DRAWING TO A HEAD.
Red Knife blew his war whistle loudly. This was the cue for forty
men to spring on their ponies. The chief took the lead and all tore
away like fiends over the level ground. They soon "fanned out" there,
banishing their guns over their heads, tossing up war clubs and
catching them when all but touching the ground, juggling with their
knives and pistols, all without drawing rein; executing, in fact,
circus feats, after the manner of the Arabs, who employ this same
method, or _fantasia_, to greet a celebrity. On his part, the trapper
was riding a steed without any harness whatever--one that he had caught
astray from the unfortunate Half-breed detachment that "bunked up"
against the Cherokee. Except for the lasso which had ensnared it, and
which served as a halter, it obeyed the rider by his voice and slap of
the hand, and was restrained from rebellion by the threatening pressure
of his knees, with which he would have crushed in the ribs.
This simple show of arrogant horsemanship delighted the Piegans, who
journey oftenest on foot, and they all fired off their guns. Then,
forming a line abreast under cover of the smoke, they charged with a
prodigious howling, but when almost overwhelming the solitary rider,
they reined up by a miracle of skill, as if their poor broken-jawed
horses had suddenly taken root in the ground.
Jim had come on at the same round pace, as if the yelling cavalcade
were miles remote. He had been too long identified with Indian
customs not to see in this demonstration what it really was--a strong
manifestation of the regard he was held in, and their joy at his
venturing by himself in their midst.
Red Knife and the others now fell in as an escort, and so accompanied
him to the encampment, where the tedious ceremony of reception had to
be gone through. The _Grand Monarch_, in all his glories, was not more
punctilious than the Indians in their refined etiquette. The whole
performances, as Bill termed them to Doña Rosario, were bound to last
an hour, and they protracted them to half as much again.
Old Ridge supported them like a king to the manner born. No such trifle
was going to hinder him from his purpose.
Whilst the warriors continued their rejoicings, the chiefs went into
the medicine lodge, and more solemnly received Ridge there, the
Cherokee being his sponsor.
The Old Yager was in a predicament. The red men wanted him to
co-operate with them in a league of the Indians against the whites
east, south, and north; but as this would have been treachery, or at
least apostasy, they had to lessen their desires gradually during
a long discussion. As Jim said, he pared the proposition down till
it came to a smaller head! The Yellowstone Basin was to be defended
from all comers. On his side, Jim promised that none of the trappers,
hunters, Scotch Canadians, and whoever might rally to him should enter
the Firehole Region. Kidd, the Half-breeds of Red River, and any
scoundrels who flocked to them as the redskins advanced and swept the
country, were to be destroyed.
"You will have all the fighting you hunger for," remarked Jim drily,
"with these rascals, without wanting to go on and injure the _Bostons_,
or King George's men."
As the pact was clear for the morrow, and the savages do not look
forward beyond a day, the utmost good feeling remained.
Runners were sent out, and during the evening representatives came
in from the hunting parties allied to the Piegans. There were chiefs
of the Small Robes, Blackfeet proper, Blackfeet Sioux, which linked
the league with the Dacotahs and counterbalanced the Crows, in case
Ahnemekee objected to the new and narrow arrangement, and some Rovers.
These summed up as one hundred and fifty war men. The Yager counted
them and recognised the elders among them with relief and gladness.
He had resolved to crush out Kidd and his crew to the last man. He
had contemplated the march of events with secret satisfaction, having
prepared many of them; and the great progress made in a few days was
enormously gratifying.
A little while before he and his nephew and Cherokee Bill stood
against huge odds. Now they were commanding an army. If the reds were
not perfect matches to the gold grabbers, they were quite so to the
Manitobans, and the Scotch Canadians and Americans formed a reserve, or
backbone, which ensured success.
Now the intruders were being enveloped in a net of which the meshes
were self-plaiting themselves all around them. When the fowler pulled
the string, the game would be inextricably caught.
At a final council held at night the concord was perfected. Saying
nothing of hostilities against the border settlers, Montana miners,
railroad surveyors, and pioneers north, the objective point of the
allied reds, with Jim Ridge as mere counsellor and volunteer private,
was to be Elk's Leap, where Captain Kidd, reinforced by the French
Canadians, was tending to enter the Yellowstone Park.
