THE INDIAN POLICEMEN.
For a few minutes there was great commotion among some of the women in
camp, a few making preparations to strike tents, and the rest hurrying
off to saddle their husbands’ horses. The braves did not do anything
except bring their weapons out of the tepees and stand by until their
nags were brought up. Carl, seeing that no attention was paid to
himself, went out of the tepee and took his stand by the squawman’s
side.
“Do you see those men who are sitting in front of their wigwams smoking
their pipes?” said Harding. “Well they are those who don’t believe in
the Ghost Dance. The soldiers say they don’t want them to engage in it,
and that is enough for them.”
“They will be saved when the world comes to an end as well as those
who do believe in it, will they not?” said Carl.
“Not much, they won’t,” answered the squawman indignantly. “This world
is going to be destroyed and a new one made in the place of it; and
those men, who are perfectly willing that the whites should come here
and steal all their land and drive away the buffalo, will go somewhere,
and no one will ever see them again.”
“Where’s my horse?” asked Carl suddenly. “Or are you going to leave me
here?”
“Not as anybody knows of,” said the squawman with a laugh. “You must go
on with me up to the other camp. I have been trying for a long time to
get hold of you, and now that I have got you I am going to hold fast to
you.”
“How far is that camp from here?”
“About thirty-five miles.”
“Did you tell one of the women to saddle my horse?”
“No, because the horse don’t belong to me. The one who took your horse
by the bridle and stopped you is the one who laid claim to the horse.”
“And who has my rifle and revolver?”
“They went to some others of the party. Oh, you will never see them
again.”
Carl was not much disappointed to hear this. He knew that his valuables
were all gone, having become the property of those who helped capture
him, but there were certain other things he had that he intended to
hold fast to—the revolvers in the breast of his jacket. So long as they
were not discovered and taken away from him he would not give up all
hope of some day making a dash for his freedom.
“Have you not an extra horse, so that I can ride?” asked Carl.
“No; the women have got all the rest—and they need them, too. You will
have to walk; I don’t see any way for you to get around it.”
The horse of the squawman had by this time been brought up, and he
swung himself into the saddle, first making a motion to Carl to keep
close by his side. As they got a little way out of the camp Carl saw
that the crier’s voice had been obeyed, for they fell in behind a
long row of Indians who were already taking their way toward the new
camping-ground. They were mostly braves, the women having been left
behind to strike the tepees. The squawman did not exchange a word with
any of them, and neither did Harding converse with him as freely as he
had done heretofore. He did not want to let the bucks see how familiar
he was with a prisoner.
The boy was not accustomed to travelling so far on foot, and before
their journey was ended he was about as tired as he could well be. At
length, to his immense relief, he discovered the camp within plain
sight of him. It was situated on a plain which seemed to have no end,
with high rolling hills on three sides of it, and on the outskirts were
several “sweat-houses” in which the braves purified themselves while
making ready for the dance, and in the centre was perhaps a quarter of
an acre of ground on which the grass was completely worn off. This had
been done by the braves while learning the Ghost Dance from Kicking
Bull. There were a large number of tepees scattered around the edge of
the plain, but Carl had witnessed the sight so often that he barely
took a second look at them. What he wanted was to get somewhere and sit
down.
“I’ll bet that the men who dance here will get dust enough in their
mouths to keep them from telling the truth for months,” said Carl.
“Five days! That’s a long time to keep it up.”
“It is sometimes called the ‘dragging dance,’” said the squawman. “The
men get so tired after a while that they can’t lift their feet. Now we
will pick out a good place for my tepee, and then we will sit down. You
act as though you were tired.”
Harding kept on for half a mile farther, picked out a spot that would
do him, dismounted, and pulled his never-failing pipe from his pocket.
Carl thought he could enjoy a smoke and passed his tobacco-bag to the
squawman. The latter ran the weed through his fingers and praised its
purity.
“We don’t get any such tobacco out here,” said he. “We have to eke
it out by smoking bark with it. Say, Carl, how much do you get for
scouting for that fort?”
“I don’t get anything,” said Carl.
“Do you get up at all hours of the night and run around for that man
for nothing?” asked the squawman in astonishment.
“Oh, that’s no trouble. When I want money I can easily get it.”
“That is what comes of your having more money than you want,” said
Harding; and it was plain that he was getting angry over it. “If I
had one quarter of what you have got, I would leave this country
altogether.”
It was useless for Carl to tell the squawman that the only way for him
to get money was to go to work and earn it, for he had tried that plan
on him while he was herding cattle for his father; so he said nothing.
He leaned his elbows on his knees and watched the women as they came
up and selected places for their tepees. When the squawman’s was put
up, Carl found that he was in a position to see the Ghost Dance without
going away from it. He would learn something more about it, then.
“Have your women got your tepee all fixed?” asked Carl. “Well, I am
hungry.”
