Mr. Peniman, who was studying a map spread out on his knees, looked up.
"Yes," he said, "that is the Missouri River."
"_The Missouri_--at last!" whooped Lige, "hurray, now the fun will
begin!"
Mr. and Mrs. Peniman looked at one another. To them the experiences
that lay beyond the Missouri did not appeal in the light of _fun_.
The day had been hot and clear, and as the sun sank in the west it left
a sky of intense brilliancy, shot with crimson and gold, fading away
toward the horizon in tender pink and mauve and lavender. They drove
into the straggling little trading-post of Florence, where the unhappy
Mormons had passed such a tragic winter many years before, and as they
left it and drove over a small hill their eyes fell upon a sight grander
and more beautiful than Moses saw from the top of Nebo's Mountain. The
valley of the Missouri lay before them, and with the great river
sweeping by long lines of bluffs covered with waving trees it presented
to them a panorama both magnificent and inspiring.
"See that great bluff over there, Joe?" called his father. "That's
where the Lewis and Clark Expedition held their first great council with
the Indians. It was called _Council Bluffs_ in memory of that event,
which was the beginning of the opening up of this great western country.
I am told it has come to be a great Indian trading-station."
Twilight was beginning to fall as they drove into the trading-post,
which is now the city of Council Bluffs.
It was a great sight to the young easterners. On every hand were
Indians, Indians and more Indians. Some wearing the cotton shirt and
trousers of civilization, others blankets, others rejoicing in the garb
of nature, augmented by a breech-clout and a few feathers in their hair.
The squaws with their papooses strapped on their backs stood stolidly
about, some in blankets, some in ugly calico "Mother Hubbard" wrappers.
These Indians were mostly Omahas, with some Pawnees, Arapahoes and
Potawatamis, all friendly to the white man. The Omaha Reservation was
but a short distance away, and the Indians were bringing in skins, furs,
and buffalo hides and exchanging them for blankets, flour, coffee, and
the white man's "fire-water."
There were many emigrant wagons gathered in the wide straggling street,
between two rows of one-story shanties, and white men were trading with
red men, home-seekers anxiously seeking information, dogs were barking,
children crying, men arguing and swearing, while the patient oxen
hitched to the wagons breathed gusty sighs of rest, and the few women
who were on their way to a home in the new country west of the Missouri
looked on with troubled eyes or hurried in and out of the few straggling
shops making their purchases.
The Peniman family had all alighted from their wagons before the general
store, and while Mr. and Mrs. Peniman went in to make some purchases,
followed by David and the little girls, Joe and Lige stood outside,
looking with interested attention at the strange, novel spectacle of an
Indian trading-station.
They were watching some white men who were talking with a group of
Indians. Suddenly Joe pricked up his ears and walked nearer.
A tall, slenderly-built man, with a red, dissipated face, watery
red-lidded eyes, and longish red hair was holding out a string of beads
and jabbering in his own language to a tall, handsome young Indian who
had an otter pelt over his arm.
"Aw, don't you _do_ it," Joe burst out suddenly. "He's stringin' you!
That string of beads ain't worth twenty-five cents."
The young Indian turned and looked at him, and the man, turning several
shades redder than before, wheeled upon him with an oath.
"Mind your own business, you little pup," he roared, "who's askin' your
advice!"
Whether he understood what had been said or not, Joe did not know, but
the Indian turned and walked away, carrying the pelt with him. The man
strode up to Joe with a menacing attitude.
"I'll teach you to interfere in my business again, you meddlesome young
fool," he shouted, and raised his clenched fist. At this moment Mr. and
Mrs. Peniman came out of the store, followed by Ruth, Sara, and Nina
Carroll. Joshua Peniman, seeing his son threatened, hurried to his
side, and the man, with another great oath, turned and faced him.
As he did so the oath died on his lips, his eyes flew wide and his mouth
fell open, and the fiery color receded from his face, leaving it grey
and ashen.
Joe, staring at him, saw that his eyes were fixed upon Nina, with the
look of a man who sees an apparition from another world.
"What's the matter here?" cried Joshua Peniman. "Joe, what has this man
been doing to you?"
"Nothing," answered Joe with a laugh, "he's just mad because I busted up
his trade with an Indian. Say, what do you think, the old cheat was
tryin' to trade that young buck out of a splendid otter skin for a
string of nasty little cheap yellow beads!"