Runners and riders went out to collect scouts and strayers. Messengers
were selected to throw a sheaf of arrows, a knife, and a bag of powder
and balls into the camp of Captain Kidd and that of the Red River
Rovers if separate. The war pole, forty feet high, was set up at the
Piegan camp, for the war dance to be performed round it. Jim Ridge
did not join in the capering, but the Cherokee, curtly remarking that
"it would do him good," stripped, and paraded, and leaped among the
dancers. The cut of his hatchet on the pole was a tie with Red Knife's
for height of the bound and cleanness of the chop. At the dawn, the
deputies hurried to their camps to marshal their braves and conduct
them to the rendezvous.
It is to be noted that the Red Indians spring sharply from their
laziness of peacetimes into the strain of warfare. They become other
men. Metamorphosed entirely, they endure with unflinching stoicism
the greatest fatigue and longest privations. The very men who were
ridiculous sloths and gluttons will never groan at having no sight of
food for two, three, or even four days, or even at having no water.
Then they are granite and stop for nothing, and are not surprised at
any disaster. Cold, heat, sun or rain, snow or hail, these are silently
mocked at. Hence the secret foundation of their rapid movements, the
fury of their attack, and their unconquerable energy in battle.
After the final talk, Ridge had a short conversation with Williams,
immediately after which the latter left the camp. The white trapper
had, we have remarked, kept himself out of the savage demonstration,
sitting at a watch fire without even dozing off. A white man with an
army of reds is like a chemist experimenting with an explosive of which
all the qualities have yet to be tested. In some unexpected manner the
whole may hoist the engineer himself.
About an hour after sunrise the Cherokee returned. He was accompanied
by two white hunters. They were to be the guards of Doña Rosario, who,
though she made a wry face about it, as if she personally wished to
assist in the deliverance of Miss Maclan, consented reluctantly to
being lodged in one of Jim Ridge's mountain refuges.
"Poor girl," murmured he, as she departed, "what a blessing that she
has no idea that I am her kinsman, and that her father has perhaps lost
his life in helping Bill to wrest her from that villain."
He was very thoughtful, and his chat with his comrades was more brief
and in shorter phrases than ever. If he was idle in his moodiness,
however, the Cherokee redoubled his activity in scouting.
There was already one screw loose in the machinery: the Crows had
lost connection with the Piegans. Their disappearance was perplexing,
ominous even. The Piegans were completely puzzled. And all Ridge
surmised was that somehow Ahnemekee had learnt, or strongly supposed,
that not Kidd, but the Mountain Men had interfered with his descent on
the Red River Half-breeds.
Red Knife, though, soon offered his opinion that the Crows were
cowards, and had skulked away from the prospective battlefield.
Apart from this defection, all went on merrily enough for six days,
when the concentration was perfected. Each day the border ruffians and
Canadians were kept under view, and camp for camp invisibly opposed
each other. It is true the mixed bloods and the whites had their scouts
and outliers busy, but they found nothing to alarm. The trappers and
Blackfeet seemed to be swallowed up in the mountain gorges.
The temperature became milder. The influence of the hot water springs
of the Yellowstone certainly affected the air. In four days or so,
toilsomely as the adventurers broke their way through the pathless
wilds, they would hail the promised golden land.
But one evening Cherokee Bill, as director of all the scouts, reported
that there were more ingredients for the stew. Instead of finding
Ahnemekee's band in the eastward, his spies had descried evidences of
a strong force of whites. And in the Northwest also another body of
whites were perceived.
This news very much disquieted Jim Ridge, and deepened his
thoughtfulness. According to the flag to which they held allegiance,
the newcomers might exert a preponderating influence on what was to
become a veritable war. Hesitation would be fatal. It was imperative
to have done with present opposing elements as quickly as possible, or
have a double force to contest. It is soundest reason in the wilderness
to believe enemies approach, and, anyway, white men would rather
combine with those of their complexion than the redskins.
This was strictly logical, but, as often happens in practical life,
that itself made it wrong; but the Yager could not suspect this. Always
in his fears was that of the lovely enclosed country of the Yellowstone
becoming the prey to land raiders and freebooters. He warded off
intruders from that garden like the dragon of antique fable.