March 9, 1804.
_Inhabitants of Upper Louisiana_:
By the King’s command, I am about to deliver up this post and
its dependences!
The flag under which you have been protected for a period of
nearly thirty-six years is to be withdrawn. From this moment
you are released from the oath of fidelity you took to support
it.
The speech was hard to understand, but there it was, tacked up on the
white man’s talking paper. Moreover, the good governor had made a talk
for the Indians also, his red children. He had said:
Your old fathers, the Spaniard and the Frenchman, who grasp by
the hand your new father, the head chief of the United States,
by an act of their good will, and in virtue of their last
treaty, have delivered up to them all these lands. They will
keep and defend them, and protect all the white and red skins
who live thereon.
For several days we have fired off cannon shots to announce to
all the nations that your father, the Spaniard, is going, his
heart happy to know that you will be protected and sustained by
your new father, and that the smoke of the powder may ascend to
the Master of Life, praying him to shower on you all a happy
destiny and prosperity in always living in good union with the
whites.
Up the great river and into the west, by traders and runners had come
the tidings.
Who were these United States? What kind of a man was the new white
father? He was sending a party of his warriors, bearing presents
and peace talk. They already had ascended the big river, past the
mouth of the Platte. They had dispatched messengers to the Otoes and
the Missouris, asking them to come in to council. But the Otoes and
Missouris had left their village where they lived with their friends
the Pawnees, in order to hunt the buffalo before gathering their corn,
and only by accident had the invitation reached them.
Then Shon-go-ton-go and We-the-a and Shos-gus-can and others had gone;
and had returned safe and satisfied. They had returned laden with
gifts――paint and armlets and powder, and medals curiously figured,
hung around their necks by the two white chiefs themselves. They had
hastened to seek out We-ah-rush-hah, the head chief, in his camp, and
report.
The white chiefs were waiting to treat with him, as was proper, and
they had sent to him a bright colored flag, and ornaments, and a medal.
“What do the white chiefs want?” queried We-ah-rush-hah.
“They say that the new white father will be generous with the Otoes and
Missouris, and wishes us to be at peace with our enemies.”
“Will he protect us from those robbers, the Omahas?”
“He wishes us to make peace with the Omahas. The United States would
go with us to the Omahas, but we told them we were afraid. We are poor
and weak and the Omahas would kill us.”
“Good,” approved We-ah-rush-hah.
“There are two of the white chiefs,” added We-the-a, or Hospitable One,
the Missouri chief. “They wear long knives by their sides. Their hair
is of strange color. The hair of one is yellow like ripe corn; the hair
of the other is red as pipe-stone. The Red Head is big and pleasant;
the yellow-haired one is slim and very straight, and when he speaks he
does not smile. Yes, the Red Head is a buffalo, but the other is an
elk.”
“They have three boats,” added Shos-gus-can, or White Horse, who was
an Oto. “One boat is larger than any boat of any trader. It has a gun
that talks in thunder. Of the other boats, one is painted white, one is
painted red. The chiefs are dressed in long blue shirts that glitter
with shining metal. The party are strong in arms. They have much guns,
and powder and lead, and much medicine. They have a gun that shoots
with air, and shoots many times. It is great medicine. They have a man
all black like a buffalo in fall, with very white teeth and short black
hair, curly like a buffalo’s. He is great medicine. They carry a white
flag with blue and red borders. Red, white and blue are their medicine
colors. The flag is their peace sign. There are French with them, from
below, and another, a trader from the Sioux. They received us under a
white lodge, and have named the place the Council-bluffs. They must be
of a great nation.”
“I will go and see these United States, and talk with them,”
announced Little Thief, majestically. “Their presents have been good,
their words sound good. It is unwise to refuse gifts laid upon the
prairie. If indeed we have a new father for all the Indians, maybe by
listening to his chiefs we can get more from him than we did from our
Spanish father. I will go and talk, at the burnt Omaha village. Let
the four white men who have come with gifts and a message, seeking
brothers-who-have-run-away, be well treated, so that we shall be well
treated also.”
Then the council broke up.
On the outskirts, a boy, Little White Osage, had listened with all his
ears. The affair was very interesting. A hot desire filled his heart to
go, himself, and see these United States warriors, with their painted
boats and their marvelous guns and their black medicine-man and their
two chiefs whose hair was different, like his own hair.
His own hair was brown and fine instead of being black and coarse, and
his eyes were blue instead of black, and his skin, even in its tan, was
light instead of dark. Sometimes he was puzzled to remember just how
he had come among the Otoes. He did not always feel like an Indian. To
be sure, he had been bought from the Osages by the Otoes; but away,
’way back there had been a woman, a light-haired, soft-skinned woman,
among the Osages, who had kissed him and hugged him and had taught him
a language that he well-nigh had forgotten.
Occasionally one of those strange words rose to his lips, but he rarely
used it, because the Osages, and now the Otoes, did not wish him to use
it.
