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THE OUTCASTS
[Illustration: SHAG CARRIED THE DOG-WOLF ON HIS BACK.]
THE
OUTCASTS
BY W. A. FRASER
ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR HEMING
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK ----- MDCCCCI
_Copyright, 1901, by_
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Illustrations
_The full-page subjects from drawings by Arthur Heming. The
head- and tail-pieces from drawings by J. S. Gordon_
FACING
Shag carried the Dog-wolf on his back Title
"Lying on my back as though I were dead, I
held my tail straight up" 6
"I am no Wolf, Shag; I am A'tim, which
meaneth a Dog in the talk of the Crees" 10
One after another they hurtled into the
slaughter-pen of the Blood Indians' corral 36
Muskwa had A'tim in his long-clawed grasp 66
"Steady, Dog-Wolf, steady," admonished
Shag, "this is a friend of mine" 78
"Oh, don't mention it!" exclaimed the Wolf;
"no doubt we shall find something for
dinner, presently" 114
"Thou art a traitor, and a great liar," said
the Bull 136
THE OUTCASTS
[Illustration]
THE OUTCASTS
CHAPTER ONE
A'tim the Outcast was half Wolf, half Huskie Dog. That meant
ferocity and bloodthirst on the one side, and knowledge of Man's
ways on the other. Also, that he was an Outcast; for neither side
of the house of his ancestry would have aught of him.
A'tim was bred in the far Northland, where the Cree Indians trail
the white snow-waste with Train Dogs; and one time A'tim had
pressed an unwilling shoulder to a dog-collar. Now he was an
outcast vagabond on the southern prairie, close to the Montana
border-land.
It was September; and all day A'tim had skulked in the willow
cover of Belly River flat-lands, close to the lodges of the Blood
Indians.
Nothing to eat had come the way of the Dog-Wolf; only a little
knowledge of something that was to happen, for he had heard
things,--the voices of the Indians sitting in council had slipped
gently down the wind to his sharp Wolf ears.
As he crawled up the river bank close to Belly Buttes and looked
across the plain, he could see the pink flush of eventide, like a
fairy veil, draping the cold blue mountains--the Rockies.
"Good-night, warm Brother," he said, blinking at the setting sun;
"I wonder if you are going to sleep with an empty stomach, as
must A'tim."
The soft-edged shafts of gold-yellow quivered tremblingly behind
the blue-gray mountains, as though Sol were laughing at the
address of the Outcast. The Dog-Wolf looked furtively over his
shoulder at the smoke-wreathed cones of the Blood tepees. The
odor of many flesh-pots tickled his nostrils until they quivered
in longing desire. Buh-h-h! but he was hungry! All his life he
had been hungry; only at long intervals had a gorge of much
eating fallen to his lot.
"Good-night, warm Brother," he said again, turning stubbornly
from the scent of flesh, and eying the crimson flush where the
sun had set; "one more round of your trail and I shall sleep with
a full stomach, for to-morrow the Bloods make a big Kill--the Run
of many Buffalo."
A'tim, sitting on his haunches, and holding his nose high in air
until his throat pipe drew straight and taut, sang: "O-o-o-o-o-h!
for the blood drinking! W-a-u-g-ha! the sweet new meat--hot to
the mouth!"
The Indian Dogs caught up the cry of A'tim as it floated over the
Belly River and voiced it from a thousand throats.
"The Blackfeet!" screamed Eagle Shoe, rushing from his tepee.
"It's only a hungry Wolf," he grunted, as he sat in the council
again; "let us talk of the Buffalo Run."
That was what the Dog-Wolf had heard lying in the tangle of gray
willow, close to the tepee of Eagle Shoe, the Blood Indian; and
he would sleep peacefully, his hunger stayed by the morrow's
prospect. As he sat yawning toward the rose sky in the West, a
huge, dark form came majestically from a cleft in the buttes, and
stood outlined, a towering black mass. A'tim flattened to earth
as though he had been shot, looking not more than a tuft of
withered bunch-grass. Then he arose as suddenly, chuckled to
himself, and growled nervously: "Oh! but I got a start--it's only
old Shag, the Outcast Bull. Ha, ha! A'tim to fear a Buffalo!
Good-evening, Brother," he exclaimed; "you quite frightened me--I
thought it was that debased Long Knife, Camous."
"Thought me Camous!" bellowed the Bull, snorting indignantly;
"he's but a slayer and a thief. All the Paleface Long Knives are
that; killing, killing--stealing, stealing. Why, even among his
own kind he is called 'Camous'; and you, who were bred in the Man
camps, know what that means."
"Of course, of course--ha! most surely it means 'a stealer of
things.' But I meant not to liken you to him, Brother Shag--it
was only my fright; for even in my dreams I am always seeing the
terrible Camous. I have cause to remember him, Shag--it was this
way. Did I ever tell you?"
"Never," answered Shag, heavily.
[Illustration: "LYING ON MY BACK AS THOUGH I WERE DEAD, I HELD MY
TAIL STRAIGHT UP."]
"Well, it was this way: Once upon a time, in the low hills they
call Cypress, I was stalking a herd of antelope. To tell you the
truth, I had been at it for two days. Waugh! but they were wary.
At last I worked within fair eyesight of them, and knowing the
stupid desire they have to look close at anything that may be
strange to them, I took to myself a clever plan. Lying on my back
as though I were dead, I held my tail straight up, and let the
wind blow it back and forth. The big-eyed Eaters-of-Grass asked
one another: 'What is this new thing? Is it a plant or an animal?'
