avarice, hoping to better their business, humored the
stories and enlarged upon them. They half understood that the mystery
of life and death are inextricably mixed in savage minds--that they come
and go, passing in every form from bears to inanimate things or living
in ghosts which grow out of a lodge fire. So for heavy considerations in
beaver skins they sent representatives to the Sho-shones and there for
an armful of baubles they prevailed upon those people to allow their
supernatural war-chief to visit his other race out on the great meadows.
“If in the time of the next green-grass,” said the trader, “the
Chis-chis-chash have enough beaver, we will bring their brother who died
back to their camp. We will lead him into the tribal council. If on the
other hand they do not have enough skins, our medicine will be weak.”
In the following spring the tribe gathered at the appointed time
and place, camping near the post. The big council-lodge was
erected--everything was arranged--the great ceremonial-pipe was filled
and the council-fire kept smoldering. Many packages of beaver-skins were
unloaded by squaws at the gate of the traders and all important persons
foregathered in the lodge.
When the pipe had passed slowly and in form the head-chief asked the
trader if he saw beaver enough outside his window. This one replied that
he did and sent for the man who had been dead.
The council sat in silence with its eyes upon the ground. From the
commotion outside they felt an awe of the strange approach. Never before
had the Chis-chis-chash been so near the great mystery. The door-flap
was lifted and a fully painted, gorgeously arrayed warrior stepped into
the centre of the circle and stood silently with raised chin.
There was a loud murmur on the outside but the lodge was like a grave. A
loud grunt came from one man--followed by another until the hollow walls
gave back like a hundred tom-toms. They recognized the Fire Eater, but
no Indian calls another by his name.
Raising his hand with the dignity which Indians have in excess of all
other men the Fire Eater said: “Brothers, it makes my heart big to look
at you again. I have been dead but I came to life again. I was sent back
by the gods to complete another life on earth. The Thunder Bird made
the Yellow-Eyes kill all my band when we went against the Absaroke. My
medicine grew weak before the white man’s medicine. Brothers, they
are very strong. Always beware of the medicine of the traders and the
beaver-men. They are fools and women themselves but the gods give them
guns and other medicine things. He can make them see what is to happen
long before he tells the Indians. They can see us before we come and
know what we are thinking about. They have brought me back to my people,
and my medicine says I must be a Chis-chis-chash until I die again.
Brothers, I have made my talk.”
VII. Among the Pony-Soldiers
The burial scaffold of the Fire Eater’s father had rotted and fallen
down with years. Time had even bent his own shoulders, filled his belly
and shrunken his flanks. He now had two sons who were of sufficient age
to have forgotten their first sun-dance medicine, so long had they been
warriors of distinction. He also had boys and girls of less years, but
a child of five snows was the only thing which could relax the old man’s
features, set hard with thought and time and toil.
Evil days had come to the Buffalo Indians. The Yellow-Eyes swarmed in
the Indian country, and although the red warriors rode their ponies
thin in war, they could not drive the invaders away. The little bands of
traders and beaver-men who came to the camps of the Fire Eater’s boyhood
with open hands were succeeded by immense trains of wagons, drawn by
the white man’s buffalo. The trains wound endlessly toward the setting
sun--paying no heed to the Indians. Yellow-Eyes came to the mountains
where they dug and washed for the white man’s great medicine, the
yellow-iron. The fire boats came up the great river with a noise like
the Thunder Bird--firing big medicine-guns which shot twice at one
discharge.
The Fire Eater, with his brothers of the Chis-chis-chash, had run off
with the horses and buffalo of these helpless Yellow-Eyes until they
wanted no more. They had knocked them on the head with battle-axes
in order to save powder. They had burned the grass in front of the
slow-moving trains and sat on the hills laughing at the discomfiture
caused by the playful fires. Notwithstanding, all their efforts did not
check the ceaseless flow and a vague feeling of alarm began to pervade
them.
Talking men came to them and spoke of their Great Father in Washington.
It made them laugh. These talking men gave them enough blankets and
medicine goods to make the travvis poles squeak under the burden. When
these men also told them that they must live like white men, the secret
council lost its dignity entirely and roared long and loud at the quaint
suggestion.
