A MYSTERY OF THE PRAIRIE.
Two or three days after Fox Eye's accident, the camp moved again, back
to the little creek near the Sweet Grass Hills, which they had left only
a few days before. Here there were but few buffalo, and another move was
made, still further south, to a stream running into the Marias River.
After two or three short moves down this creek, buffalo were again found
plenty, and several successful chases were made. As the indications
seemed to be that the buffalo were more plenty east of the Marias, the
camp turned in that direction and moved on toward the Missouri River.
By this time, great stores of food had been accumulated by the Indians.
In every lodge were piled up parfleches of choice dried meat and back
fat and tongues. Many sacks of pemmican had been made, and Jack greatly
enjoyed seeing the old women at work, preparing this food. Every evening
there was feasting in the camp. Men invited their friends to eat with
them. Young people held dances, sometimes some of the societies held
their dances. Everybody was good natured, laughing, happy.
Hugh and Jack were often invited to feast by some of Hugh's friends, and
always accepted; and usually their hosts, perhaps on the suggestion of
Hugh, or perhaps of Pis'kun Monroe, invited Joe to these feasts, as
company for Jack. So it was that Joe, who under ordinary circumstances
would have been treated only as a boy who had never done anything, and
was as yet of no importance, came, through Jack's friendship, to be
regarded as a young man of promise, and to stand in the public
estimation, very high among the young men of the camp. Joe understood
perfectly, why it was that he received this consideration, and sometimes
used to talk to Jack about it, and to tell him that if it had not been
for Hugh and himself, none of these honours, that he was now receiving,
would have come to him.
Hugh, Jack and Joe took part in all the buffalo chases that were made,
and on one of these, Jack rode his new horse and carried only his bow
and arrows and his knife. On this chase he killed four cows which were
afterwards identified by the private mark which his arrows bore, as did
those of every other man in the camp. In this chase he let Joe ride
Pawnee, and Joe killed six cows, for of course he was much more
accustomed to the use of the bow, than was Jack. Often during these
days, Jack and Joe rode out together, both bareback, and carrying their
bows and several times coming upon single buffalo, they succeeded in
killing them and bringing them into the camp. Several times, too, they
came upon little herds of buffalo feeding or lying on the prairie, in
places where it was possible to creep up very close to them, and Jack,
who by this time had killed enough buffalo so that the novelty had worn
off, persuaded Joe to creep up near the great beasts, and to lie there
and watch them.
This was an amusement in which at first Joe scarcely sympathized. To
him a buffalo was only so much food, and yet after they had done this
once or twice, and had spent hours watching old cows lying there,
chewing their cud while the yellow calves played about them, or at other
times, slowly feeding along some little sag between two hills, or again,
steadily travelling along with ponderous tread and swinging heads and
beards sweeping the ground, Joe became as much interested in the study
of the ways of these great beasts as was his white companion. Often
mingled with a little group of buffalo would be a herd of antelope,
feeding perfectly at home with their huge companions, and perhaps, if
these started to walk in any direction, keeping along with them as if a
part of the herd. Once a group of buffalo and antelope passed so close
to the boys, lying on the hilltop, that Jack distinctly saw the nostrils
of the nearest antelope move and twitch as it walked by, while the great
bull near which it was, looked to the boy almost like a mountain.
One day, when the camp was near the Missouri River, Jack and Joe had
ridden out, Jack carrying his rifle and Joe his bow, over to where the
Bad Lands break away above the river. Far below them they could see the
stream winding about among the yellow verdureless bluffs, which were
gashed in all directions with ravines and canyons, and showed a curious
mingling of colours of red and gray and green and brown and yellow. Near
where they sat on their horses, a long point of level prairie stretched
out toward the stream, and Jack proposed that they leave their horses in
the hollow near where they were, and should walk out to the edge of the
prairie and look over. He wanted to get as nearly above the stream as he
could. He did not realise that several miles of broken Bad Lands lay
between the point of prairie and the river.
They walked out to the point and stood there looking down. The strange
scene had a fascination for Jack, who had never seen Bad Lands on so
great a scale as this. As he sat there looking at the scene and
wondering, Joe rose to his feet and walking a few yards southwards,
looked over the bluff there, and then turning, called in a low voice to
Jack. When he came up and followed Joe's glance, he saw down below them
on the bluff, a single buffalo slowly working its way up the steep
hillside, evidently coming from the river below. The height of the bluff
was great, and the buffalo seemed to find it a hard climb. He would
stick his toes into the soil and scramble half a dozen yards and then
stop to rest. Then he would ascend a few yards more and again stop.