That is the way they talked, I am sure, for they are like
wolf-pups, quite silly. Well, they came closer and closer and
closer. E-u-h-h, e-u-h-h! but my mouth watered with the thought
of their sweet meat as I lay as one dead. Now, they hadn't the
knowledge to work up wind to me, but came straight for the thing
they saw that moved. Would you believe it, just as I was
measuring from the corner of my eye the time for a strong rush,
who should creep over a hill but Camous! In fright I sprang to my
feet, and away went the Goat-faced small-prongs. Then the
deviltry of the many-breathed Fire-stick this Camous carries came
down upon me as I ran faster than I'd ever gone before. 'Click,
snap! click, snap!' the quick-breathing Fire-stick coughed; and
though I rocked, and jumped sideways and twisted, before I could
get away I had one of the breath-stings in my shoulder. E-u-h-h!
but I go lame from it still."
Shag slipped a cud of sweet grass up his throat with a gurgling
cough and chewed it reflectively, for he was of a slow turn of
thought, not at all like the nimble-brained Dog-Wolf. Then he
swallowed the cud, blew from his nostrils the sand that had come
into them crossing the scant-garbed hills of Belly Buttes, and
said ponderously: "Yes, I know the many-breathed Fire-stick;
that's what makes the Palefaces so terrible. The plain simply
reeks with the dead bodies of my people whom they have slain."
"And the bodies all poisoned, too; whur-r, whur-r! All turned
into death meat for the Flesh-feeders, Dog or Wolf," snarled
A'tim. "Killed for the hide--think of that, Shag!--or just the
tongue taken. If we make a kill it is for the eating--to still
the gnawing pain that comes to us, and we waste nothing, leave
nothing."
"Most assuredly," replied the Bull, "thou leavest nothing but the
bones."
"Nothing but the bones," concurred A'tim. "And as I was saying,
these Long Knives put the Flour of Death in the dead Buffalo, and
my Wolf Brethren, when they eat, being forced to of their hunger,
die like flies at Cold Time."
"And a good thing, too--I mean--" and Shag coughed
apologetically; "I mean, as a Calf I received cause to remember
your Wolf Brothers, A'tim; there's a hollow in my thigh you could
bury your paw in, where one of your long-fanged Pack sought to
hamstring me. You, A'tim, who are half Wolf, know how it comes
that where one of your kind puts his teeth, the flesh, sooner or
later, melts away, and leaves but a hole--how is it, A'tim?"
"Foul teeth," growled the Dog-Wolf. "They're a mean lot, are the
Gray Runners; even I, who am half of their kind, bear them no
love--have they not outcasted me because of my Dog blood? I am no
Wolf, Shag; I am A'tim, which meaneth 'a Dog,' in the talk of the
Crees."
"Even so, Brother," said Shag, "how comes it that thou art a
half-breed Wolf at all?"
[Illustration: "I AM NO WOLF, SHAG; I AM A'TIM, WHICH MEANETH A
DOG IN THE TALK OF THE CREES."]
"That is also of Man's evil ways, Brother Bull--thinking to
change everything that was as it should be before he came. This
false mating is of his thought; to get the strength of the Wolf,
and the long-fasting of the Wolf, and the toughness of the Wolf,
into the kind of his Train-Dogs. And because of all this, I, who
am a Dog, am outcasted."
"Well, we'll soon all be gone," sighed the Bull, plaintively;
"when I was a Smooth Horn, and in the full glory of my strength--"
"Thou must have been of a great strength, Shag, for thou art the
biggest Bull from Belly Buttes to Old Man River--Waugh! Waugh!
that I can swear to."
"In those days," continued Shag, taking a swinging lick at his
scraggy hide with his rough tongue, "in those days, when I was a
Smooth Horn, I led a Herd that caused the sweet-grass plain to
tremble like water when we galloped over it. We were as
locusts--that many; and when crossing a coulee I've turned with
pride on the opposite bank--I always went first--and, looking
back, saw the whole hollow just a waving mass of life. Such life,
too, Lone Dog; silk-coated Cows with Calf at knee; and Bulls
there were full many--because I tolerated them, of course--and
all strong and fat, and troubled by nothing but, perchance, in
the Cold Time a few days of the White Storm which covered our
food. But that did not matter much; we just drifted head on to
the harsh-edged blizzard, and lived on the thick fat of our
kidneys."
"But the Redmen--the hairless-faced ones," interrupted Dog-Wolf;
"they killed many a Buffalo in the old days."
"We could spare them," replied Shag; "their Deathshafts of wood
slew but a few. Like yourself, A'tim, they killed only when they
were hungry. It's the many-breathed Fire-stick of the Paleface
that has destroyed us, A'tim; but like you, Brother, I, who am
but an Outcast because of my great age, and because my horns have
become stubs, care not overmuch. Why should I lament over my own
people who have driven me forth--made of me an Outcast?"
"There is to be a big Run to-morrow--a mighty Kill," said A'tim,
growing tired of the old Bull's reminiscent wail.
"Where?" queried the other.
"At Stone Hill Corral. Eagle Shoe says they will kill five
hundred head."
"I know," sighed Shag--"at the Pound; I know that death-trap.
Half a Herd I lost there once through the conceit of a young Bull
hardly out of the Spike Horn age. Well I know the Pound--even the
old Indian of deep cunning who made it, Chief Poundmaker--that's
how he came by his name, A'tim. But, as I was saying, when I
tried to turn the Herd, knowing what was meant, this Calf Bull
led a part of them straight into the very trap. Served him right,
too; but the Cows! Ah, me! My poor people! Slaughtered, every one
of them; and so it will be again to-morrow--eh, A'tim? It's the
big Herd down in the good feeding they're after, I suppose."
"Yes," answered A'tim; "to-morrow the whole Blood tribe, and
Camous the Paleface, who is but a squaw man, living in their
lodges, will make the Run."
"I wish I could stampede the Buffalo to save them," sighed Shag;
"but my sides are sore from the insulting prods of the Spike
Horns. Not a Bull in the whole Herd, from Smooth Horns, who are
wise, down to Spike Horns, who are fools because of their youth,
but thinks it fair sport to drive at me if I go near. Surely I am
an Outcast--which seems to me a strange thing. When we come to
the knowledge age, having gained wisdom, we are driven forth."
