Uncas and Wingenund are very pretty creations, but they represent the
savage as he really is about as accurately as the Founder of
Christianity represents the average Christian of the current century.
Which may be taken to mean that all preconceived and popular ideas of
the "noble red man" can safely be relegated to the clouds.
Nobody was more aware of this than Vipan, consequently he knew exactly
at what valuation to take all these overwhelmingly fraternal speeches of
his red brethren. He knew--none better--that the wily chiefs intended
to make use of him; he knew, moreover, that he could be of use to them;
equally was he determined to receive a full equivalent for his services,
and this equivalent he intended should be nothing less than the
exclusive right of mining in the Black Hills.
His shrewd mind had grasped the sense of the council, and he realised
that a sort of desultory warfare, for which no one was responsible,
would be undertaken against the white men already there. These,
isolated by twos and threes at their scattered mining camps, could not
hope to make a successful stand against bands of savages raiding upon
them incessantly. They would be driven out, and then he, Vipan, the
friend and "brother" of the red possessors, would pick out all the best
claims, work them with a will, and quickly make his fortune.
A daring and unscrupulous plan? Yes; but Nature had endowed the man
with indomitable daring, and circumstances had combined to render him
utterly unscrupulous. In advising the chiefs to ask the enormous sum
named above, and to abide by their demand, he was perfectly well aware
that the United States Government would not agree to it, but the larger
the demand the more protracted would be the haggle, and the more
protracted the haggle the more time would be his wherein to enrich
himself.
There was one factor which he overlooked--or if it occurred to him he
preferred to put it aside--the possibility that the yield of gold would
not come up to anything like his expectations. But he was sanguine.
Adventurers of his type invariably are. Give him a fair chance and his
fortune was made.
Vipan was very popular in the Indian village. Apart from the
consequence attaching to him as the friend and guest of the great
chief--for he had taken up his quarters in Red Cloud's own lodge--he
mixed freely with all the warriors, chatting with them, and treating
them as friends and equals. Indians in private life are arrant gossips,
and the adventurer being one of those adaptable persons at home in any
society was in great request, for he was essentially "good company," and
two-thirds of the night would be spent in this or that warrior's
_teepe_, the structure crowded to suffocation, listening to his droll,
or tragical, or romantic stories of all parts of the world. Then, too,
he would accompany the young bucks on their hunting trips, in no case
allowing their success to excel his; or would organise shooting matches
among them. There were instances even wherein he was not above cutting
out one or two of them in some--what we will call--boudoir intrigue,
purely for the devilment of the thing, and if only to show them that
there was nothing in which he could not surpass them--whether in love,
war, or the chase. All this told. Their respect and admiration for him
were unbounded, yet had they by chance the good fortune to surprise him
alone on the prairie, and get him into their power, it is doubtful
whether any consideration of friendship would suffice to restrain some
of the young bucks from taking his scalp. And of this he himself was
well aware.
It was the evening of the day after the council. Vipan, returning from
a solitary hunt, to the success of which an antelope strapped behind his
saddle, and several brace of sand-grouse dangling from the same, bore
silent testimony, found his thoughts fully occupied weighing the
position of affairs, and the more he looked at it the less he liked it.
There was a hitch somewhere, and on this he had no difficulty in putting
his finger. A powerful faction in the village was hostile to him
altogether, and this was the uncompromising war-faction--Grey Wolf, the
chief of the Cheyenne band; Mountain Cat, the Ogallalla; also War Wolf,
who, although not a chief, yet aspired to this dignity, and who, his
youth notwithstanding, was a warrior of such prestige among his fellows
as to be no mean adversary. These especially--and there were others--he
knew distrusted him and his plans. They were inveterate haters of all
whites indiscriminately, and while they had hitherto treated him with
grim courtesy, yet the covert hostility of their manner and words was
not lost upon so shrewd an observer as himself. But it was certain that
although the distrust or antipathy of these men might place obstacles in
his path, yet no sort of alarm did it inspire him with. He was the
proper stuff out of which adventurers are made--utterly reckless.