The boys lay on the edge of the bank and watched the bull slowly clamber
toward them, and at length it reached the prairie only a few yards from
where they were, and stopping with a grunt, stood there panting. They
lay perfectly still and watched it, both feeling a little nervous as to
which way the bull might turn. Joe whispered to Jack, "Look out, my
friend, do not move, lie perfectly still. If he sees us he may rush upon
us and kill us." For several moments they lay there and watched, and at
last the buffalo slowly moved away and disappeared over a low hill. Then
they sat up, and Jack said to Joe, "Well, I'm mighty glad he's gone, I
tell you, he looked to me big and terrible. Of course, I suppose I
might have killed him if he had turned toward us, but I was mighty glad
when I saw him go the other way. Weren't you, Joe?"
"You bet I was," said Joe. "I was scared. Of course if he had come
toward us you might have killed him, but I couldn't have done anything
with my arrows; if he had come straight at us I'd have had to jump right
over the side of the bluff."
"Yes," said Jack, "I expect that's all we could have done. I guess we
could have dodged him there, but I'm glad we didn't have to try it."
The boys rose to their feet and went to the place where the buffalo had
come up on the prairie, and looking down over the almost vertical cliff,
they wondered how such a great and heavy beast could ever have climbed
up.
"I tell you," said Jack, "they must be strong. Just think of that big
animal climbing up the steep face of that bluff. I should have thought
he'd have fallen over backward and rolled down every time he tried to
take a step. It's wonderful."
"Oh!" said Joe, "I tell you a buffalo is a great, powerful beast. He's
strong and he never gets tired, and he's big, and then besides all that
he has got mysterious power. Maybe you don't believe that, but all the
old men will tell you it's so."
"Well," said Jack, "I've heard something about that from Hugh, but of
course I don't know anything except what I've been told; but Hugh says
that all the Indians believe the buffalo has this power."
"Well," said Joe, "it's so; he has."
They set out to return to their horses, walking along over the prairie
near where it broke off into the deep ravines running toward the river.
As they were crossing one of the little side gullies that ran into one
of these, Jack's eye was caught by an odd sparkle in the sand on the
floor of the ravine, and looking a second time, he saw something that
did not shine quite like a bit of gravel. He stepped toward it and saw
sticking out of the sand in the wash, a bit of yellow metal, and
stooping down, pulled from the soil what he took at first to be a used
cartridge shell. In a moment he saw that it was not this, and calling
Joe to him, said, "What can this be, Joe? I thought it was an old
cartridge shell, but it isn't, it looks like a little brass whistle with
the mouth part gone. You see this hole through the metal at the bottom,
there has been a string through that to hold it by." Joe looked at the
piece of metal which was a short tube closed at one end, and with a
projection at that end, which, as Jack said, had a hole in it and had
evidently served to tie the tube to something. "Why," said he, "that's a
powder charger. I never saw one made of brass before, but I've seen lots
made of horn and tin and copper. You fill this charger with powder from
your horn, and empty it into your gun; that's the way you measure the
charge."
"Oh yes," said Jack, "I've heard of that, but I never saw one before,
but look here," he added, "here is something scratched on it. What is
it?" And he rubbed the dust away with his finger and polished the metal
on his sleeve. "Why! it's 'B. L.,' those must be the initials of the man
who owned it; but I wonder how it came to be here. I suppose the man
was hunting or travelling about, and the string broke and he lost it,
and then finally it got washed into the gulch here."
"Yes," said Joe, "most likely that was it."
Jack put the charger in his pocket, and they went on; but hardly had
they come out of the gully, when Joe stopped, and stooping down took
hold of something at his feet. "Hold on, Jack," he said, "here is
something more," and turning, Jack saw Joe stooping over an old piece of
leather lying on the prairie. Joe took hold of the leather to lift it,
but when he pulled at it, it slipped through his fingers. "Why, it's
stuck fast," he said; and taking a hold of it again, he held it tighter
and pulled, and the leather began to tear, and as it tore, some
particles that looked like yellow gravel, escaped from the rent, and
slipped down on the prairie.