"No; you'd only get into trouble," declared A'tim decisively.
"We, who are Brothers because of our condition, will watch this
Run from afar. To-morrow, for once in my life, I shall have a
full stomach."
"I am going back to the Buttes to sleep," declared Shag.
"I will go also," said A'tim; "while you rest, I, who sleep with
one eye open, after the manner of my Wolf Brothers, will watch."
In a little valley driven into the Buttes' side, where the grass
grew long because of deep snow in winter time, the big Buffalo
stopped, prospected the ground with his nose, flipped a sharp
stone from the couch with nimble lip, and knelt down gingerly,
for rheumatism had crept into his old bones; then with a tired
grunt of relaxation he rolled on his side, and blew a great
breath of sweet content through his nostrils.
"A good bed," quoth A'tim. "I will share it with you, Brother;
close against your stomach for warmth."
He took the three turns that had come to him of his Dog
heritage, and curled up contentedly against the great paunch of
the scarred Bull.
"I can't sleep for thinking of the big Kill," murmured Shag. "My
poor Brothers and Sisters, also some of my own children, are in
that Herd, though they, too, have disowned and driven me forth."
"There will be more sweet grass for your feeding when they are
gone, Shag," declared Dog-Wolf.
"Ah, there's plenty of eating, such as it is; though the grass on
the prairie looks short and dry and harsh, yet it is sweet in the
cud. To you, who are but a Dog-Wolf, the eating comes first in
your thought, but with us it is the dread of hunters, who keep us
ever on the move."
"I know of a land where it is not this way," asserted A'tim,
after a pause; "a beautiful land, with pea-vine knee-deep, and
grass the Men call blue-joint, that fair tops my back when I walk
through it. As for drink! why, one day in a single tramp I
crossed sixteen streams of beautiful running water."
"Are you dreaming, A'tim?" asked Shag, touching the Dog-Wolf's
back with the battered point of his stub-horn.
"No, Bull; and there are few hunters in that land, and few of
your kind; and shelter of forest against the White Storm; and
buttes and coulees everywhere."
"An ideal Range," muttered the Bull; "is it far?"
"Perhaps half a moon--perhaps a whole moon from here to there,
just as one's feet stand the trail."
"You make me long for that great feeding," sighed Shag enviously.
"Yes, you'd be better in the Northland, Shag," said the Dog-Wolf,
sleepily--"better there. Here you are an Outcast, even as I am."
"Yes, after the big Kill to-morrow," sighed the Bull mournfully,
"I shall want to trail somewhere. Across Kootenay River is good
feeding-ground, but there the accursed Long Knives are filled
with the very devil of destruction, and kill even such as I am,
though my hide is not worth the lifting. I, who am an Outcast,
and have lost all pride, know this--I am worthless."
The bubbling monotone of the old Bull had put A'tim to sleep. He
was giving vent to gasping snores and plaintive whimpers, and his
legs were twitching spasmodically; he was dreaming of the chase.
Shag turned his massive head and watched the nervous Dog-Wolf
with heavy, tired eyes. "He is chasing the reed-legged Antelope
now; or, perhaps, even in his sleep, Camous pursues him with the
many-breathed Fire-stick. Well, well, by my hump, but we all have
our troubles; even this Dog-Wolf, who is not half my age, has
lived into the hard winter of life."
Then Shag rested his black-whiskered chin on the soft turf, his
tired eyelids, mange-shaved, drooped over the age-blurred eyes,
and these two Outcasts, so strangely mated, driven together by
adversity, slept in the coulee of Belly Buttes.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER TWO
A cold, weakling gray-light was touching with ghastly fresco the
Belly Buttes when A'tim stretched out his paw and scratched
impatiently at Shag's leather side. The Bull came back slowly out
of his heavy sleep.
"Gently, Wolf Brother," he cried petulantly; "your claws are
wondrous strong, and my side has many sore spots--love scars from
my Brother Bulls."
"You'll have worse than Bull scars if you don't wake up,"
answered A'tim; "can't you hear something?"
Shag tipped his massive head sideways with drowsy inquiry, the
heavy lids opening in unwilling laziness. A muffled, palpitating
beat was in the sulky morning air; it was like the monotonous
thump of a war drum over on the Reserve.
"What is it?" queried the Bull, raising his head with full-aged
dignity.
"Eagle Shoe's pinto is pounding the trail; the Run is on,"
answered A'tim.
Shag heaved his huge body to his knees wearily, struggled to his
feet with stiff-limbed action, and shook his gaunt sides.
"You needn't do that," sneered A'tim; "not much grass sticks to
your coat now."
"No, it's only force of habit," grunted Shag. "And to think of
the time when my beautiful hair was the envy of the whole range;
for I was a Silk-Coat, you know--a rare thing in Bulls, to be
sure. But I'm not that now; when I look in the lake waters and
see only this miserable ruff about my neck, and scant tuft on my
tail, I feel sad--feel ashamed. The tongue of the lake tells me
all that, Brother, so say no more about it."
"Wait you here, Shag," commanded A'tim; "I will go up on a Butte
and see the method of these hunters; my eyes are younger than
yours, Herd Leader."
When the Dog-Wolf returned he said: "Eagle Shoe is riding far to
the South; let us follow in the river flat and see this Run, for
it will be a mighty Kill. O-o-o-h! but I am empty--famished!"
"Always of blood," muttered the Bull to himself--"always of blood
and meat eating; Wolf and Dog; Dog-Wolf and Man--always full of
the blood thought and the desire for a Kill."
They could hear the thud of pony hoofs on the dry prairie's
hollow drum as they traveled, winding in and out the tangle of
willow bushes that followed the river. Then the hoof beats died
away, and A'tim said: "Now he has circled to the West--that means
something; let us go up and see."
