No idea is more repellent to the mind of a genuine Western man than that
of siding with Indians against his own colour. Contested almost step by
step, the opening up of the vast continent supplies one long record of
hideous atrocities committed by the savage, regardless of age, sex, or
good faith; and stern, and not invariably discriminate, reprisals on the
part of the dwellers on the frontier. It follows, therefore, that the
race-hatred existing between the white man and his treacherous and
crafty red neighbour will hardly bear exaggeration. Thus it is not
surprising that Smokestack Bill should receive his reckless companion's
daredevil scheme with concern and dismay. Indeed, had any other man
mooted such an idea, the honest scout's concern would have found vent in
words of indignant horror.
There was silence in the hut for a few minutes. Both men, lounging back
on their comfortable furs, were busy with their respective reflections.
Now and again a fiercer gust than usual would shake the whole structure,
and as the doleful howling of the wolves sounded very near the door, the
horses in the other compartment--which was used as a stable--would snort
uneasily and paw the ground.
"You don't know Indians even yet, Vipan," said Smokestack Bill at
length, speaking gravely, "else you'd never undertake to help them, even
by advice, in butchering and outraging helpless women, let alone the
men, though they can better look after themselves. No, you don't know
the red devils, take my word for it."
"I had a notion I did," was the hard reply. "As for that `helpless
woman' ticket, I won't vote on it, Bill, old man. There's no such thing
as a `helpless' woman; at least, I never met with such an article, and I
used to be reckoned a tolerably good judge of that breed of cattle,
too--"
His words were cut short. The dog uttered a savage growl, then sprang
towards the door, barking. Each man coolly reached for his rifle, but
that was all.
"I knew I wasn't out of it," muttered the scout, more to himself than to
his hearer. "Smokestack Bill knew the war-whoop when he heard it. He
ain't no `tenderfoot,' he ain't."
Swish--Whirr! The fierce blast shrieked around the lonely cabin. Its
inmates having partially quieted the dog, were listening intently.
Nothing could they hear beyond the booming of the tempest, which,
unheeded in their conversation, had burst upon them with redoubled
force.
"Only a grizzly that he hears," said Vipan, in a low tone. "No red
would be out to-night."
Scarcely had he spoken than the loud, long-drawn howl of a wolf sounded
forth, so near as to seem at their very door. Then the hoof-strokes of
an unshod horse, and a light tap against the strong framework.
"It's all straight. I thought I knew the yelp," said the scout. Then
he unhesitatingly slid back the strong iron bolts which secured the
door, and admitted a single Indian.
The new comer was a tall, martial-looking young warrior, who, as he slid
down the snow-besprinkled and gaudy-coloured blanket which had
enshrouded his head, stood before them in the ordinary Indian dress.
The collar of his tunic was of bears' claws, and among the scalp-locks
which fringed his leggings were several of silky fair hair. But for
three thin lines of crimson crossing his face, and a vertical one from
forehead to throat, he wore no paint, and from his scalp-lock dangled
three long eagle-feathers stained black, their ends being gathered into
tufts dyed a bright vermilion. For arms he carried a short bow, highly
ornamented, and a quiver of wolfskin, the latter adorned with the
grinning jaws of its original owner, and in his belt a revolver and
bowie knife. This warlike personage advanced to Smokestack Bill, and
shook him by the hand effusively. Then, turning to Vipan, he broke into
a broad grin and ejaculated--
"Hello, George!"
He thus unceremoniously addressed made no reply, but a cold,
contemptuous look came into his eyes. Then he quietly said:--
"Do the Ogallalla dance the Sun-Dance [Note 1] in winter?"
"Ha!" said the Indian, emphatically, grasping at once the other's
meaning.
"When I was lost in the Ogallalla villages, all the _warriors_ knew me,"
went on Vipan, scathingly. "There may have been _boys_ who have become
warriors since."
"Ha!"
The Indian was not a little astonished. This white man spoke the
Dahcotah language fluently. He was also not a little angry, and his
eyes flashed.
"You are not of the race of those around us," he said, "not of the race
of The Beaver," turning to the scout. "Your great chief is George."
"Don't get mad, Vipan," said Smokestack Bill, hastening to explain. "He
only means that you're an Englishman. It'll take generations to get out
of these fellers' heads that Englishmen are still ruled by King George."
Vipan laughed drily. He had given this cheeky young buck an appropriate
setting down. Whether or no it was taken in good part was a matter of
indifference to him.
Meanwhile, the scout, having put on a fresh brew of steaming coffee,
threw down a fur in front of the fire, and the warrior, taking the pipe
which had been prepared for him, sat in silence, puffing out the
fragrant smoke in great volumes.
This done, he drew his knife, and proceeded to fall to on some deer ribs
provided by his entertainers. The latter, meanwhile, smoked tranquilly
on, putting no question, and evincing no curiosity as to the object of
his visit. At length, his appetite appeased, the warrior wiped his
knife on the sole of his mocassin, returned it to its sheath, and
throwing himself back luxuriously, ejaculated--
"Good!"