"That's queer," said Jack, and both boys went down on their knees beside
it. Jack picked up some of the grains that had escaped, and looked at
them. They were very heavy and looked like dull brass. Poking his
fingers through the rent in the leather, Joe felt about and poked out a
lot more of the gravel, while Jack kept gathering it up in his hand and
looking at it. Suddenly Jack's jaw dropped, and he looked at Joe with
wide open eyes, while a frightened expression came on his face. "Joe,"
he said in a whisper, "do you know, I believe this is gold."
"You're crazy;" said Joe. "You must be very crazy. Who would leave gold
lying out here on the prairie? I never heard of anything like that."
"But, Joe," said Jack, "feel how heavy it is, it must be gold. Nobody
would carry brass around in a buckskin package and leave it here on the
prairie any more than they would gold. Somebody must have been
travelling here and lost this off his horse. This must be worth a lot of
money. Now let's gather it up carefully and take it into camp and show
it to Hugh, and see what he says. He'll know, dead sure."
The boys did not know how to get this on their horses without losing any
of it. Evidently this old buckskin sack had lain there so long, that it
was rotten and would not hold together. With their knives they dug
carefully about the sack and as they dug, they found that it was in part
buried in the soil, so that there was more of it below the surface of
the prairie than above. Jack took off his hat and placed in it all the
grains that they could gather up, and then digging deeply around the
sack, they at length got below it.
"Now, Joe," said Jack, "there's only one thing to do that I can think
of, to carry this stuff in the camp. We've got to have something that's
strong and something that has no holes in it, so that none of the dust
can get out; and the only thing of that kind that we have with us, is
one of your leggings. Take off your leggings and we'll tie up the end of
one of them and slip this bag and the dirt into the other end, and then
tie that up and we can put it across a horse."
They did this, but it was not easy to do. In the first place the lump of
dirt which held the sack was large, heavy and very frail, so that when
they tried to lift it, it looked as if it would break in two. Instead
of lifting it, therefore, they put the legging down on the ground, and
while they lifted the lump of earth little by little, they slipped the
side of the legging under it, until the whole mass was within the
buckskin covering. Then they tied each end of the legging firmly with
buckskin strings, and started to put it on the horse. It was very heavy.
Joe said it weighed as much as half a sack of flour, that is, fifty
pounds.
Both boys were in a high state of excitement and talked to each other in
whispers, and kept looking guiltily over their shoulders in all
directions, as if they were committing some crime. No doubt their notion
was, that some one else might appear on the scene and lay claim to a
portion of this treasure that they had found. Presently they mounted and
set out for the camp, Jack keeping one hand behind him on the precious
bundle that was tied behind his saddle, while Joe rode with his horse's
head at Jack's knee, and kept his eyes fixed on the load.
"How much do you suppose there is, Joe?" said Jack.
"Why, I don't know," said Joe; "must be a hundred dollars worth of it,
if it's gold."
"A hundred dollars! Pooh, Joe, you don't know anything," was the reply.
"You said it weighed fifty pounds, and if it weighs as much as that,
there must be thousands of dollars worth."
"My!" said Joe, "is there as much as that? I know what I'll do."
"What?" said Jack.
"I'll get me a good gun," replied Joe, "that's all I want, a good gun,
and maybe a good buffalo horse."
"Why," said Jack, "if that's gold you can buy yourself all the guns and
all the horses you want, and a lodge for yourself and still have plenty
left."
"What'll you do, Jack, with yours?" said Joe.
"Oh, I don't know," said Jack, "I'd like to buy a lot of nice furs and
robes to take home, but I expect we've got trade stuff enough to buy
those things with, maybe I'll just take it home as it is. But hold on,"
he said, as a sudden thought struck him. "This doesn't belong to me;
this is yours, you found it."
"No I didn't," said Joe, "we both found it together, and anyhow if you
hadn't been along, I'd have just left it there; I wouldn't have carried
a lot of yellow sand into the camp. I never saw anything like this
before, and I'd a-thought it was just some kind of queer gravel. We have
been partners right along, almost since you came into the camp, and
we've got to be partners now."