They stole up the old river bank to the brow of the uplands. A
mile off they could see Eagle Shoe standing beside his cayuse. As
they watched, the Blood Indian stooped, caught up a handful of
black earth-dust and threw it high in air. That was sign talk,
and told his comrades who were hiding on the prairie that he saw
many Buffalo--Buffalo many as the grains of sand cast to the
wind.
Then he trailed his blanket behind him as he walked beside his
ewe-necked pinto, and two Indians stole stealthily from their
prairie cover like Coyotes, and followed Eagle Shoe.
"Ah!" muttered Shag, as he and A'tim went forward slowly, "I
know. This Indian has the cunning of a whole Wolf-Pack; is that
not so, Brother? King Animals!" he exclaimed, in a great voice
like the low of the wind coming through a mountain gorge; "is
that not the Herd yonder, clear-eyed Dog-Wolf?"
"By the chance of meat, it is--a mighty Herd, Shag; such a Herd
as the Caribou make in the Northland when they mate."
"Now the Buffalo see Eagle Shoe," continued Shag; "but they have
no wisdom; they but see some one thing that has life. Perhaps
they will even say: 'It is only old Shag, the Outcast; let us
feed in peace.' Their eyes are the eyes of Calves, and their
noses tell them nothing, for the hunt Man is down Wind, is he
not, A'tim?"
"Surely, Brother; even a _moneas_, a green hunter of a Paleface,
would know better than to send the flavor of his presence on the
Wind's back."
"Yes, even so," continued Shag. "See how gently he moves toward
them. Danger! One Bull's head is up; he has discovered that it is
not a Buffalo; now he has whispered to the others, for they are
moving slowly. Thou hast spoken truth, A'tim--a strange thing for
a Dog-Wolf, too," he muttered to himself--"it _will_ be a mighty
Kill. How slowly the Herd moves; they are not afraid of the one
animal, whatever it is--one, did I say, A'tim? Look you, Brother,
for you have the Wolf-eyes: are there not three now--three Kill
drivers?"
"Yes, three Indians," answered the Dog-Wolf. "The same old Hunt.
I've watched it many a time from behind the runners; I know every
trick of these slayers. Now the Run surely begins; let us close
up, Shag, for the hunters will have no eyes for such as us; their
hearts are full of the killing of many Buffalo. Also, there will
be much meat warm to a cold stomach to-night;" and he licked his
chops greedily.
"I don't like it," muttered Shag; "the Palefaces, with their
many-breathed Fire-sticks, have killed my people, and have driven
them up from the South, and now they are gathered together in a
few mighty Herds such as this. The Redmen, who have not these
Fire-sticks, but have the cunning of Wolves, see all this, and
say they too must slay a whole Herd, where before they killed but
two or three. We'll soon be all gone--we, who are the meat food
of these Redmen, we'll soon be all gone, and then what will they
do, A'tim? Will they kill each other, as your people do when the
famine gets into their hearts? Or will they just lie down and
die, as my people do when the White Storm blots out all the grass
food?"
"I do not know, Great Bull," answered A'tim. "To-night I shall be
full of much meat, perhaps even to-morrow; after that I know not
what may come with the warm trail of the sun."
The Outcasts saw the two Indians ride into the eye of the Wind
that blew up from the South across the Herd. As a sudden squall
ripples a smooth lake, so the scent of the Redmen carried by the
prairie breeze stirred the sea of brown-backed Buffalo.
"Now they will stampede," quoth Shag, eying this man[oe]uver with
heavy intentness.
"Yes," answered A'tim, "and Eagle Shoe will lead your brethren to
their destruction. We will wait here till they have passed, then
we will follow."
"Yonder is one of the bush wings leading to the slaughter-pen,
the Stone Hill Corral," cried Shag; "and on the far side will be
another, though we can't see it yet."
"Yes," concurred A'tim, "I see it; they'll come closer and closer
together, these two run of bushes, and at the far end there will
be but a narrow trail like a coulee, and after that they drop
into Stone Hill Pit--the Buffalo Pound. I saw the Indians
building these trail-slides last night. It will be a great Run--a
mighty Kill!"
"Yes," affirmed Shag, "we both know of this thing--we who are of
no account; it is only the Outcasts who have much wisdom,
seemingly. Behind the bushes hide the Indians, and no Buffalo
will break through because of them. On, on they'll gallop to the
death-pit, the Pound. Let us move up closer; my old blood tingles
with it, for I've been in many a Run."
A'tim grinned like a Hyena. Already in his Wolf nostrils was the
visionary scent of blood, and much killing. That night he would
dip his lean jaws in the Kill of the Redmen.
Eagle Shoe and the two Indians who had come up out of the level
plain like evil spirits were leading and driving their prey into
the wide jaws of the converging stockade. The Buffalo were
pressing on to destruction with increased pace, following with
blind stupidity the horseman who cantered in front of them. From
a lazy stroll they had quickened to a fast walk; a shuffling trot
had given place to an impatient lope. Calves were being hustled
to the center of the moving Herd by loving mothers. Head down,
and wisp-tail straight out, the brown bodies shifted from lope to
mad gallop. The Bulls snorted restlessly and called hoarse-voiced
to their consorts: "Speed fast, for something evil follows."
The beaten earth groaned in hollow misery; the thrusting weight
of half a thousand head made its breast ache; its plaintive
protest grew into an angry roar like incessant thunder; the
dust, sharp-hoof-pounded, rose like a hot breath, and hung
foglike over the troubled sea of rocking bodies.
Behind, the two horsemen, wide apart like fan points, galloped
with hard-set faces. Eagerly the ponies, bred to the Hunt,
stretched their limbs of steel-like toughness, and raced for the
brown cloud that fled as a broken regiment.
Surely it was wondrous sport, as A'tim thought; surely it was
unholy slaughter, as the Outcast Bull muttered.