Steadily flowed the stream of wagons over the plains though the Indians
plied them with ax and rifle and fire. Sober-minded old chiefs began to
recall many prophecies of the poor trappers who told how their people
swarmed behind them and would soon come on.
Then began to appear great lines of the Great Father’s warriors--all
dressed alike and marching steadily with their wagons drawn along by
half-brothers to the horse. These men built log forts on the Indian
lands and they had come to stay.
The time for action had come. Runners went through the tribes calling
great councils which made a universal peace between the red brothers.
Many and fierce were the fights with these blue soldiers of the Great
Father. The Indians slew them by hundreds at times and were slain
in turn. In a grand assault on some of these which lay behind
medicine-wagons and shot medicine-guns the Indian dead blackened the
grass and the white soldiers gave them bad dreams for many days.
The talking-wives and the fire wagon found their way, and the white
hunters slew the buffalo of the Indians by millions, for their hides.
Every year brought more soldiers who made more log forts from which
they emerged with their wagons, dragging after the trace of the
Chis-chis-chash camp, and disturbing the buffalo and the elk. To be
sure, the soldiers never came up because the squaws could move the
travvis more rapidly than the others could their wagons, but it took
many young men to watch their movements and keep the grass burning
before them. Since the Indians had made the wagon fight, they no longer
tried to charge the soldiers, thinking it easier to avoid them. The
young men were made to run their ponies around the Yellow-Eyes before it
was light enough in the morning for them to shoot, and they always found
the Yellow-Eyes heavy with sleep; but they did not grapple with the
white soldiers because they found them too slow to run away and enemies
who always fought wildly, like bears. Occasionally the Indians caught
one of them alive, staked him out on a hill, and burned him in sight of
his camp. These Yellow-Eyes were poor warriors, for they always whined
and yelled under the torture. Half-breeds who came from the camp of the
Yellow-Eyes said that this sight always made the white soldiers’ blood
turn to water. Still the invaders continued to crawl slowly along the
dusty valleys. The buffalo did not come up from the south--from the
caves of the Good Gods where they were made--in such numbers as they
once did, and the marching soldiers frightened those which did and kept
them away. The young warriors never wearied of the excitement of
these times, with its perpetual war-party, but old men remembered the
prophecies of the beaver-men and that the times had changed.
The Fire Eater, as he talked to old Weasel Bear over their pipes and
kettles, said:
“Brother, we used to think Yellow Horse had lost the Power of his Eyes
when he came from his journey with the talking white man. We thought
he had been made to dream by the Yellow-Eyes. We have seen the talking
wives and we have seen the fire wagon. We have seen the white men
come until there are as many as all the warriors in this camp. All the
foolish half-breeds say it is as the talking men say. Brother, I have
seen in my dreams that there are more of them than the buffalo. They
have their caves to the east as the buffalo do to the south, and they
come out of them in the time of the green-grass just as the buffalo do.
The Bad Gods send the Yellow-Eyes and the Good Gods send the buffalo.
The gods are fighting each other in the air.”
Weasel Bear smoked in silence until he had digested the thoughts of his
friend, when he replied:
“Your talk is good. Two grasses ago I was with a war-party and we caught
a white man between the bends of the Tois-ta-to-e-o. He had four eyes
and also a medicine-box which we did not touch. All the hair on his head
and face was white as the snow. While we were making the fire to burn
him with, he talked much strong talk. Before we could burn him he sank
down at our feet and died a medicine-death. We all ran away. Bad Arm,
the half-breed who was with us, said the man had prophesied that before
ten snows all our fires would be put out by his people. Brother, that
man had the Power of the Eyes. I looked at him strong while he talked. I
have seen him in my dreams--I am afraid.”
Weasel Bear continued:
“You hear our young scouts who come in tell us how the white
soldiers are coming in droves this grass. There are walking-soldiers,
pony-soldiers, big guns on wheels and more wagons than they can count.
Many of their scalps shall dry in our lodges, but, brother, we cannot
kill them all.”
