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TWO ARROWS
HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE'S SERIES
NEW LARGE-TYPE EDITION
TOBY TYLER James Otis
MR. STUBBS'S BROTHER James Otis
TIM AND TIP James Otis
RAISING THE "PEARL" James Otis
ADVENTURES OF BUFFALO BILL W. F. Cody
DIDDIE, DUMPS AND TOT Mrs. L. C. Pyrnelle
MUSIC AND MUSICIANS Lucy C. Lillie
THE CRUISE OF THE CANOE CLUB W. L. Alden
THE CRUISE OF THE "GHOST" W. L. Alden
MORAL PIRATES W. L. Alden
A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE W. L. Alden
PRINCE LAZYBONES Mrs. W. J. Hays
THE FLAMINGO FEATHER Kirk Munroe
DERRICK STERLING Kirk Munroe
CHRYSTAL, JACK & CO. Kirk Munroe
WAKULLA Kirk Munroe
THE ICE QUEEN Ernest Ingersoll
THE RED MUSTANG W. O. Stoddard
THE TALKING LEAVES W. O. Stoddard
TWO ARROWS W. O. Stoddard
HARPER & BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS
[Illustration: TWO ARROWS EXPLORES THE RUINS]
TWO ARROWS
A STORY OF RED AND WHITE
BY
WILLIAM O. STODDARD
Author of "THE TALKING LEAVES"
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD
F.-Y.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HUNGRY CAMP 1
II. A YOUNG HERO 9
III. A BRAVE NAME 17
IV. THE MINING EXPEDITION 24
V. A VERY OLD TRAIL 32
VI. A THIRSTY MARCH 40
VII. THE GREAT CANON 48
VIII. WATER! WATER! 56
IX. INTO A NEW WORLD 64
X. SILE'S POCKET 71
XI. A TRAPPED BOY 80
XII. THE ERRAND OF ONE-EYE 88
XIII. GREAT SCOUTING 96
XIV. A WRESTLING MATCH 103
XV. A GREAT CAPTAIN 111
XVI. VISITING 117
XVII. MORE FUN 126
XVIII. TWO WAR-PARTIES 136
XIX. WONDERFUL FISHING 146
XX. A FULL CORRAL 157
XXI. THE GOLD MINE 166
XXII. A NEW SETTLEMENT 174
XXIII. DANGER 182
XXIV. SILE'S VICTORY 191
XXV. A MIDNIGHT MARCH 199
XXVI. PREPARING FOR AN ATTACK 207
XXVII. FROM BOW TO RIFLE 216
XXVIII. THE APACHES HAVE COME 224
XXIX. STIRRING TIMES 232
XXX. A DARING RIDE 239
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Two arrows explores the ruins" _Frontispiece_
"Not a boy or girl among them had such a
treasure as that mirror" _Facing p._ 120
"The midnight march of the Nez Perces" " 206
"His right hand with his palm up to show
that he was peaceful" " 230
TWO ARROWS
TWO ARROWS
A STORY OF RED AND WHITE
CHAPTER I
THE HUNGRY CAMP
The mountain countries of all the earth have always been wonder-lands.
The oldest and best known of them are to this day full of things that
nobody has found out. That is the reason why people are always exploring
them, but they keep their secrets remarkably well, particularly the
great secret of how they happened to get there in that shape.
The great western mountain country of the United States is made up of
range after range of wonderful peaks and ridges, and men have peered in
among them here and there, but for all the peering and searching nothing
of the wonder to speak of has been rubbed away.
Right in the eastern, edge of one of these mountain ridges, one warm
September morning, not long ago, a band of Nez Perce Indians were
encamped. It was in what is commonly called "the Far West," because
always when you get there the West is as far away as ever. The camp was
in a sort of nook, and it was not easy to say whether a spur of the
mountain jutted out into the plain, or whether a spur of the plain made
a dent in the ragged line of the mountains. More than a dozen "lodges,"
made of skins upheld by poles, were scattered around on the smoother
spots, not far from a bubbling spring of water. There were some trees
and bushes and patches of grass near the spring, but the little brook
which trickled away from it did not travel a great way into the world,
from the place where it was born, before it was soaked up and
disappeared among the sand and gravel. Up and beyond the spring, the
farther one chose to look, the rockier and the ruggeder everything
seemed to be.
Take it all together, it was a forlorn looking, hot, dried-up, and
uncomfortable sort of place. The very lodges themselves, and the human
beings around them, made it appear pitifully desolate. The spring was
the only visible thing that seemed to be alive and cheerful and at work.
There were Indians and squaws to be seen, a number of them, and boys and
girls of all sizes, and some of the squaws carried pappooses, but they
all looked as if they had given up entirely and did not expect to live
any longer. Even some of the largest men had an air of not caring much,
really, whether they lived or not; but that was the only regular and
dignified way for a Nez Perce or any other Indian warrior to take a
thing he can't help or is too lazy to fight with. The women showed more
signs of life than the men, for some of them were moving about among the
children, and one poor, old, withered, ragged squaw sat in the door of
her lodge, with her gray hair all down over her face, rocking backward
and forward, and singing a sort of droning chant.