Now the galloping brutes were well between the brush walls of the
ever-narrowing stockade. A Calf, speed-strangled, slipped from
the dust cloud and wandered aimlessly toward the galloping
horsemen; Grasshead's pony swerved as the Calf sprawled in his
path.
On the Buffalo galloped; faster and faster rode Eagle Shoe. His
cayuse, the fleetest Buffalo horse of all the Blood tribe,
galloped with the full fear in his heart of the danger that was
behind. Low over his neck crouched Eagle Shoe; one false step--a
yawning badger hole, a swerve at a white rock, a falter, and
crunching hoofs would grind the Redskin to pulp.
Wedge-shaped the Herd raced for the leading horseman; hindermost
labored the fatted bulls, but in front thundered the leader.
With hawk eye, Eagle Shoe swept the stockade wall for the opening
through which he was to slip and let the Herd gallop on to their
destruction. Hi, yi! there it was. Sharp to the left, swinging
his body far out on the side to steady the careening cayuse, he
turned. As he shot through the opening two Indians rose up, and
their guns belched a red repulse in the faces of the Buffalo.
On swept the Herd--on raced the pursuing Redskins, now joined
by Eagle Shoe. An Indian rose like a specter behind the bush
wall, and twanged a hoarse-singing arrow into the quivering flank
of the Herd that was as one Buffalo. His Hunt-Cry of joy,
fierce-voiced, was like the wail of an infant--the roar of the
troubled earth hushed it to nothing.
Fear rode on the backs of the striding beasts, and they were
afraid; and in their hearts was only gallop, gallop, gallop;
there was no thought, nothing but frenzy; no thought of breaking
through the wing sides, flimsy as a deep shadow, for behind
twig-laced walls were strange demons possessed of the Man-Call,
the Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front was any opening; there
the prairie lay still and smiling. Wedge-like behind their Bull
Leader they thundered. To him the open prairie in front beckoned
and smiled a lie of safe passage; the Pound, the death-pit, dug
on its rounded breast, lay hushed in silent ambush, and the Bull
Leader saw only a narrow gate at the far end of the fast-closing
wings. Soon he would lead all this mighty Herd that had grown
into his charge past the walls that were alive with evil spirits,
and out to the prairie beyond.
What could rise up in front and stay that mad rush of half a
thousand Buffalo? Nothing--nothing! and the Pound still lay
hushed--waiting.
Behind the Bull, with implicit faith, pressed the Herd. Only a
short distance reached the dreaded yellow-leafed walls that hid
the Man enemy. In six breaths he would have passed the narrow
mouth, and all his heart's pride would stream out from that death
gauntlet to the broad Range that called to him.
Even now he drew a sigh of relief; one more jump--oh, spirit of
sacred Buffalo! that yawning abyss! the frown of the Pound. He
braced his giant forelegs in the graveled earth on its very
brink. Too late! Behind, two hundred tons of impetuous fright
crashed against his guarding frame; the treacherous sod crumbled;
down, down, thirty feet sheer, over the cliff he shot: two, six,
a dozen, fifty! beyond all count, one after another, bellowing
Cow and screaming Calf, they hurtled into the slaughter-pen of
the Blood Indians' corral.
[Illustration: ONE AFTER ANOTHER THEY HURTLED INTO THE
SLAUGHTER-PEN OF THE BLOOD INDIANS' CORRAL.]
Inferno upon earth was born in an instant; up from the sun smile
of the prairie rose a shadow of fiends. The walls of the pit,
large as the Coliseum, were lined with Redskins of the murder
caste. Bow-strings twanged; dag-spears, long-handled, were driven
with vengeful swish into the bellowing mob of crazed Buffalo. A
sulphurous cloud of gun smoke settled over the pit. Of a verity
it was a carnival of demons. Surely it was a mighty Kill! Surely
it was a blood fresco on the beautiful earth.
Some strong animals, not shattered in their fall, rushed about
the pit in erratic frenzy, like victims in a Roman arena. The
mocking walls rose on every side, grim, unsurmountable, and
thrust the captives back into the shambles; jagged flint
arrow-heads stung their hearts like angry serpents. Oh, blessed
quick death! better than the smother and trample that beat out
the lives of others, inch by inch. The gun fire belched hot in
their faces; the bellowing of Bulls almost hushed the Hunt-Cry of
the Redman.
For an hour the full carnage lived; the joy of blood-shedding was
over the Indians; gray-aged warriors and lean-chested children,
all drank of the glory of slaughter. Skinning-knife in hand, the
Squaws waited for the tumult to subside that they might complete
the tragedy.
At last no Buffalo chased hopelessly over the dead bodies of his
fellows, seeking a vain safety; all were stricken to their
death--not one had escaped. No bellowing was heard now; nothing
but the victory clamor of the rabble and the gasping choke of
dying Buffalo. Out on the prairie the silly Calf wandered like a
lost babe--the only survivor of a king-led Herd.
Like butchers, the strong-backed Squaws leaped into the arena,
its stone floor slippery with blood, and stripped the bodies of
their victims. The Indians, their warrior pride holding them
aloof from this menial labor, sat and gloried in the mighty Kill.
Shag and the Dog-Wolf had heard the din from afar. "They will not
poison the meat to-night," muttered A'tim, "and when they have
gorged themselves to sleep, I also shall feast, for it must have
been a great Kill."
"It's dreadful!" lamented Shag; "it's dreadful! I can't eat--the
grass tastes of blood, for this Kill has been of my kind. It is
different with you, A'tim. I will sleep here in this near-by
coulee, and when you have feasted, Dog Brother, come back to me,
for I am sad and my heart is heavy; come back, A'tim, and sleep
warm against my side."
Far into the night, by the light of dry willow fires, like
dancing ghouls, the Squaws cut and hacked and laid bare the bones
that had been joyous in much life at sunrise.