In accordance with the tribal agreements the Chis-chis-chash joined
their camp with the Dakota, and together both tribes moved about the
buffalo range. Every day the scouts came on reeking ponies to the
chiefs. The soldiers were everywhere marching toward the camps. The
council fire was always smoldering. The Dakota and Chis-chis-chash
chiefs sat in a dense ring while Sitting Bull, Gall, Crazy Horse and all
the strong men talked. They regarded the menace with awe; they feared
for the camp with its women and children, but each voice was for war. It
was no longer poor beaver-men or toiling bull-wagons; it was crowds of
soldiers coming up every valley toward the villages which before had
been remote and unmolested. If any soothsayer could penetrate the veil
of the future he held his peace in the councils. The Indians tied
up their ponies’ tails for the struggle and painted for war. Three
cartridges were all a fine buffalo robe would bring from a trader and
even then it was hard to get them; but though the lodges had few robes
many brass-bound bullets reposed in the war-bags.
The old thrill came over the Fire Eater in these agitated times. He
could no longer leap upon his pony at full gallop, but rode a saddle.
The lodge chafed him until he gathered up a few young men who had been
acting as spies and trotted forth on a coyote prowl. For many days they
made their way toward the south. One day as he sat smoking by a small
fire on a mountain-top, somewhat wearied with travel, the restless young
men came trotting softly back over the pine needles saying:
“Come out and you will see the white soldiers.” He mounted and followed,
and sitting there amid the mountain tangle he saw his dreams come true.
The traders and the talking men had not lied about the numbers of their
people, for his eye did not come to the rear of the procession which
wound up the valley like a great snake. There were pony-soldiers,
walking-soldiers, guns on wagons, herds of the white men’s buffalo,
and teams without end. The Fire Eater passed his hands across his eyes
before another gaze reassured him, and having satisfied himself he asked
a young man: “Brother, you say there are as many more soldiers up north
by the Yellowstone?”
“There are as many more--I saw them with my own eyes, and Blow Cloud
over there has seen as many to the east. He could not count them.”
For an hour the spies watched the white columns before the Fire Eater
turned his pony, and followed by his young men disappeared in the
timber.
Upon his arrival at the big camp the Fire Eater addressed the council:
“I have just come five smokes from the south, and I saw the white
soldiers coming. I could not count them. They crawl slowly along the
valley and they take their wagons to war. They cannot travel as fast as
our squaws, but they will drive the buffalo out of the land. We must go
out and fight them while our villages lie here close to the mountains.
The wagon-soldiers cannot follow the women’s pack-horses into the
mountains.”
The council approved this with much grunting, and the warriors swarmed
from the villages--covering the country until the coyotes ran about
continually to get out of their way. No scout of the enemy could
penetrate to the Indian camps. The Indians burned the grass in front of
the on-coming herds; they fired into the enemy’s tents at night, and as
the pony-soldiers bathed naked in the Yellowstone ran their horses over
them. They would have put out many of the white soldiers’ fires if the
wagon-guns had not fired bullets which burst among them.
But it was all to no purpose.
Slowly the great snakes crawled through the valleys and the red warriors
went riding back to the village to prepare for flight.
One morning the Fire Eater sat beside his lodge fire playing with his
young son--a thing which usually made his eyes gleam. Now he looked
sadly into the little face of the boy, who stood holding his two great
scalp braids in his chubby hands. He knew that in a day or two the camp
must move and that the warriors must try to stop the Yellow-Eyes. Taking
from his scalp a buckskin bag which contained his bat-skin medicine he
rubbed it slowly over the boy’s body, the child laughing as he did so.
The sun was barely stronger than the lodge fire when from far away on
the hills beyond the river came a faint sound borne on the morning wind,
yet it electrified the camp, and from in front of the Fire Eater’s
tent a passing man split the air with the wolfish war-yell of the
Chis-chis-chash. As though he had been a spiral spring released from
pressure, the Fire Eater regained his height. The little boy sat briskly
down in the ashes, adding his voice to the confusion, which now reigned
in the great camp in a most disproportionate way. The old chief sprang
to his doorway in time to see a mounted rider cut by, shrieking, “The
pony-soldiers are coming over the hills!” and disappear among the
tepees.