Joshua Peniman turned to the man, but he was paying no attention to
them. With eyes fixed on the face of the little Princess he stood
motionless, his thin, dissipated face almost white through its coat of
tan.
Mrs. Peniman, who saw the look, seized Nina by the hand and hurried her
away.
The man whirled upon Joshua Peniman.
"Who is that?" he demanded. "What's her name?"
"Who?" asked Mr. Peniman coolly. He too had seen the expression, and
was on his guard immediately.
"That--that girl! Where did she come from? What's her name?"
Ruth and Nina had come out of the store together. Joshua Peniman, whose
conscience would not let him lie, purposely misunderstood which little
girl he meant.
"That little girl is my daughter. Her name is Ruth Peniman. She comes
from the Muskingum Valley in Ohio," he answered.
The man stared at him with fiery eyes.
"Are you lying to me? If you are you'd better make your will right
now."
"I am not lying to you. I never lie. My name is Joshua Peniman. I and
my family are crossing the plains to Nebraska. The little girl you just
saw come out of that store with my wife is my daughter Ruth. This is my
son Joe."
The stranger turned and cast a snarling glance at the boy.
"He'd better not interfere in my business again, or his name'll be on a
coffin-plate," he growled, and moved away.
Joshua Peniman motioned to the wagons. "In with you, boys," he said in
a low voice, "we'll have to get away from here."
When they were in the wagons again and on the road he turned to his
wife.
"What does it mean?" he said in a voice so low that the little girls who
were in the back of the wagon dressing the china dolls they had bought
at the trading-station could not hear him. "What is this mystery that
is following us? It is evident that Nina is in danger from some
one--for some reason that we know nothing about. I shall be thankful
when we can put her into the hands of those who are in a better position
to protect her than we are."
"That man back there," breathed Mrs. Peniman, scarcely above a whisper,
"that horrible creature--thought--acted--_as if he knew her_!"
"He did know her--or he thought he did! He had some sort of a shock
when his eyes fell upon her. He was not sure, and I think I threw him
off the trail."
"It is strange--strange--in this vast new country--what can it mean?"
cried Mrs. Peniman, and gazed out over the prairies with brooding eyes.
*CHAPTER IX*
*RED SNAKE*
It had been Joshua Peniman's intention to pass the night at Council
Bluffs and cross the Missouri in the morning. But the events that had
transpired at the general store so alarmed him that he decided to leave
the trading-station at once, anxious to get the child who appeared to be
so surrounded by mystery away from the proximity of the stranger with
the degenerate, fox-like face.
They drove until dark along the banks of the river, then made their camp
in the woods in a place that looked sheltered and secure. They had
finished their supper and were preparing for bed when the young Indian,
whom Joe had advised not to trade his otter skin for the stranger's
worthless string of beads, came striding into their camp.
He walked straight up to Joe and held out his hand.
"Good boy," he said, greatly to the lad's astonishment. Then without
another word laid the otter skin in his hands.
"Hello," cried Joe, "where'd you come from?"
"Me Pashepaho. Son Pawnee chief. Spik li'le." Then looking down at
the otter skin--"Heap bad man."
"Who? Oh, the feller that was tryin' to do you out of this skin for a
string of beads? I should sa-ay so. He's a crook, he is. But say,
P--p----"
"Pashepaho. Son chief."
"Uh-huh," nodded Joe, to whom the son of a chief was no different from
any other Indian, "but look here, Pashepaho, you fellers ought to learn
the value of your goods and not let those thieving white men skin you
like that. I happen to know that this is a good otter skin, because my
uncle used to deal in furs and I've seen lots of 'em. Those beads he
was tryin' to trade you weren't worth a quarter."
"No?" the young Indian looked at him and a slow fire smouldered in his
eyes.
"White brother liar. Take 'way red man's land, take 'way red man's
furs, take 'way red man's wife, give red man fire-water."
Mr. Peniman had come up to hear what the Indian was saying. "That's
true," he said gravely, "the white men are setting a bad example to
their red brothers, I fear." Then after a moment's pause, "Do you know
who that man was, Pashepaho?"
"Red Snake. Heap bad man. Got bad heart. Trade with Indian. Live
Santee Sioux."