There was not one quadruped of any kind to be seen in or about that
camp. Behind this fact was the secret of the whole matter. Those Indians
were starving! Days and days before that they had been away out upon the
plains to the eastward, hunting for buffalo. They had not found any, but
they had found all the grass dry and parched by a long drought, so that
no buffalo in his senses was likely to be there, and so that their own
ponies could hardly make a living by picking all night. Then one
afternoon a great swarm of locusts found where they were and alighted
upon them just as a westerly wind died out. The locusts remained long
enough to eat up whatever grass there was left. All through the evening
the Nez Perces had heard the harsh, tingling hum of those devourers, as
they argued among themselves whether or not it were best to stay and dig
for the roots of the grass. The wind came up suddenly and strongly about
midnight, and the locusts decided to take advantage of it and sail away
after better grass, but they did not leave any behind them. They set
out for the nearest white settlements in hope of getting corn and
apple-tree leaves, and all that sort of thing.
The band of Nez Perces would have moved away the next morning under any
circumstances, but when morning came they were in a terribly bad
predicament. Not one of them carried a watch, or he might have known
that it was about three o'clock, and very dark, when a worse disaster
than the visit of the locusts took place. By five or six minutes past
three it was all done completely, and it was the work of a wicked old
mule.
All but a half a dozen of the ponies and mules of the band had been
gathered and tethered in what is called a "corral," only that it had no
fence, at a short distance from the lodges. Nobody dreamed of any danger
to that corral, and there was none from the outside, even after the boys
who were set to watch it had curled down and gone to sleep. All the
danger was inside, and it was also inside of that mule. He was hungry
and vicious. He had lived in the white "settlements," and knew
something. He was fastened by a long hide lariat to a peg driven into
the ground, as were all the others, and he knew that the best place to
gnaw in two that lariat was close to the peg, where he could get a good
pull upon it. As soon as he had freed himself he tried the lariat of
another mule, and found that the peg had been driven into loose earth
and came right up. That was a scientific discovery, and he tried several
other pegs. Some came up with more or less hard tugging, and as fast as
they came up a pony or a mule was free. Then he came to a peg he could
not pull, and he lost his temper. He squealed, and turned around and
kicked the pony that belonged to that peg. Then he stood still and
brayed, as if he were frightened to find himself loose, and that was all
that was needed.
It was after three o'clock, and in one minute the whole corral was
kicking and squealing, braying, biting, and getting free, and joining in
the general opinion that it was time to run away.
That is what the western men call a "stampede," and whenever one occurs
there is pretty surely a mule or a thief at the bottom of it; but
sometimes a hail-storm will do as well, or nearly so. By five or six
minutes past three all of that herd were racing westward, with boys and
men getting out of breath behind it, and all the squaws in the camp were
holding hard upon the lariats of the ponies tethered among the lodges.
When morning came there were hardly ponies enough to "pack" the lodges
and other baggage and every soul of the band had to carry something as
they all set off, bright and early, upon the trail of the stampeded
drove of ponies. Some of the warriors had followed it without any
stopping for breakfast, and they might have caught up with it, perhaps,
but for the good generalship of that old mule. He had decided in his own
mind to trot right along until he came to something to eat and drink,
and the idea was a persuasive one. All the rest determined to have
something to eat and drink, and they followed their leader. It was not
easy for men on foot to catch up with them, and before noon the warriors
sat down and took a smoke, and held a council as to what it was best to
do. Before they finished that council the ponies had gained several
miles more the start of them. The next council the warriors held
contained but three men, for all the rest had gone back as messengers to
tell the band that the ponies had not been recovered. By nightfall the
remaining three had faithfully carried back the same news, and were
ready for a fresh start.
After that there had been day after day of weary plodding and continual
disappointment, with the weather growing hotter and the grass drier,
until the trail they were following brought them to the spring in the
edge of the mountain range without bringing them to the wicked old mule
and his followers.
That had not been the whole of the sad history. On the evening before
the stampede that band of Nez Perces had been well supplied with riding
ponies and pack-mules, and had also been rich in dogs. No other band of
their size had more, although their failure to find buffaloes had
already begun to have its effect upon the number of their barking stock.
Not a dog had been wasted by feeding him to the other dogs, but the
human beings had not been allowed to starve, and after the march began
towards the mountains there was less and less noise in that camp night
after night.
There was no help for it; the ponies ate the grass up at the spring, and
then one of them had to be eaten, while the warriors rode all around the
neighborhood vainly hunting for something better and not so expensive.
They did secure a few rabbits and sage-hens and one small antelope, but
all the signs of the times grew blacker and blacker, and it was about as
well to kill and eat the remaining ponies as to let them die of
starvation. A sort of apathy seemed to fall upon everybody, old and
young, and the warriors hardly felt like doing any more hunting. Now at
last they sat down to starve, without a dog or pony left, and with no
prospect that game of any kind would come into camp to be killed. It is
a curious fact, but whole bands of Indians, and sometimes whole tribes,
get into precisely that sort of scrape almost every year. Now it is one
band, and now it is another, and there would be vastly more of it if it
were not for the United States Government.
There was nothing droll, nothing funny, nothing that was not savagely
sad, about the Nez Perces' camp that September morning. Every member of
the band, except two, was loafing around the lodges hopelessly and
helplessly doing nothing, and miserably giving the matter up.