Over the camp-fires, for long hours, the pots boiled and bubbled
with the cooking meat--the delicious Buffalo flesh that was meat
and bread to the Indians; and beside the glowing embers huge
joints spitted on sharp sticks sizzled and threw off a perfume
that came to the starved nostrils of A'tim, and almost crazed him
with eager hunger.
Would the Indians never cease eating? he wondered. Close-crept,
he watched Eagle Shoe take a piece of the luscious "back
fat"--ah, well A'tim knew the loin!--and devour it greedily. How
like vultures these feeders were, A'tim thought. At least a dozen
times each Indian returned to the flesh-pots, the Dog-Wolf felt
sure. "They are like Wolves," he snarled; "well I know them. For
days and days they will live on nothing, even as a Wolf; then,
when the Kill is on, they will gorge until they are stupid.
E-u-h-ha! but when they become stupid from this feeding surely I
will also feast; wait, hunger-pain, wait just a little."
A cold moon came up over the fog-lined prairie and looked down
wonderingly at the fierce barbecue. Sometimes the silent prairie,
silent as the Catacombs, would be startled by the exultant cry of
a blood-drunken feaster. It was a fierce joy the Kill had brought
to these Pagans.
Half a thousand robes Eagle Shoe had tallied. "Waugh! Ugh! Ugh!"
he had grunted in sheer joy when the little willow wands which
marked the score had been counted before him. Surely they would
revel in things dear to the heart of an Indian when the robes
were carted to the Hudson Bay Store. The meat was feeling all
right in its way when the stomach was lean, but at the Fort, at
the time of giving up the robes--Waugh! God of the fallen
Indians! how they would revel in the fierce fire-water, the
glorious fire-water! Even the Squaws, useful at the skinning,
would also drink, and reel, and become lower than the animals
they had slain to bring about all this saturnalia. Why had his
forefathers fought against the Palefaces? Was not all this
civilized evil a good thing, after all?
A cloud drifted a frown over the face of the cold moon, and A'tim
skulked closer and closer--almost to the very edge of the
slaughter-pit. The Indian Pack-Dogs snarled at his presence, and
yapped crabbedly. Other gray shadows, less venturesome than the
Dog-Wolf, flitted restlessly back and forth in the dim mist of
the silent plain.
A'tim sneered to himself maliciously. "To-day is the Kill of the
Buffalo," he muttered; "to-morrow you, my Gray Brothers, will
give up your lives because of the Death Powder. There will be
meat enough for the poisoning; feast to-night, for to-morrow you
die, and your pelts will go with those of the Dead Grass-Eaters.
If you had not outcasted me, I, who know of this thing, would
save you; but to-morrow I shall be far away and care not."
Would the Indians never gorge themselves to sleep? Eagle Shoe's
voice was hushed; one by one the feasters stretched themselves
upon the silent grass, and slumbered with a heaviness of full
content. When the last Squaw, weary of the blood toil, curled
beneath her blanket, A'tim crept to the meat piles. All the
energy of his rested stomach urged him to the feasting; there was
no stint.
Surely no Swift-runner, Dog or Wolf, ever had such a choosing.
The Pack-Dogs kept the Wolves at bay, but with A'tim was the
scent of their own kind, the Dog scent. He was not an utter
stranger to them, only an Outcast; they tolerated him as a beggar
at the meat store of which they had more than enough.
At last the hunger pain was all gone. Once in his Train-Dog days
he had looted a cache of White Fish, and eaten until he could eat
no more; it was like that now. Then, with a Dog thought for the
morrow, he stole four huge pieces of choice meat, and cached them
in the little coulee where waited Shag.
"Ah! you've come back, Brother," said the Bull, as A'tim crept
complacently to his side. "I was afraid something might have
happened to you, for hunger often carries us into unknown
danger."
"E-u-h-h! but it was a mighty Kill, Shag. Such flesh I've never
tasted--never--tasted--" He was asleep.
"I wonder what makes the moon red," muttered Shag, drowsily, as
he, too, nodded off to sleep.
Then again the two Outcasts, the one for whom the blood horror
had colored the moon red, and the other with a new joy of meat
fullness, slumbered together in the little coulee by the Buffalo
Pound.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THREE
Shag was the first to awaken; the night's banquet caused the
morning to come slowly to A'tim.
The pulling cut of Shag's heavy jaws on the crisp grass awoke the
Dog-Wolf. He yawned heavily, and eyed the old Bull with sleepy
indifference. Ghur-h-h-h! what a plaintive figure the aged
Buffalo was, to be sure.
"Good-morning, Brother," whuffed Shag, his mouth full of grass;
"where are you going?"
"I _cached_ a piece of the new meat here last night," answered
A'tim, as he nosed under an overhanging cut-bank. "Forest
thieves!" he ejaculated angrily; "the Gray Stealers of Things
have taken it." His _cache_ was as bare as Mother Hubbard's
cupboard--not even a bone; there was nothing but the reddened
stones where the meat had lain, and a foul odor of Wolf.
Impetuously he rushed to the second _cache_; it, too, was void of
all meat; the third _cache_ held nothing but the footprints of
his gray half-brothers, the Wolf Thieves.
Despair crept into the heart of A'tim; what use to explore the
fourth _cache_? The meat would be gone of a certainty. Why had he
slept so soundly? Why had he hidden the meat at all? Oh! but he
_was_ stupid; as silly as a calf Musk Ox.
And the other meat up at the Pound, such as was left, would be
full of Death Powder, put there for the Gray Runners. How he
hoped they might eat it all--the thieves! It seemed such
unnecessary looting, too, to steal his food when there was so
much at the Pound; it was like the persecution that had kept him
an Outcast from the Wolf Pack.
"There is nothing meaner in the world than a Wolf," he muttered;
"nothing; and already I am hungry again."
At his fourth _cache_ he scratched indifferently. But the long
nails of his paw touched something soft and yielding--it was
flesh. How had it escaped the Gray Stealers?