The Otoes called him Little White Osage, as a kind of slur. Nobody
kissed him and hugged him, but in their ill-natured moments the Oto
squaws beat him, and the children teased him. The squaws never beat the
other boys. Antoine, the French trader, was kinder to him. But Antoine
had married an Oto woman, and all his children were dark and Indian.
“At the burnt Omaha village,” had said Chief Little Thief.
Little White Osage knew where this was. The United States chiefs,
by their messengers, had invited Little Thief to meet them at the
principal Omaha Indian village, so that peace might be made between
the Omahas and the Otoes. But the village had been smitten by a
sickness――the smallpox, old Antoine had named it, and the frightened
Omahas had burned their lodges and had fled, such as were able. Only
the site of the village remained, and its graves.
It would be of no use to try to go with the chief’s party. They would
not want boys, and especially a boy who was not like other Indian boys,
and bore a name of the hated Osages. Therefore, this night, in the
dusk, he slipped from under his thin blanket in the skin lodge, where
slumbered old Antoine and family, and scuttled, bending low, out into
the prairie.
He would have sought the four white men who had come from the United
States chiefs’ camp, but they had left, looking for two other men who
had strayed. And besides, he didn’t feel certain that they would help
him.
The prairie was thick with high grasses, and with bushes whereon
berries were ripening; he wore only a cloth about his waist, on his
feet moccasins, but he did not mind, for his skin was tough. He carried
his bow, of the yellow osage wood, and slung under his left arm his
badger-hide quiver containing blunt reed arrows.
The damp night air was heavy with smoke, for the prairies had been
fired in order to drive out the game. Now and then he startled some
animal. Eyes glowed at him, and disappeared, and a shadowy form loped
away. That was a wolf. He was not afraid of any cowardly wolf. Larger
forms bolted, with snorts. They were antelope. To a tremendous snort
a much larger form bounded from his path. That was an elk. But he
hastened on at a trot and fast walk, alert and excited, his nostrils
and eyes and ears wide, while he ever kept the North Star before him on
his left.
It seemed long ere in the east, whither he was hurrying, the stars were
paling. On his swift young legs he had covered many miles. None of the
Oto or Missouri boys could have done better, but he simply had to
rest. The dawn brightened; he should eat and hide himself and sleep. So
he paused, to make plans.
“Wah!” And “Hoorah!” “Hoorah!” was one of those strange words which
would rise to his lips. Far before him, although not more than three or
four hours’ travel, was a low line of trees marking the course of the
big river. He took a step; from a clump of brush leaped a rabbit――and
stopped to squat. Instantly Little White Osage had strung bow, fitted
arrow, and shot. The arrow thudded, the rabbit scarcely kicked. Picking
him up, Little White Osage trotted on, his breakfast in hand.
Now he smelled smoke stronger, and scouting about he cautiously
approached a smouldering camp-fire. Omahas? But he espied nobody
moving, or lying down. It was an old camp-fire. Around it he discovered
in the dust that had been stirred up, the prints of boots. The white
men had been here――perhaps the messengers to the camp of Little Thief.
Good! He might cook his rabbit; and sitting, he did cook it after he
had built the fire into more heat. He ate. Then he curled in the grass,
like a brown rabbit himself, and slept.
When he wakened, the sun was high. He stretched; peered, to be safe;
drank from a nearby creek, and set forward again. Nearer he drew to
the big river, and nearer; and he had to move more carefully lest the
Omahas should be lurking at their village, and sight him. The Omahas
would be glad to capture anybody from the Otoes. There was no peace
between the two peoples.
The ruined village lay lifeless and black, with its graves on the hill
above it. He circled the village, and found a spot whence he could gaze
down.
The broad big river flowed evenly between its low banks; curving amidst
the willows and cottonwoods and sand-bars, it was the highway for the
great white village of “San Loui’,” at its mouth many days to the
south. It led also up into the country of the Mandans and the fierce
Sioux, in the unknown north. And yonder, on a sand sprit above the
mouth of the Omaha Creek, was the white chiefs’ camp!
With his sharp eyes Little White Osage eagerly surveyed. Three boats
there were, just as said by Shos-gus-can: one painted white, and one
painted red, and one very large, fastened in the shallows. On the sand
were kettles, over fires, and many men moving about, or lying under a
canopy; and a red, white and blue flag flying in the breeze.
A party were leaving the camp, and coming toward him. They could not
see him――he was too cleverly hidden in the bushes, above. Wading
through the grasses waist high they made for the creek and halted
where the beavers had dammed it into a pond. These were white men,
surely. They numbered the fingers on two hands, and three more fingers.
They carried guns, and a net of branches and twigs; and one, a tall
straight man, wore at his side a long knife in a sheath which flashed.
He had on his head a queer three-cornered covering. He was the leader,
for when he spoke and pointed, the other men jumped to obey.
They walked into the water, to net fish. They hauled and tugged and
plashed and laughed and shouted; and when they emerged upon the bank
again their net was so heavy that the leader sprang to help them. He
tossed aside his head covering. His hair was bright like ripe corn. One
of the two chiefs, he!