To the two white men, the visit of one or more of their red brethren was
a frequent occurrence; an incident of no moment whatever. They were
accustomed to visits from Indians, but somehow both felt that the
arrival of this young warrior had a purpose underlying it.
The pipe having been ceremonially lighted and passed round the circle,
the guest was the first to break the silence.
"It is long since War Wolf has looked upon the face of The Beaver"
(Smokestack Bill's Indian name), "or listened to the wise words which
fall from his lips. As soon as War Wolf heard that The Beaver had built
his winter lodge here, he leaped on his pony and wasted not a moment to
come and smoke with his white brothers."
Vipan, listening, could have spluttered with sardonic laughter. Though
he had never seen him before, he knew the speaker by name--knew him to
be, moreover, one of the most unscrupulous and reckless young
desperadoes of the tribe, whose hatred of the whites was only equalled
by their detestation of him. But he moved not a muscle.
"It is long, indeed," answered the scout. "War Wolf must have journeyed
far not to know, or not to have heard of Golden Face," and he turned
slightly to his friend as if effecting an introduction.
By this _sobriquet_ the latter was known among the different clans of
the Dahcotah or Sioux, obviously bestowed upon him by reason of his
magnificent golden beard.
"The name of Golden Face is not strange, for it is not seldom on the
lips of the chiefs of our nation," continued the savage with a graceful
inclination towards Vipan. "The hearts of the Mehneaska [Americans] are
not good towards us, but our hearts are always good towards Golden Face
and his friend The Beaver. To visit them, War Wolf has journeyed far."
"Do the Ogallalla [a sub-division or clan of the Sioux nation] send out
war-parties in winter time?" asked the scout, innocently. But the
question, harmless and apparently devoid of point as it was, conveyed to
his hearer its full meaning. The eyes of the savage flashed, and his
whole countenance seemed to light up with pride.
"Why should I tell lies?" he said. "Yes, I have been upon the war-path,
but not here. Yonder," with a superb sweep of his hand in a westerly
direction. "Yonder, far away, I have struck the enemies of my race, who
come stealing up with false words and many rifles, to possess the land--
our land--the land of the Dahcotah. Why should I tell lies? Am I not a
warrior? But my tongue is straight; and my heart is good towards Golden
Face and his friend The Beaver."
Vipan, an attentive observer of every word, every detail, noted two
things: one, the boldness of this young warrior in thus avowing,
contrary to the caution of his race, that he had actually just returned
from one of those merciless forays which the frontier people at that
period had every reason to fear and dread; the other, that having twice,
so to say, bracketted their names, the Indian had in each instance
mentioned his own first. In his then frame of mind the circumstance
struck him as significant.
After a good deal more of this kind of talk, safeguarded by the adroit
fencing and beating around the bush with which the savage of whatever
race approaches a communication of consequence, it transpired that War
Wolf was the bearer of a message from the chiefs of his nation. There
had been war between them and the whites; now, however, they wished for
peace. Red Cloud and some others were desirous of proceeding to
Washington in order to effect some friendly arrangement with the Great
Father. There were many white men in their country, but their ways were
not straight. The chiefs distrusted them. But Golden Face and The
Beaver were their brothers. Had they not lived in amity in their midst
all the winter? Their hearts were good towards them, and they would
fain smoke the pipe once more with their white brothers before leaving
home. To that end, therefore, they invited Golden Face and The Beaver
to visit them at their village without delay, in fact, to return in
company with War Wolf, the bearer of the message.
To this Bill replied, after some moments of solemn silence only broken
by the puff-puff of the pipes, that he and his friend desired nothing
better. It would give them infinite pleasure to pay a visit to their
red brethren, and to the great chiefs of the Dahcotah nation especially.
But it was mid-winter. The weather was uncertain. Before undertaking
a journey which would entail so long an absence from home, he and his
friend must sleep upon the proposal and consult together. In the
morning War Wolf should have his answer. Either they would return with
him in person, or provide him with a suitable message to carry back to
the chiefs.
In social matters, still less in diplomatic, Indians are never in a
hurry. Had the two white men agreed there and then upon what their
course should be, they would have suffered in War Wolfs estimation. The
answer was precisely what he had expected.
"It is well," he said. "The wisdom of The Beaver will not be
overclouded in the morning, nor will the desire of Golden Face to meet
his friends be in any way lessened."
While this talk was progressing, Vipan's eye had lighted upon an object
which set him thinking. It was a small object--a very small object, so
minute indeed that nine persons out of ten would never have noticed it
at all. But it was an object of ominous moment, for it was nothing less
than a spot of fresh blood; and it had fallen on the warrior's leggings,
just below the fringe of his tunic. Putting two and two together, it
could mean nothing more nor less than a concealed scalp.
"Bill was right," he thought. "Bill was right, and I was an ass. He
did hear the war-whoop right enough. I wonder what unlucky devil lost
in the storm this buck could have overhauled and struck down?"
The discovery rendered him wary, not that a childlike ingenuousness was
ever among Vipan's faults. But he resolved to keep his weather eye
open, and if he must sleep, to do so with that reliable orbit ever
brought to bear upon their pleasant-speaking guest.