"See, Shag," he said, bringing his joint close to the Bull, and
laying it down lovingly, "last night I laid in a grub stake, as
my old Master would say, that would have landed me in fair
condition in the Northland. Those accursed Wolves, of whose kind
I am not, being a Dog, have stolen it--all but this piece. It was
out of consideration for you, my friend, knowing your dread of
the blood smell, that made me _cache_ it a little apart. How I
wish I had lain on it--made my bed on its soft, sweet sides. Such
meat I have not eaten for many a day."
"I'm sorry," lamented Shag; "it's too bad. Here is nothing but
sorrow for every one. See how still and quiet the old Range is;
only those slayers of Redmen up by the Pound. Years ago, A'tim,
perhaps when you were a Pup, all this prairie that is so
beautiful with its short Buffalo grass, was just covered with
people of my kind; and Antelope--though they were not of our
kind, still we liked to see them--there was no harm in them,
being, like ourselves, Grass Feeders; and to the South-West,
Dog-Wolf----"
"I am no Wolf," interrupted A'tim, thinking of his stolen meat;
"I am a Dog!"
"Well, well, Dog, to the South-West--from here we can even see
Chief Mountain where is that land--there were beautiful
big-horned Elk, also Grass Feeders, and of a sweet temper."
"I know," ejaculated A'tim, licking at his flesh food; "in the
North it was just the same with the Caribou, the whole land alive
with them--and Mooswa, too."
"But now, A'tim, since the coming of the Palefaces we are
slaughtered by them and by the Redmen. L-o-u-g-h--h-o-o! I shall
leave this old Range to-day forever; my heart is sad."
"Come with me, then, Brother," cried A'tim; "together we will go
to the land of which I have spoken. It is a long, lone trail for
one. I will guard you well, for I know Man's ways; and at night
we will rest side by side."
"I will go," said the Bull simply.
"Let us start," cried A'tim, seizing his joint of Buffalo meat,
and sweeping the horizon with suspicious eyes.
"Your eating is heavy," said Shag; "I will carry it for you on my
horns. L-o-u-g-h--h-u! the blood smells terrible!" he exclaimed
as A'tim pulled the buffalo flesh over Shag's forehead.
Then the two Outcasts took up the long trail toward the
Northland, where in a woof of sage green and bracken gold was
woven a scheme of flesh-colored Castillejia, and wine-tinted
moose-weed, and purple pea-flower; where was the golden shimmer
of Gaillardia and slender star-leafed sunflower; the pencil stalk
of blue-joint, and the tasseled top of luscious pony-grass: a
veritable promised land for the old Bull, buffeted of his
fellows, and finding the short grass of the Southland stubbornly
hard against his worn teeth.
There, too, was Wapoos, the Hare so easily caught in the years of
plenty, and A'tim need never feel the pangs of a collapsing
stomach. There also were Marten, and Grouse, and Pheasant, and
Kit Beaver, and other animals sweet against the tongue. Surely
the Dog-Wolf had lingered too long in that barren Southern
country, where there was only the rat-faced Gopher, who was but
a mouthful; with, perhaps, the chance of a Buffalo Calf caught
away from the Herd. Even that chance was gone now, for man was
killing them all off. Yes, it was well that they should trail to
the Northland, each said to the other.
For days they plodded over the prairie, cobwebbed into deep ruts
by Buffalo trails leading from grassland to water.
It was on the third day that A'tim said to the Buffalo Bull: "I
am thirsty, Shag; my throat is hot with the dust. Know you of
sweet drinking near--even with your sense of the hidden drinking
you can find it, Great Bull, can you not?"
"This hollow trail leads to water, most assuredly," answered
Shag, stepping leisurely into a path that was like an old plow
furrow in a hay meadow. "Even this shows how many were my people
once." The Buffalo sighed. "Within sight are more trails like
this than you have toes to your feet, Dog-Wolf--this whole mighty
Range from here to the Uplands, which is the home of the White
Storm, is so marked with the trails of my people; and now there
are only these Water Runs to remind us of them."
Soon they came to a little lake blue with the mirrored sky, its
mud banks white as though with driven snow. "The bitter water
mark," said Shag, as his heavy hoof sank through the white crust
on the dark mud.
"I know," answered A'tim--"alkali, that's what Man calls it."
"Let us rest here this night--close to the drinking," commanded
Shag; "to-morrow we will go forward again."
That night A'tim ate the last of the Buffalo meat Shag had packed
on his horns for him. The next day they trailed again toward the
Northland.
When they came to a river that was to be forded Shag carried the
Dog-Wolf on his back; when there was presence of danger, a
suspicious horseman, Shag curled up like a boulder, or crouched
in a coulee, and if the Man came too near A'tim led him away on a
hopeless chase. Daily the Dog-Wolf grew into the heart of Shag,
the Buffalo, who listened with eager delight to his tales of the
Northland.
A'tim had fared well while the meat lasted; but they were now in
a land of much hunger--a land almost devoid of life; and the
Dog-Wolf was coming again into the chronic state of his
existence--famine.
As they trailed Northward the grass grew richer and softer and
more luscious; Shag commenced to put on fat. But daily the
Dog-Wolf grew hungrier and thinner. In the vast solitude, walled
on every side by the never-ending sky from which the stars peeped
at night and the sun smiled by day, there was little for the
Dog-Wolf, who was a flesh-eater. Scarce anything but Gophers; not
an Antelope, nor a Mule Deer, nor a Black Tail had they seen for
days. Once a Kit Fox, the small, gray kind of the prairie, waited
tantalizingly with his nozzle flat on the turf, seemingly asleep,
until A'tim was within two jumps, then he slipped nonchalantly
into his burrow as though he had just been called to dinner. A
froth of disappointed rage wreathed the hungry lips of the
Dog-Wolf. Surely he was in danger of starvation.
