VISITING
Two Arrows was treated to an excellent breakfast the morning after his
capture. He also saw a white man eat with a knife and fork, and had all
the sugar he wanted for the first time. It was a wonderful morning, and
a very brilliant pair of eyes were drinking in its marvels greedily.
Rifles, pistols, and all that sort of thing were familiar enough to the
young Nez Perce, but he saw new patterns of them and gained tremendous
notions of the wealth and skill of the pale-faces who could make such
weapons.
"Father," said Sile, "I wish he could read. He's a bright fellow."
"Show him everything you have with a picture in it."
There was no fear that Two Arrows would try to run away after that
process began. The printed matter of any sort did not convey to him an
idea; it was so much mud; it meant nothing whatever. The pictures were
another thing, and Sile had provided himself well with illustrated
reading. Two Arrows almost gave up the sullen pride that refused to be
astonished, and Sile began to understand "sign language." At all events
he nearly twisted himself out of shape in an effort to explain to his
captive the nature of ships, cannon, camels, and steam-engines. He felt
as if he were a sort of missionary. At last Judge Parks himself handed
Two Arrows a photograph of an Indian chief, given him at one of the
frontier agencies a few weeks before.
"Ugh! Pawnee!" said Two Arrows.
"I told you so," exclaimed Yellow Pine. "If you showed him dogerrytypes
of every tribe there is, he'd name 'em at sight. Jedge, it's about time
we set out. I've got a mount ready for him."
Jonas more fully explained to Two Arrows that a visit of peace was
planned, and that he was to be marched home again, but the face of the
young Indian clouded. That was the one thing he stood in mortal dread
of. He thought of the jeers and derision sure to greet him from all
other Nez Perce boys when they should see him come home without any
glory, and he hung back.
"Mount now," shouted Yellow Pine, with a motion towards the animal he
had selected.
A horse! To ride back, instead of returning tired and on foot. That was
quite another matter.
"Whoop!" he could not have restrained that yell of relief, and in an
instant he was in the saddle. He had been used to riding a barebacked
pony, and that made his present outfit the more splendid. All his vanity
and ambition came pouring back upon him, and he almost felt as if he had
captured that squad of pale-faces and was bringing them in as prisoners.
He dashed forward at once, with Sile on one side, Yellow Pine on the
other, and the rest following, except a camp-guard of two miners.
Less than an hour later all the Nez Perce band came out under the trees
to see what was coming.
"Two Arrows!" almost breathlessly exclaimed Na-tee-kah. "Caught some
pale-faces this time."
"Got horse," said Ha-ha-pah-no.
Long Bear and his warriors did not say a word, for they were all but
dumb with astonishment from the moment that they recognized the
returning wanderer. What would not that remarkable boy do next? Had he
killed anybody? Had he really stolen all those white men, or had they
stolen him? There he was, anyway, and in a few moments more Yellow Pine
and Judge Parks had said "How?" to Long Bear and his best men. Indian
manners required that Two Arrows should be silent before his elders
until spoken to, but Long Bear almost instantly inquired,
"Where find boy?"
"In camp," said Yellow Pine. "Try to steal horse. Too many pale-face.
Catch him. All safe. Big thief some day. Boy now."
All of Two Arrows's dream of glory went out of sight before the grim
smiles with which the Nez Perce warriors heard that explanation. They
perfectly understood the matter, and that the pale-faces before them
wished to be good friends. On their part, they were a good deal more
than willing, for they had much to gain from peace and very little from
war with mounted riflemen.
"Prisoner?" groaned Na-tee-kah.
"Boy all right," grumbled Ha-ha-pah-no, indignantly. "Find pale-face
camp anyhow. Go right in. Old brave all asleep. Never find anything. Big
chief by-and-by."
There was some truth in that view of the matter, and Long Bear made a
remark that had a little the same sound. At all events Two Arrows was
permitted to dismount and walk away, while the conference with his
captors went on. In ten seconds he was exhibiting his little hand-mirror
to Na-tee-kah and a crowd of other young people, and found his
importance coming back to him. None of them had ever ventured to creep,
all alone, into a white man's corral. Not a boy or girl among them had
such a treasure as the mirror. He had made friends with the pale-faces,
at all events. In fact, his standing in that community was rising with
tremendous rapidity, until somehow or other the story of his
wrestling match with Sile Parks began to be whispered around, and it
became necessary for Two Arrows to point at Yellow Pine as the great
brave who had really pinioned him. There was not a Nez Perce in the
band, old or young, who felt any longing for a grapple with the sinewy,
big-boned old miner and all would have been right but for the fact that
Two Arrows had not at once escaped from Sile.