Soon profound silence reigned within the log cabin, broken only by the
subdued, regular breathing of the sleepers, or the occasional stir of
the glowing embers. The tempest had lulled, but, as hour followed hour,
the voices of the weird waste were borne upon the night in varied and
startling cadence; the howling of wolves, the cat-like scream of the
panther among the overhanging crags, the responsive hooting of owls
beneath the thick blackness of the great pine forests, and once, the
fierce snorting growl of a grizzly, so near that the formidable monster
seemed even to be snuffing under the very door.
The two owners of the cabin are fast asleep; Vipan with his blanket
rolled round his head. The scout, however, is lying on his back, and
his blanket has partially slipped off, as though he had found its weight
too burdensome. The three are lying with their feet to the fire in
fan-shaped formation from it: the scout in the centre, their guest on
the outside. The latter, too, is fast asleep.
Is? Surely not. Unless a man can be said to sleep with both eyes open.
A half-charred log fell into the embers, raising a small spluttering
flame. This flame glowed on the fierce orbs of the red warrior. For a
fraction of a second it glowed on something else, before he hid his hand
within his blanket. But the still, steady breathing of the savage was
that of a sleeping man.
"Tu-whoo-whoo-whoo!"
Nothing is more dismal than the hoot of an owl in the dead silent night.
That owl is very near; almost upon the tree overhead. His voice must
have had a disturbing effect upon the dreams of the red man, for in some
unaccountable fashion the distance between the latter and the sleeping
scout has diminished by about half. Yet the white man has not moved.
"Tu-whoo-whoo-whoo!"
That time it is nearer still. Noiseless, and with a serpentine glide,
the head of the savage warrior is reared from the ground, in the
semi-gloom resembling the hideous head of some striped and crested
snake, and in the dilated eyeball there is a fierce scintillation.
The attitude is one of intense, concentrated listening.
Honest Bill slumbers peacefully on. That hideous head raised over him,
scarce half a dozen yards distant, is suggestive of nightmare
personified. Yet its owner is his guest, who has eaten at his fireside,
and now rests beneath his roof. Why should his slumbers be disturbed?
"Tu-whoo-whoo-whoo!"
Again that doleful cry. But--look now! What deed of dark treachery is
this stealthy savage about to perpetrate? He is a yard nearer his
sleeping host, and his right hand grips a long keen knife. Ah! will
nothing warn the sleeper?
The murderous barbarian rises to his knees, and his blanket noiselessly
slips off. And at that moment through the intervening space of gloom
comes a low distinct whisper:
"Are the dreams of War Wolf bad, that he moves so far in his sleep?"
Vipan has not moved. His blanket is still rolled round his head, but
the fierce Indian, darting his keen glance in the direction of the
voice, espies an object protruding from the speaker's blanket that was
not there when last he looked. It is about three inches of a revolver
barrel, and it is covering him. No fresh scalp or scalps for him
to-night.
Let it not be supposed for a moment that the treacherous villain was in
any way abashed. It was not in him. He merely replied, pleasantly:
"No--I cannot sleep. I am hungry again, for I have ridden far, and it
is now near morning. I would have found the `chuck' [food] without
disturbing Golden Face and The Beaver, who are very weary, and sleep
well."
And, knife in hand, he deliberately stepped over to the corner where
hung the carcase from which they had feasted the evening before, and
cutting off a portion, placed it upon the coals to broil.
Vipan could not but admire the cool readiness of both reply and action.
He knew that but for his own wariness, either his friend or himself--
possibly both--would by now be entering the Happy Hunting-Grounds, yet
from his bloodthirsty and treacherous guest he apprehended no further
aggression--that night at any rate. The surprise had failed abjectly;
the enemy was on the alert; it was not in Indian nature to make a second
attempt under all the circumstances. Moreover, he recognised in the
incident a mere passing impulse of ferocity, moving the savage at the
sight of these two victims ready,--as he imagined--for the knife,
combined with the overmastering temptation to the young warrior to bear
back to his village the scalps of two white men--men of considerable
renown, too--taken by himself, alone and singlehanded. So he calmly
laid down again as if nothing had happened.
The scout, who had awakened at the first sound of voices, and who took
in at a glance the whole situation, fully equalled his friend's
coolness.
"Snakes!" he remarked, "I had a pesky bad dream. Dreamt I was just
goin' to draw on some feller, when I awoke."
"The Beaver has slain many enemies," rejoined War Wolf, nodding his head
approvingly. "When a man has taken scalps, he is prompt to take more,
even in his dreams."
"And to lose his own, you pison young skunk!" thought Smokestack Bill,
in reply to this. "I'll be even with you one day, see if I don't."
But the "pison young skunk," unenlightened as to this event of the
future, merely nodded pleasantly as he sat by the fire, knife in hand,
assimilating his juicy venison steak with the utmost complacency.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. Part of the initiatory festival during which, by virtue of
undergoing various forms of ghastly self-torture, the growing-up boys
are admitted among the ranks of the warriors.