What a lot of fish they brought out! Hundreds of them sparkled in the
sun. This sport continued until near sunset, when the men all went
away, to eat and sleep.
At dusk Little White Osage stole down to the creek. Some of the fish
were scattered about, but they were stiff and dull; he could not eat
them without cooking them and he was afraid to risk a fire. So he
gathered mussels and clams, and these were pretty good, raw.
That night the camp-fires of the “’Nited States” warriors blazed on the
beach at the river; in the grasses of a hollow above the creek Little
White Osage finally slept.
Therefore another morning dawned and found him still here, waiting to
see what the new whites would do next. But he must not be caught by
Chief Little Thief and old Antoine, or they would punish him.
The United States were eating. Almost could he smell the meat on the
fires. After eating, the camp busied itself in many ways. Some of the
men again walked up the creek. Others raised a pole, or mast, on the
largest boat. Others swam and frolicked in the river. Evidently the
camp was staying for the arrival of We-ah-rush-hah.
But that meat! The thought of it made the mouth of Little White Osage
to water. Well, he must go and find something and cook it where he
would be safe, and then return to those women and children who did not
like him. He had seen the “’Nited States,” and their chief with the
yellow hair. Maybe he had seen the red-hair chief, too.
He crept on hands and knees, until he might trudge boldly, aiming
northward so as not to meet with Little Thief. When after a time he
looked back, toward the river, he saw a great smoke rising. The United
States had set the prairie afire!
Hah! That they had! Did they set the prairie afire just to burn him, a
boy? Had they known that he was watching them, and had that made them
angry? The smoke increased rapidly――broadened and billowed. The prairie
breeze puffed full and strong from the southeast, and the pungent odor
of burning grasses swept across his quivering nostrils. The fire was
pursuing him. It had cut off any retreat to the big river waters; it
was swifter than an antelope, on his trail. Very cunning and cruel were
those “’Nited States” men.
Through the tall dry grasses strained Little White Osage, seeking
refuge. He sobbed in his husky throat. If he might but reach that line
of sand hills, yonder, they would break the wall of fire and save him.
It was such a big fire to send after such a small boy. Now the sun was
veiled by the scudding smoke, and the wind blew acrid and hot. Before
him fled animals――racing antelope and bounding elk, galloping wolves
and darting birds. They were fast; but he――alas, he was too slow, and
he was weak and tired. Was he to be burned? He threw aside his quiver,
and next his bow. They felt so heavy.
The fire was close. He could hear the crackle and the popping as it
devoured everything. The sand hills were mocking him; they seemed to
sneak backward as he toiled forward. Suddenly, panting and stumbling,
he burst into a little clearing, where the grasses were short. In the
midst of the clearing lay the carcass of a buffalo bull.
With dimmed staring eyes Little White Osage, casting wildly about for
shelter, saw. He saw the carcass, partially cut up; the meat had been
piled on the hide, as if the hunters had left, to get it another time;
and on the meat was planted a ramrod or wiping-stick, with a coat hung
on it, to keep off the wolves. But nobody was here.
Not in vain had Little White Osage been trained to look out for
himself. Now he knew what he could do. He staggered for the meat-pile;
frantically tore it away, but not to eat it. He barely could lift the
great hide, but lift it he did; wriggled underneath, drew it over him,
and crouched there, gasping.
Crackle, pop, roar――and the wall of fire charged the clearing, dashed
into it, licked hotly across it, and snatched at the robe. He felt
the robe shrivel and writhe, and smelled the stench of sizzling flesh
and hair. He could scarcely breathe. Over him the buffalo hide was
scorching through and through. How the fire roared, how the wind
blew; but neither fire nor wind could get at him through that tough,
inch-thick canopy. Almost smothered by heat and smoke, Little White
Osage cringed, waiting. He was a wee bit afraid.
Soon he knew that the fire had passed. He ventured to raise an edge of
the hide and peek from under. Smoke wafted into his face and choked
him. Black lay the cindered land around; the fire was surging on to the
west, where the sand hills would stop it, but it had mowed a path too
hot to walk on, yet. He must stay awhile.
He reached out a hand and dragged to him a piece of the charred
bloody buffalo meat, and nibbled at it. Over him the buffalo hide
had stiffened, to form a pup-tent; and really he was not so very
uncomfortable. He ate, and stretching the best that he might, pillowed
his face on his bended arm. Next, he was asleep――tired Little White
Osage.
He slept with an ear open, for voices and tread of feet aroused him.
People were coming. He craned his neck to peer about――and ducked
further inside, like a turtle inside its shell.
Two persons had arrived in the clearing. They were walking straight
toward him. They were white men. They were some of those United States
warriors!
A moment more, and a heavy foot kicked the hide――thump!――and hands
ruthlessly overthrew it. Exposed, Little White Osage sprang erect,
gained his feet at a bound, stood bravely facing the two warriors of
the “’Nited States.” He would not show them that he feared.
“B’gorry,” exclaimed a voice, “here’s a quare pea in a pod!”