[Illustration: NOT A BOY OR GIRL AMONG THEM HAD SUCH A TREASURE AS THAT
MIRROR]
A good understanding was easily established between the miners and the
red men, and it was not long before Sile was off his horse and was going
around among the young people. He used his eyes as busily as Two Arrows
had done, but it is to be doubted if he saw as much, even in what there
was to see. It was not long before Na-tee-kah had as good a
looking-glass as her brother, and a general distribution of small
presents sealed the arrangement that the miners were not to be plundered
by that particular band.
"Now, jedge," said Yellow Pine at last, "it's time we moved. S'pose we
fetch along that young cub and his sister. Company for Sile. Make the
old chief feel fine."
Long Bear gave several grunts of assent when spoken to, and once more
Two Arrows felt as if he were growing very fast indeed.
"We'll go back and move the wagons," said Pine to Sile. "You and your
young redskin can scout on down the valley. You've got your directions
'bout finding us. Don't go too fast nor too far. The Indian'll smell any
danger long before you will. He won't be roped in by anybody in broad
daylight, I can tell ye."
He did not look like it as he rode proudly away from the village. Jonas
had mounted Na-tee-kah behind him, but Ha-ha-pah-no was to follow the
wagons on foot, that the chief's daughter might have somebody to
superintend her visit. When Ha-ha-pah-no set out in her turn nearly half
the village went with her uninvited, and it took all the authority of
Long Bear to keep the other half from keeping them company.
"Come," said Two Arrows to Sile, after a few minutes of silent riding.
"We go. Ugh! Shoot a heap."
He had picked up more English words, somehow or other, than he had at
first acknowledged, but Sile found it needful to work the sign language
pretty industriously for all that.
Na-tee-kah had spent her life in the close retirement of an Indian
village. She had been housed up among plains and mountains from all the
world, and knew nothing about it. She had lived in a narrower prison
than the smallest country village in all the East. The idea of visiting
a white man's camp and seeing all there was in it made her tremble all
over. She knew her father and ever so many others would be there in an
hour or so, and that her wonderful brother had gone on a hunt with the
son of the pale-face chief, but she was to enter a strange place with
only white warriors for company. It was an awful thing to do, and she
could not have done it, nor would Long Bear have consented to it, but
for something they both saw in the face of old Judge Parks when he
patted her on the head and said,
"Be my daughter a little while. Make a white girl of her for a week.
Take good care of her."
Red men have keen eyes for character, and Long Bear understood. So did
Na-tee-kah, and yet she would have run away and hidden but for her
curiosity, stirred up by what Two Arrows had told her of the contents of
that camp and its wagons. An offer to a white girl of a trip to Paris
might be something like it, but it would not be much more. Her eyes
danced and her fingers tingled as they drew near, and yet the only thing
she could see was a couple of commonplace tilted wagons and a lot of
horses and mules. The moment she was on the ground the old judge came to
her assistance.
"Now, Na-tee-kah, I'll show you something. Come this way."
She stood as straight as an arrow and walked along courageously, but it
required all her strength of mind and will to do so. She watched him in
silence, as he went into and came out of one of those mysterious rolling
tents full of all unknown riches.
"There, now. That'll keep you busy while we're getting ready to move."
She held out both her hands, and when Ha-ha-pah-no at last put her own
hand upon her shoulder and said "Ugh!" Na-tee-kah started as if she had
been waked from a dream. She had been looking at pictures that told her
of another world.
"Heap lie," said Ha-ha-pah-no. "Pale-face tell 'em. Make lie about
squaw. There!"
It was a picture of several ladies in evening dress, and Na-tee-kah had
been looking at it for five minutes. No such woman as those could
possibly be, nor could any human beings get themselves up so
wonderfully. It was all a lie, and any intelligent squaw could detect
the fraud at a glance.
Na-tee-kah drew a long breath that sounded like a sigh, and just then
the shout of Yellow Pine announced that all was ready for a move.
"We'll reach that mine to-morrow night, jedge, if we're lively.
Everything's goin' prime now."
With or without an invitation the relatives of Na-tee-kah trudged along
with the wagons mile after mile, and Long Bear gained an extra pound of
tobacco by sticking to Yellow Pine until the train halted at noon.
Ha-ha-pah-no scolded Na-tee-kah pretty nearly all the way for not
knowing more about pale-faces, but she broke down at the noon camp-fire.
She undertook to play cook, and in half a minute Jonas discovered that
she did not know how to make coffee.
"Wouldn't you have b'iled a black soup?" he exclaimed.
"Poor old squaw!" said Ha-ha-pah-no. "Know all about him. Drink some
once; bitter. Put sweet in. Stir him up, so."
"Ugh!" said Na-tee-kah. "Know so much. Ask Two Arrows when he come."