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Transcriber's note:
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been retained as in the original.
THE WATCHERS OF THE PLAINS
A Tale of the Western Prairies
by
RIDGWELL CULLUM
With Frontispiece by J. C. Leyendecker
[Illustration: HIS EYES WERE INTENT UPON THE DARK HORIZON]
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers :: New York
Copyright, 1909, by
George W. Jacobs and Company
Published March, 1909
To
B. W. M.
my good friend and counselor
I affectionately dedicate
this book
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A Letter 9
II. On the Plains 17
III. An Alarm in Beacon Crossing 28
IV. Rosebud 41
V. A Birthday Gift 54
VI. A Newspaper 69
VII. An Indian Pow-Wow 76
VIII. Seth Washes a Handkerchief 87
IX. The Adventures of Red Riding Hood 97
X. Seth Attempts to Write a Letter 108
XI. The Letter Written 118
XII. Cross Purposes 127
XIII. The Devotion of Wanaha 135
XIV. The Warning 144
XV. The Movements of Little Black Fox 154
XVI. General Distinguishes Himself 162
XVII. The Letter from England 173
XVIII. Seth's Duty Accomplished 184
XIX. Seth Plays a Strong Hand 197
XX. Seth Pays 207
XXI. Two Heads in Conspiracy 217
XXII. Rosebud's Answer 227
XXIII. Love's Progress 239
XXIV. Rosebud's Fortune 254
XXV. In Which the Undercurrent Belies the Superficial Calm 267
XXVI. The Sun-Dance 283
XXVII. In Desperate Plight 294
XXVIII. A Last Adventure 304
XXIX. Hard Pressed 315
XXX. The Last Stand 327
XXXI. The Sentence 337
XXXII. Wanaha the Indian 346
XXXIII. The Capitulation 359
THE WATCHERS OF THE PLAINS
CHAPTER I
A LETTER
A solitary hut, dismal, rectangular, stands on the north bank of the White
River. Decay has long been at work upon it, yet it is still weather-proof.
It was built long before planks were used in the Bad Lands of Dakota. It
was built by hands that aimed only at strength and durability, caring
nothing for appearances. Thus it has survived where a lighter construction
must long since have been demolished.
And it still affords habitation for man. The windows have no glass; the
door is a crazy affair; there is an unevenness in the setting of the
lateral logs which compose its walls; the reed thatching has been patched
where the weather has rotted it; and here and there small spreads of
tarpaulin lend their aid in keeping out the snows of winter and the storms
of summer. It occupies its place, a queer, squat sentry, standing midway
between the cattle ford and the newer log wagon-bridge lower down the
river toward its mouth, where it joins the giant Missouri some two
hundred miles distant. It backs into the brush fringing the wood-lined
river bank, and is dangerously sheltered from the two great Indian
Reservations on the other side of the river. Dangerously, because it is at
all times dangerous to live adjacent to woods when so near such a restless
race as the Indians on the Rosebud and the Pine Ridge Reservations. Still,
it has stood there so long, and yet bears no sign of hostile action
directed against it by the warlike Sioux, that it seems safe to reckon it
will continue to stand there in peace until decay finishes it off. And the
fact is significant.
Those who lived in that hut must have had reason to know that they dwelt
there in safety.
The present tenant of the hut is a white man. He is seated on the tread of
his crazy doorway, holding an open letter in one hand, while he stares in
an unpleasantly reflective manner out across the prairie in front of him.
And the letter, which is slowly crumpling under the clutch of his nervous
fingers, is worthy of attention, for it is written on crested paper which
is blue. And the ink is blue, too, and might reasonably indicate the tone
of the blood of the sender, though hardly of the recipient.
Still appearances are deceptive on the prairie with regard to human
beings, even more so perhaps than elsewhere. This man has a something
about him which speaks of a different life--a life where people live in
greater ease and more refined surroundings. But even so, his face is very
mean and narrow; an appearance in nowise improved by its weather-stained,
unwashed condition.
Nevil Steyne--for that is the man's name--has read the letter, and now he
is thinking about it. And as he thinks, and mentally digests that which a
right-minded man would accept as its overwhelmingly kindly tone, his anger
rises slowly at first, but ever higher and higher, till it culminates in a
bitter, muttered exclamation.
"The crawler!" he said under his breath.
Suddenly he looked down at the paper, and proceeded to straighten it out.
And his pale blue eyes were glittering as he read the letter again from
beginning to end. The very crest at the top was an aggravation to him. And
he conjured meaning between the lines as he went, where meaning lay only
in what was written.
The heading bore a date at New York. It had been written on the second of
June--ten days earlier. And it was a letter that should have put joy into
his heart, rather than have raised his anger and hatred.
"MY DEAR BROTHER (it ran)--
"It is possible that a letter from me may not be as welcome as I try
to hope. I can only trust that your resentment against me has abated
in these long twelve years since you cut yourself out of my life. I
know you blamed me for what happened at our father's death. You said
nothing, would not see me, or the whole thing could have been
adjusted then. You went off believing what was not true. Whether
father treated you justly or unjustly you are the best judge. From my
point of view it was the latter. It was always a mystery to me that
he cut you out of his will. I was as disappointed as you, and it is
for that reason that, for twelve years, I have been seeking you, to
restore to you your share of the property. My dear boy, I'm sure you
cannot imagine what joy it is to me that at last I am able to write
this, that at last I shall be able to say it to you. We both know
what a martinet father was, and what a disappointment it was to him
when you refused to adopt the army and join me in following in the
old boy's footsteps, but, unless there was something else between
you, that was insufficient reason for the injustice of his will.
