SILE'S POCKET
Na-tee-kah had all the load a girl of her size could comfortably carry
when she set out with her people. So had all the rest except the
dignified warriors. For that reason all the urging in the world could
not get out of that dispirited cavalcade one-half the speed attained by
Two Arrows and One-eye the previous evening. Na-tee-kah thought
continually of her pony, between thoughts of her daring brother and
wonderings of what he had done and seen. She knew very well that there
is nothing so disables a "plains Indian" as to dismount him. It is not
so bad as to break both his legs, but he is so accustomed, from
childhood, to use a horse's legs instead of his own that he is like a
man lost when he is set on foot. He has learned to hunt on horseback
mostly, and all his fighting has been done in the saddle. The old-time
Indians of the East and of Cooper's novels had hardly any horses, and in
their deep forests could not have used them to advantage. What the far
Western tribes did in those days nobody knows, but all the tribes which
have migrated out of the woods into the prairie country have become
"pony-men."
Na-tee-kah could not remember another time when she, daughter of a
chief, had been compelled to carry so much, even for a short distance.
She knew how to pack a pony capitally well, for that is one of the first
arts of Nez Perce house-keeping. When and where should they ever get
some more ponies? Her father was a renowned horse-thief, and so were
several others of the best warriors in the band, and there was hope in
that thought; still there is a double difficulty before a man who sets
out to steal horses without having one of his own to ride.
"Two Arrows will steal horses some day," she said to Ha-ha-pah-no,
confidently.
"Big chief: steal a heap. No boy any more. Big Tongue find a horse; say
he stole him. No brave. Pony come somehow."
Nobody else in that band could have guessed how the mind of Long Bear
himself was busy with plans concerning that very matter. He thought of
all the horses of all the tribes at any kind of difference with the Nez
Perces, and he thought of the white traders and their rich droves of
quadrupeds of all sorts. He had won his rank fairly, as his son was
likely to do after him, and he had a great deal of courage and ambition;
just at present, however, he was a dismounted horse-thief, and he felt
the disgrace of it even more than the inconvenience. It was a sad thing
to be afoot at his time of life, and he brooded over it like some great
white merchant who had suddenly failed in business. He feared that it
would take some time to set up that band again, without any four-footed
capital to begin on.
It was pleasant to find the trail so good, at all events, and before
dark they made out to reach the very spot where Two Arrows had camped.
They had been more than twice as long in getting there, but the first
brave who pushed on into the open space found the dead embers of a fire
and began to study them. Not far behind him were Na-tee-kah and
Ha-ha-pah-no, and it was hard to say which of them was the first to
point at the black coals and ashes, and exclaim, "Two Arrows!"
The word was echoed from lip to lip until it came to Long Bear and his
wife. For a wonder he was walking beside her, which was as near as he
could come to carrying her load for her. She was only the step-mother of
Na-tee-kah and her brother, and had a pappoose of her own as part of her
burden, but she took her full share of the family pride when her husband
drew himself grimly up and shut off the strong temptation to "whoop."
"Young brave," he said to her with great calmness. "Great chief some
day. All like father. Same. Go steal pony pretty soon."
The camp was quickly made, and there was food for all in moderate
allowance. They were certain of resting in perfect security, and in the
morning they were as eager as Two Arrows had been to push on out of such
narrow quarters. Nothing happened to any of them until late in the day,
and then the whole band went suddenly into camp again.
The Big Tongue had become almost a silent Indian under the effects of
hard walking, but he had been stung again by remarks from Ha-ha-pah-no,
and he had gone ahead. He had not gone far enough to make him look
enterprising, but all at once the canon fairly rang with a whoop he sent
back, to let the rest know he had found something. At the same moment
three great vultures, or buzzard-eagles, arose from a prize they had
found, and soared away. They were wonderfully wide-winged birds, and
each carried off a good dinner, for they had nearly finished the offal
left upon the ground by the carcasses of the cougar and the big-horn.
The Big Tongue pointed proudly at the discovery he had made, and was
about to say something, when he was once more overwhelmed. His whooping
had brought a swarm of the braves around him, but of course no squaws
had presumed to push in. It was for that very cause that the eyes of
Na-tee-kah had been busy among the rocks, and so she had discovered the
charcoal "token" scored upon one of them.
"Two Arrows!" she screamed, and in a moment more there were warriors
there, taking away the stones which covered the meat and the skins.
It was time now for Long Bear to do all the whooping there was in him.
His son had slain a cougar single-handed, and had killed a big-horn, and
here were the proofs of it. The whole band could at once have another
feast of fresh meat, provided by the young hero, for whom they were
indebted to the great Long Bear.