For two days he lived on a single Mole, unearthed quite by
chance; then a Gopher, stalked from behind the big legs of Shag,
saved him from utter collapse. Of a verity he was living from
hand to mouth; such abject poverty he had never known, not even
in the Southland by the Blood Reserve.
"Carry me, Brother," he said to the Bull, "for I am weak like a
new Pup. If I could but see a Trapper's shack or a camp," he
confided to Shag, as he clung to the Bull's hump, "I might find
something to eat--Ghur-r-r! a piece of the Pork Eating, or a
half-picked bone, or a Duck killed by the Fire-stick! Even one of
my own kind, a Dog, would I eat, I'm that famished--Great Bull,
is that not a shack?" he exclaimed suddenly as a square building
loomed on the horizon.
"I think I see it," said the Bull; "but my eyes are no longer
good at a great distance."
As they journeyed toward the object Shag suddenly stopped and
gave a loud bubbling guffaw.
"What are you laughing at, Bull?" demanded A'tim angrily.
"I, who am an Outcast because of my great age, Dog-Wolf, am even
now a great Fool; and so art thou, A'tim, an Outcast and a Fool."
"Your wit is like yourself, Shag, heavy and not too pleasing.
Pray, why am I a Fool!"
"That is no shack," answered the Bull; "it is but a rock;
there's a line of them, like a trail of teepees, for miles,
stretching for the length of many a day's march, running as
straight as the cough of a Fire-stick, all looking like that one.
Wie-sah-ke-chack, who is God of the Animals, put them there for
the Buffalo to brush their hides against--a most wise act."
With a weary sigh A'tim turned his eyes from the deceitful rock,
and watched furtively for the chance of even a small Kill as they
journeyed.
Day by day Shag was eating of the richer grass and becoming of a
great corpulency. Envious thoughts commenced to creep into the
mind of A'tim. Why should he starve and become a skeleton, while
this hulking Bull, to whom he was acting as a friend and guide,
waxed fat in the land that was of his finding? Many times Shag
carried the Dog-Wolf on his back, and at night the heat of his
great body kept A'tim warm.
But the vicious envy that was in the Wolf mind of A'tim started
a line of proper villainy. Let the Bull grow fat. If the worst
came to the worst--if no other meat was to be had--when the
Frogs, and Moles, and such Waterfowl as might be surprised had
failed, and his very life depended on food, would not there be
much eating off the body of this Bull Buffalo? Therefore let him
wax fat. At first A'tim only thought of it just a little--a
flash-light of evil, like the sting of a serpent; but daily it
grew stronger. What was Shag to him? He was not of his kind. If,
when they came to the Northland, to the forests of the Athabasca,
the Wapoos were in the year of plague, and all other animals had
fled the boundaries because of this, and there was no food to
be had, why should he not feast for days and days off the
Buffalo?--that is, if anything happened to Shag. Something might
happen to him very easily. A'tim knew of many muskegs where a
stupid, heavy-footed Bull might be mired; also, there was the
poison plant, the Death Flower of the Monkshood. He could
persuade the stupid Shag to eat of it, and in an hour the Bull
would die--puffed up like a Cow's udder; it would not hurt the
flesh. Eu-h-h! there were many ways. Shag's company was good--he
was weary of being alone; it was dreadful to be an Outcast; but
rather than starve to death--well, he would eat his friend.
What matter to him the ever-increasing beauty of the landscape,
the richer growth that appealed strongly to his companion from
the bare Southern plain? The wild rose bushes, red-berried in the
autumn of their fruitage, caressed their ankles as they passed;
pink and white berries clung to silver-leafed Buffalo willow
like rose-tinted snowflakes; hazel and wild cherry and gentle
maple swayed in the prairie wind, and sent fluttering leaf-kisses
to the parent earth. Great patches of feed-land waved silver gray
with a tasseled spread of seeding grasses. Oh! but they were
coming into a land of much growth. Shag the Bull lowed in soft
content as he rested full-bellied on the black-loamed prairie.
All the time A'tim was but thinking of something to kill,
something to eat.
That was as they came to Egg Lake.
"Trail slowly, kind Brother," admonished the Dog-Wolf. "It is now
the season of many Ducks here, even at Egg Lake; perchance in the
reed grass yonder, by the willows, I may stalk a Wavey, or even a
Goose." Ghur-r-r! but he was hungry!
A'tim stole on in front; flat to the grass his belly, and low his
head. As silently as floating foam on still water he passed into
the thicket of reed grass, his fierce eyes fixed on four Mallard
that gabbled and dove their supple heads to the mud bottom for
wild rice. Only a little farther and A'tim would be upon them.
Shag was watching solicitously the stalk of his friend.
Suddenly, and without provocation, the lake seemed to stand up
on end and commence throwing things about. The Bull was
startled--what did it all mean? Gradually something huge and
black began to take shape and form from amidst the whirl of many
moving things.
"A Bear!" gasped Shag. "By the strength of my neck he means to
devour A'tim!"
With a rushing charge Shag was upon the fighters--only just in
time, for Muskwa had A'tim in his long-clawed grasp, and in
another instant would have crushed his Dog ribs. And in the
succession of surprises one came to Muskwa with vivid suddenness,
for he was lifted on a pair of strong horns, like a Cub, and
thrown with great speed far out into the thin waters of the lake.
"Thanks, Great Bull," panted the frightened Dog-Wolf, creeping
painfully from the thick sedge grass. "He also was after the
ducks, I think; I walked right on top of him, I was that busy
with my hunt."
"If I had not been in such a blundering hurry," lamented Shag, "I
might have saved him for your eating; but he's gone now."
And so they journeyed till they came to Battle River. There
A'tim caught three frogs among the blossom-topped leeks; they
were no more than three small oysters to a hungry man.
"The water is deep and the banks steep," grunted Shag, looking
dubiously at the stream.