"Well, all that is past now. What I have set aside as your share is
untouched, and has been accumulating all these years. It is waiting
for you. If you refuse it, I shall never touch it. In that case it
remains tied up for my little daughter, at such time as she shall
marry. But of course I have done this only as an emergency. You will
not, I know, refuse it.
"Thank God, I have found you at last, dear old boy! Now, listen! I
have set my plans with great care, and hope you will appreciate them.
I do not want to subject you to any curiosity among our friends--you
know how inquisitive people are--so I have come out here ostensibly
on a big game shoot in the Rockies. Alice, my wife--you remember
Alice Travers--and little Marjorie, our daughter, are with me. They
know nothing of my secret. We shall break our journey at Sioux City,
and then come across to you by road. And, lo! when we arrive my
little surprise for them--Marjorie finds an uncle, Alice a brother.
"In conclusion, I hope to be with you on the 16th at latest; we shall
come by way of the south bank of the Missouri River, then across the
Pine Ridge Reservation, and so on to Beacon Crossing. I hope to find
you as young in spirit as ever. I have many gray hairs, but no
matter, so long as I find you well I shall be more than satisfied.
_Au revoir._
"Your affectionate
"LANDOR."
"_Au revoir_," muttered the man, as he viciously tore the letter into the
minutest fragments, and ground them into the hard earth with a ruthless
heel. "_Au revoir_," he said again, and louder. Then he laughed. "But we
haven't met yet. Why should I take a share when you and your wife, and
your brat are the only people who stand between me and the lot?"
And after that he relapsed into silence, and his thoughts flew on apace.
The unwashed face grew meaner and more brooding, the fair brows drew
closer over the large blue eyes, the jaws were shut as tight as they well
could be, for he was painfully overshot, and his chin was almost hidden,
so far receding was it under the long, drooping, tobacco-stained
moustache.
That letter, it would seem, required no depth of thought, unless it were
the happy thought that he possessed such a brother. It seemed to be a
moment for nothing but happiness. And in such a man one might reasonably
have expected to see him mount the horse tethered a few yards away in
front of the hut, and ride into Beacon Crossing, where he could tell his
associates of his good fortune, and celebrate it in the usual manner.
But there was nothing of happiness in the face that stared so steadily out
at the hazy sky-line in the direction of the Cheyenne Reservation away to
the north. There was a hard look, such as is to be seen only in pale blue
eyes;--a look of unyielding hatred and obstinacy; a look which, combined
with the evident weakness of character displayed in his features,
suggested rather the subtle treachery of a coward than the fierce
resentment of a brave man.
Never was a character more fully laid bare than was his at that moment. He
was conscious of his isolation. There was no one to see. He hated his
brother as a weak nature hates a strong. He hated him because years ago
he, Nevil, had refused to go into the army for the reason of an obstinate
cowardice, while his younger brother gladly embraced the profession of
which their father, the stern old general, had been such an honored
member. And so he had eschewed his mother country, leaving England, when
he had been disinherited, for the wilderness of South Dakota, and had
become one of those stormy petrels which, in those days, were ever to be
found hovering about the territory set apart for the restless Indians.
Yes, and with his destruction of that kindly, simple letter his resolve
had been taken. He would have nothing at the hands of the man who had
ousted him.
It was not thoughts of his resolve that gave his face its look of
treacherous cunning now, but something else. Something which kept him
sitting on his door-step thinking, thinking, until the sun had set and the
twilight darkened into night. Something which, during that time, brought
cruel smiles to his lips, and made him glance round on either side at the
brush that marked the boundary of the Sioux camping ground.
Something which at last made him rise from his hard seat and fetch out his
saddle from within the hut. Then he brought his horse in from its
tethering ground, and saddled it, and rode off down to the ford, and on to
the tepee of old Big Wolf, the great chief, the master mind that planned
and carried out all the bloody atrocities of the Pine Ridge Indian
risings.
"_Au revoir_, eh?" this tall renegade muttered, as he dismounted before
the smoke-begrimed dwelling. "There's only we two, Landor; and your
precious wife and child, and they are--no, we haven't met yet." And he
became silent as he raised the hide door of the tepee, and, without
announcing himself, stepped within.
The dark, evil-smelling interior was lit only by the smouldering embers of
a small wood-fire in the centre of the great circle. Though it was summer
these red heritors of the land could not do without their fire at
night-time, any more than they could do without their skins and frowsy
blankets. Nevil Steyne glanced swiftly over the dimly outlined faces he
saw looming in the shadows. The scene was a familiar one to him, and each
face he beheld was familiar. The puffy, broad face of the great chief, the
fierce, aquiline features of the stripling who was sitting beside him, and
who was Big Wolf's fifteen-year-old son, and the dusky, delicate,
high-caste features of the old man's lovely daughter, Wanaha.
He saw all these and entered in silence, leaving his well-trained horse to
its own devices outside. He closed up the doorway behind him, and squatted
upon his haunches in their midst.
Big Wolf removed the long-stemmed, red-clay pipe from his lips and held it
out to the newcomer. The newcomer took it while the other said "How." And
all those about him followed suit and welcomed the white man in chorus
with this customary greeting.
Then a conversation started which lasted far into the night. It entailed
much subtle argument on the part of the visitor, and the introduction of
many dusky warriors into the tepee, who also smoked the pipe in council,
with many deliberate grunts of approval at the words of wisdom the white
adviser spoke.
And all this was the result of that crested letter.