It was decided that they had travelled far enough for one day, but that
an early start should be made the next morning. That had also been an
interesting day at the camp by the spring.
The over-wearied pale-faces slept well, but Yellow Pine arose three
times to go around among the animals and see how they were doing. He had
them all fed and rubbed down most carefully in the morning. It was a
good thing to do, and when Sile Parks awoke and stretched himself, he
felt as if he also wanted to be fed and rubbed down. Almost everybody
else was already astir, and breakfast was soon ready for him.
Yellow Pine did a deal of exploring, before and after he breakfasted,
and Sile at once set out to imitate him. He asked some question or other
of every one he saw, and believed that he had learned a great deal. At
last he came to a heap of stones and bushes that seemed to him to have
been piled up remarkably.
"How could they ever have got there?" he said, as he began to pull upon
a bush with green leaves yet clinging to its twigs. In five minutes more
he knew where the Nez Perces had made their hasty "cache" for their
lodges and other treasures, and he went at once to report it to his
father and to Yellow Pine. The latter looked at Sile with positive
respect, and exclaimed,
"There now, jedge; that settles it. I know I'm right; them Indians had
lost their ponies. I couldn't find a hoof-mark on their trail this
morning; they dragged some lodge-poles along, though. I say, we must
leave their cache jest as we found it. We must foller right along, too,
or we'll run short of fodder. They've taken my old road. We needn't be
afraid of 'em, only we'd best keep a sharp lookout."
Horses and mules and all felt as if a day's rest would be as good as a
treat; but after all was said and done it was decided to keep moving.
The start made was not an early one, and there was work for all hands
here and there. The herds of bisons had not prepared that road for the
passage of wagon wheels, and it needed the axe in one place and the
crow-bar in another before the teams could pass. There was no sort of
danger that the Nez Perces would be caught up with by the mining-party,
and Yellow Pine seemed to breathe more freely at the end of every mile.
"No, jedge," he said; "we won't have to leave the outfit anywhere.
There'll be a heap of hard work at some spots, but we can make our way
through, and we can come and go by this track forever after it's well
opened."
Sile Parks learned a great deal that day about the mysteries of
road-making; he also learned how much a really well-built wagon will
stand if it is not too heavily loaded. For all that, however, the best
part of his time was expended in staring at the peaks, and in searching
the walls of the canon for traces of gold and silver ore.
"Father," said he at last, at a place where the wagons were "stuck" for
a while, "I'm going ahead to see what'll turn up."
"Don't go too far, that's all."
"Keep yer eye out for mines," shouted Yellow Pine, with a laugh, and
Sile took it seriously.
"It's a gold country," he said to himself, "and I might stumble upon
some of it."
That was precisely what he made out to do. He was marching along, with
his eyes on all the rocky precipices, as if the mouth of a gold-mine
might open to him at any moment, and he was not so careful of his feet
as he should have been. A loose stone shot away from under him, and down
he came upon a fairly level floor of sand and gravel. It was so sudden
and so sharp a dropping that he sat still for a moment and looked
around him.
"Halloo, what's that?" Something bright and yellow had caught his eye,
peering out at him from the gravel his boot-heel had disturbed. "Gold!
gold! A chunk of gold!"
Thousands upon thousands of "placer miners" have raised precisely such a
shout in just such sandy gullies, but Sile felt as if he were the first
being on earth to whom such an experience had ever happened. He at once
began to dig and sift among the gravel fiercely. He took out his
hunting-knife and plied it as a trowel. Little bits of dull yellow metal
rewarded him every now and then until he worked along to where a ledge
(or the edge of one) of quartz came nearly to the surface. On the upper
side of that, and lying closely against it, he pried out something that
made him shout "Hurrah!" and that then gave him almost a sick feeling.
It was a gathering of golden nuggets and particles which would nearly
have filled his hat, and there were others like it, only smaller, all
along the edge of that stone. For unknown centuries it had been serving
as a "bar" in the natural "washer" made by that ravine, and had caught
and kept whatever the torrents had borne down from crumbling quartz
rocks above and had drifted against it.
Sile thought of Aladdin and his wonderful lamp; then he thought of the
California miners; then he shut his eyes for a moment. Then he went on
digging, and he was hard at it when a tall form stooped over him and the
voice of Yellow Pine exclaimed,
"I'd call it--If the youngster hasn't lighted onto a placer and scooped
the biggest kind of a pocket! Sile, you've done it. You can jest ax me
all the fool questions you've a mind to after this. You was really
learnin' by 'em."