The crisp, frosty ground crackled beneath the hoofs of his powerful
black horse; the sun had gone down, and the white conical lodges of the
Sioux village stood spectral in the grey twilight. There was a
stillness and peace pervading the scene, which was very unusual in such
close proximity to the savage encampment. Suddenly, shrilling forth
loud and clear upon the evening air, rang out the terrible war-whoop.
To say that Vipan saw that his weapons were ready to hand would be
superfluous, for they were always in a state of readiness. But he did
not quite like the look of things, and more than one keen, anxious
glance did he cast, without seeming to do so, into the belt of timber
which he was skirting. Suddenly the semi-gloom seemed alive with dusky
shapes flitting among the tree stems, and then all around him arose once
more the war-whoop, which was taken up and echoed back from the village
amid the frantic hammering of many drums.
"What's it all about, Three Elks?" he asked tranquilly, as a tall
warrior glided past him in the twilight.
"How! Scalp!" replied the savage laconically, and then opening his
mouth he once more set up the hideous shout as he rushed on.
The aspect of the Sioux village was that of the nethermost shades with
all the fiends holding high revel. For the open space in front of the
council-lodge was alive with excited Indians, those coming in from
without whooping or shrilling their war-whistles as they rushed into the
thick of the surging throng. Gangs of squaws squatted around, keeping
up a wild, nasal, yelling chant, to the monotonous "tom-tom" of drums.
Red fires glared upon the night; while hundreds of excited warriors,
plumed and hideously painted, falling into something like a circular
formation, revolved around several poles, from which dangled and flapped
scalps in various stages of preservation--some dry and parchment-like,
others fresh and only half cured.
Round and round circled the wild dance, the hoarse howling of the
warriors, varied occasionally by a deafening war-whoop; the nasal
yelling of the squaws; the hammering of drums and the screech of
whistles; the lurid glare of the fires upon the fierce bounding shapes
and the hideously streaked bodies and plumed heads; the gleam of weapons
and the disgusting trophies flapping up aloft; all went to make up a
weird and appalling pandemonium which baffles description. And yet so
contagious, so insidious in its effect was this barbarous saturnalia
that Vipan could with difficulty restrain himself from rushing into the
maddened throng, and, brandishing his weapons, whoop and howl with the
wildest of them.
One thing he observed which, in any other man as well acquainted with
the Indian character as himself, would have been productive of
uneasiness. The dancers consisted almost entirely of young bucks, every
chief or partisan of any note being conspicuous by his absence. But
although he knew that his position was precarious in the extreme there
in the midst of that crowd of savages, quickly working themselves into a
state of uncontrollable excitement, yet there was such an irresistible
fascination about the whole thing that he felt rooted to the spot.
Suddenly War Wolf, bounding up to one of the poles, detached a couple of
scalps, and, waving them aloft, uttered an ear-splitting yell. The
savage, bedaubed from head to foot with yellow paint spotted all over
with blotches of vermilion, brandishing a tomahawk in one hand and the
ghastly trophies in the other, while with blazing eyes he yelled forth
the history of his bloody exploit, looked a very fiend. Then as his
eyes met those of Vipan, standing on the outside of the circle, he gave
vent to a devilish laugh, flourishing the scalps ironically towards the
latter.
The war-whoop pealed forth again, shriller, fiercer, and many a
bloodthirsty glare was turned upon Vipan from a hundred pairs of eyes,
as the maddened barbarians revolved in their frenzied rout. But he
never quailed. The fascination was complete. And through it he noted
two things. Both scalps were fresh. Hardly a week had passed since
they grew upon the heads of their owners--and one of them was
plentifully covered with a thick crop of red hair.
A voice at his side, speaking in quiet tones, broke the spell.
"Golden Face should be hungry and tired. Will he not come in, and rest
and eat?"
Turning, he beheld Red Cloud. The latter's eyes wandered from his to
the crowd of furious dancers with a meaning there was no mistaking.
Without a word he turned and strolled away with the chief.