"Well," said Jack, "we'll see what Hugh says about it. After all maybe
it isn't anything. I've heard my uncle talk about fool's gold, and one
day when we were coming up, I picked up apiece of yellow heavy stuff
like this and asked Hugh what it was, and he told me some queer name
that I can't remember, and then said some folks called it fool's gold,
and he cracked it on the axe and it broke into little pieces. It looked
something like this stuff we've got only the edges were sharp and not
round like this, and it was bright and shiny too, and not dull, the way
this is."
"Oh, I hope that this _is_ gold, it will be great."
When they reached camp, they unsaddled and carefully carried their
bundle into Pis'kun's lodge. Hugh was not there, but the boys were too
impatient to wait for him long, and after a few moments, Jack left Joe
on guard over the bundle, while he started out through the camp to find
Hugh. Soon he came upon him, sitting in the shade of the lodges, smoking
and talking with Last Bull and another old man, and going up to him with
an air of much mystery, he asked him if he wouldn't come to the lodge.
Hugh rose and accompanied him, looking at him meanwhile, with an
expression of amused curiosity, for the boy was evidently big with some
secret which he was anxious to reveal.
When they were seated in the lodge, the boys began to untie their
bundle, and while doing so, told Hugh the story of their find. As they
talked, his interest increased, and before the contents of the legging
had been turned out into the pan borrowed from Pis'kun's wife, he was as
much excited as the boys themselves. The legging was lifted up and
slowly the mass of dirt mingled with yellow grains slipped out into the
pan, and the moment that Hugh saw it he said, "By the Lord, boys, you've
surely struck it." He took up one of the larger grains, bit it, tried it
with his knife and then whispered impressively, "It's gold." For an hour
or two all three were busy cleaning the grass, the soil and bits of
rotten buckskin from among the yellow grains, which half filled the pan.
When this was done, Hugh lifted it from the ground, and after weighing
it carefully in his hand, said, "Boys, there must be twenty-five pounds
of this dust. I wouldn't be surprised if there was five or six thousand
dollars right here in that pan."
"My," said Jack, "that's an awful lot of money."
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's a lot of money. But how did it get there?
That's what I want to know. We will have to go there to-morrow and look
the ground over right carefully; somebody must have dropped that sack
there, right on the prairie. Didn't you see nothing else there?"
"No," said Jack, "nothing; it was just lying there half covered up by
the dirt and the grass, and Joe walked right over it before he saw it."
"Hold on, Jack," said Joe, "show White Bull that powder charger."
"That's so," said Jack, and he fished the tube out of his pocket.
Hugh looked at it carefully from all sides and pondered. After he had
thought a little while, he said, "Look here boys, this is queer. I have
seen that powder charger before, and I know the man that made it.
'B. L.,' that's Baptiste Lajeunesse, he was one of the old time trappers
and I was in Benton when he made that charger. That's gold too. It was
more than thirty years ago. Bat had just come in from the mountains with
a big lot of furs, and sold them and got his money, and had started out
to have a good time. Just before he got into the Post though, he had
lost his charger. It was one, made him long before, out of a piece of
mountain sheep's horn, by a great friend, and he thought the world of
it. He kept talking all the time about that charger, and when he began
to spend his money and to drink, he talked about it more and more. Now,
Bat was a pretty handy man with tools, and when he was a boy, he had
been blacksmith at the Hudson Bay Co., and that afternoon, when he was
pretty drunk, as he was going along the street, he suddenly stopped and
ran into the blacksmith shop and took a hammer and fished a twenty
dollar gold piece out of his pocket, and began to hammer it out on the
anvil, and before any of us knew what he was after, he had made himself
this charger and scratched his initials on it, and tied it with a string
to his shirt in front, where he used to carry his old charger when he
was in town. A few days after that, after Bat had spent all his money,
he started off again into the mountains, and I have never seen him from
that day to this.
"Now it would be mighty curious," the old man went on, "if there was any
connection between that charger and this sack of dust. I don't see how
there could be, and I don't see how we are likely to find out anything
about it; but anyhow, we'll go back there to-morrow and see."
Hugh covered the pan of gold with some robes, and told Jack and Joe to
remain in the lodge while he went out. Half an hour later, he returned
with a heavy double sack of buckskin into which the gold was poured, and
this sack was put in a partly empty sack of flour, the flour being
packed around the gold and on top of it, so that there seemed to be
nothing but flour in the sack, which was then placed under the other
property belonging to Hugh and Jack, between their beds.