THE LOST INDIAN AT BEDTICK CREEK.
This Indian was lost--something that has rarely happened. No Indian
could use a compass if he had one, and he wouldn't if he could--not the
real Indian of the days of General Custer, Buffalo Bill and a few
others. Indian instinct beats any mechanical contrivance man has
invented for white sailors, hunters, explorers and lumber cruisers.
But the full-blood of this story was lost and was bleating like a sheep
away from its flock, and just as timid and gentle. A lost Indian, and a
proud, high cheek-boned, breech-clouted, bronzed specimen, too; six feet
tall in his moccasins--hungry, unarmed, footsore, tribeless.
He came into the camp of the wagon train at Bedtick Creek not far from
the site of the deserted and famous overland stage station run by Jules
Slade, whose life was saved by his wife, who rode 200 miles on a horse
from Julesburg to a gold camp in Montana just in time to stop the
lynching being conducted by the Vigilantes.
And the day the Lost Indian was found was Christmas, a time when every
man--plainsman and mountaineer, far from civilization and living in the
open, as well as those toasting their shins at comfortable firesides in
snug homes in "God's country"--has a sense of something mysteriously
elevating in his soul.
Everyone in the frost-bitten bunch of overland freighters knew his
program for the day was to have no change so far as the bill of fare of
bacon, beans and venison was concerned, and everyone thought it was
pretty good; but there was to be no Christmas tree or happy children--no
church services or anything else--everyone was contented, nevertheless,
and surely full of the spirit of the day, though far out of reach of
anything that would give the slightest flavor to a proper celebration,
even informally.
The breakfast had been disposed of, the tin dishes washed and plans made
for a full day's rest for man and beast, for it was also Sunday, and the
wagon boss, old Ethrop, while loaded down with revolvers and bowie
knifes, was of a religious turn and was known as "The Parson."
Far away to the south, across a rolling plain, was the blue-white
outlines of Laramie Peak. A long way this side, according to the
eagle-eye of Farley, driver of the lead team, something was winding a
crooked course toward camp. It was a mere dark object reflected against
the snow-covered surface, but when viewed through a field glass was
plainly discernible--it was a man, all agreed; but with the glass in
Farley's hands it was a buck Indian.
So the boys watched and waited for an hour, and finally the Lost Indian
was within hailing distance and stopped, circled and began to close in.
Farley waved him to come on, and as insurance of friendliness went
through the ceremony of placing a rifle in its sling on the side of a
prairie schooner. Then the Lost Indian came forward at a trot and landed
at the camp-fire.
Between grunts, motions and words on the part of the Lost Indian, and as
many from several plainsmen, none of which seemed to be clearer than
Hottentot, this was, in simple language, the story told by the Lost
Indian at Bedtick Creek:
"Five moons ago, while at White River, where the Great Father has begun
to issue rations of beef on the foot to every head of a Sioux tepee. I
gave the Mountain Fox seventeen beaver pelts, a bale of buckskins,
twelve obsidian arrow points, one lame calico pony, a pipestone
peace-pipe, some kinnickinnic and an iron oven, found after the soldiers
left a camp at Clear Creek, and eleven bone buttons for the hand of his
second oldest daughter. This was all of my fortune, except one saddle
pony, a pack pony, one lodge-pole tepee and poles, four buffalo robes, a
coil of telegraph wire [stolen from the Overland], several hair-braided
halters, a lariat and my private store of scalps, none of which I took
myself, but which had been inherited from my father, a sub-chief known
as the Hawk, a brave man whose bones are now dry in an elevated grave
near the fast-running creek known to the whites as Ten, but which in
Sioux is Wickachimminy. This, with my bows and arrows and a Spencer
rifle, for which I had no ammunition, with my moccasins, a breech-clout
and jerked meat to last one moon, was all I had--not much, but
enough--and I was happy with my bride.
"After the sun had risen and set three times Mountain Fox came to my
tepee and said I must give him still another horse, two blankets (which
I did not have and could not get), and which he said I had promised.
"In our Sioux nation we never kill--that is, we do not kill Sioux. No
Sioux has yet killed a Sioux, and few Sioux have ever called another of
our tribe a liar. I called him a liar. He made a sign of anger and a
loud noise of distress. My bride, on his command, left the tepee with
him, telling me that under Sioux law, which I knew to be right, that the
contract had not been filled until one moon had elapsed and all members
of both families had smoked in celebration. What did I do? I rode away
in the night toward the tracks where the Iron Horse runs, twenty days
away, going and coming, to get from a white man's corral a horse and
perhaps the blankets. This was while the grass was still green.
"I found the horse and the blankets and a gun; also food in cans. But I
found in a large bottle what I had heard of, but never tasted before.
After the first sun had set I stopped at Dry Canyon, which is never dry,
but full of roaring water, and there I drank nearly all from the bottle.
What I did then I only remember as a dream, but I saw in my dream my
bride and I wept. My pony and the horse I found in the white man's
corral at the trail of the Iron Horse, with the blankets and the food in
cans, and I--Big Jaw--waded Dry Canyon Creek, which I say was wet, for
nearly a day and left no trail. I drank more of the white man's poison
and then camped without a fire.
"When the next sun came up I was ill and drank lots of water. Then came
six men from the corral at the trail of the Iron Horse, and they bound
my hands with small chains, tied me to my pony and took me back to the
trail of the Iron Horse, where I was kept in a log house with iron
windows until one night it burned, and I was taken out by the white man
in charge, who, three moons ago, blindfolded me, put me on a horse and
took me to another corral on the trail of the Iron Horse and locked me
in a large tepee made of stone, where they fed me well and gave me
medicine.
"Then I was, one moon ago, put to work in a forest to chop trees, and I
ran away.
"Have you seen my bride--she of the hair as black as a starless night
and teeth as white as the wing of a dove?
"Oh, white man, tell me, have you seen her? I am a lost sheep--the trail
is covered to my eyes, with which I have wept almost constantly all the
moons I have been away. Have you seen her I seek? I am hungry, not in my
stomach, but in my breast and in my head; I must feast or die!"
Then he wept like a child.
"Crazy," said Rawhide Robinson.
"As a loon," added Parker, the night herder.
"Give him a pull at the Parson's bottle in the medicine chest,"
suggested the Kid, as he gave the fire a stir under a pot of bean soup.
"No," said the Parson, as he rode up on a mule and was told the
story--"no liquor, boys. Feed him up and well let him trail back with us
to Cheyenne and to the asylum. Poor cuss, he loved the squaw and he's
clean daffy, but hasn't a bit of Injun left in him."
And so the Lost Indian, with a broken heart, brain tortured, went back
to the asylum--a child of the plains who bought his wife, but loved her
for all that. For the Sioux, while selling their daughters, never sold
them unless there was real evidence of true love.
And while Big Jaw stole to make good his bargain, wasn't his deed an act
of old-time knighthood after all?
Moreover, his undoing was not so much because of his own delinquency as
it was that of the white man's invention--whisky--that brought about
his downfall.
A thief, yes; a red-skinned, uncivilized wild man of the plains and the
mountains. But can we classify him with the civilized white man who
commits a crime?
If the Lost Indian did not recover and win his bride in civilization's
regulation way, perhaps it is just as well; and let us hope he is an
angel in the Happy Hunting Ground.