The squawman was hungry himself, and he had ordered the fire to be
built and the iron pot to be placed over it. By the time that Harding
had smoked his pipe he arose to his feet with the remark that he
guessed grub was about ready, and went into the tepee. Carl kept close
at his heels, and found that the iron pot had been removed from the
fire and set in the middle of the tepee, with two wooden spoons beside
it. The squawman took one, while Carl took the other and began to fish
what he liked best from out the pot. That was all they had. The meat
had been fresh the day before, but it had been cooked so many times
that there was scarcely anything left of it. But he made a pretty good
meal after all, and when he had satisfied his appetite he filled his
pipe, lighted it with a brand from the fire, and went outside to enjoy
it.
“I wouldn’t be at all uneasy if I knew where Lieutenant Parker is at
this moment,” thought he, seating himself on a grassy mound beside the
tepee. “I wonder if that horse has sense enough to follow his own trail
back to the fort? And why didn’t they capture him, too, when they took
me? I guess the squawman let him go.”
While he was busy thinking in this way Harding came out, followed by
his wife.
“I am going up to sweat myself, to make myself ready for the Ghost
Dance which will come off to-morrow,” said he. “Don’t attempt any
nonsense now. These women will keep their eyes on you.”
“Why can’t you let me go with you?” asked Carl. “I want to see what you
do in that sweat-box.”
“Well, I think on the whole that you had better stay here,” said
Harding. “The bucks don’t like your kind any too well——”
“Why, that ought not to make any difference with them,” said Carl, who
was evidently astonished at the squawman’s words. “I can see some of
them here that have eaten more than one meal at my father’s house. They
ought to think well of our family for that.”
“That does not make any difference. You belong to a class that has
humbugged them all the way through, and there are men here in the party
who have sworn to kill every paleface they meet. So I guess you had
better stay here.”
Carl had no idea of attempting to escape while the squawman was in the
sweat-box. There were too many bucks all around him; and, besides,
he had some preparations to make. He wanted to get rid of his boots
and borrow a blanket to conceal his moleskin suit. Thus equipped,
he believed that when the Ghost Dance was at its height he could
slip away, and those who met him on the road, seeing nothing but the
moccasins he wore and the blanket wrapped around his head, would
surely take him for one of their own number and say nothing to him. He
believed that he would try it, anyway.
“The only question is in regard to these women,” soliloquized Carl.
“If they get excited and go down there to see the dance, I can make
it. If I once get over these hills they will never see me again. But
suppose I am overtaken? Well,” he added, clutching his hands about his
revolvers, “I won’t be tied to the stake without some of them going
with me.”
Carl glanced at the women and saw that they had seated themselves
opposite to him, and, wrapped up in their blankets, appeared to take no
notice of anything; but he knew better than to attempt anything while
they were on watch. They sat side by side, but never exchanged words
with each other. The day and night wore on until it was twelve o’clock,
but still no sounds came from the camp. Finally Carl grew tired of
doing nothing and went into the tepee. He picked out a bed, the most
comfortable one in the lot and as far away from the others as he could
get it, and stretched himself out upon it. He thought of Lieutenant
Parker, wondered what the Ghost Dance was going to be, and then passed
off into the land of dreams.
Morning came at length, and Carl raised himself on his elbow to find
the squawman fast asleep on a bed by his side. He got up and went to
the door to examine things. He saw that some changes had been made in
the dancing-ground since he slept. A tree, denuded of all its branches
except near the top, had been erected near the centre, and there was a
staff, with a polished buffalo-horn on one end and a plumed horse-tail
on the other; a bow with its bone arrows and a gaming wheel with its
accompanying sticks were made fast below it. But prominent among all
was something that attracted Carl’s attention and drew from him a sneer
of disgust. It was the Star-Spangled Banner.
“I don’t see what the Government has done to be insulted in this way,”
said he. “I think they had better leave that thing out.”
For want of something better to do Carl filled his pipe, and sat there
and smoked it. There were a few braves stirring about with nothing on
hand to do, and now and then one came out of his tepee and started
toward the sweat-boxes. He was going to prepare himself for the dance.
For an hour Carl sat there waiting for something to happen, and during
that time the camp became thoroughly awake. One of the women came to
the door and motioned him to enter—a sign that his breakfast was ready.
The squawman still lay asleep on the bed, but the kettle had been taken
off the fire and occupied its usual place in the centre of the tepee.
“This meat is not half done,” said Carl, trying to scoop up a piece
from the middle of the pot. “You ought to be at our camp for a little
while. They would show you how to cook a breakfast.”
While Carl was engaged in lighting his pipe at the fire, a commotion
suddenly arose in the camp. It did not take the form of yells, as it
usually did, but there were subdued growls and the scurrying of feet
hurrying toward the dancing-ground. Carl wanted to see what was the
matter, and so he hastened out. The dancing-ground was alive with
Indians, all thoroughly armed, who stood watching the approach of three
horsemen coming toward them. Carl felt for his binoculars, but they
were away, keeping company with his horse and rifle.
“Those are Indian policemen, if I ever saw them,” said he. “What do
they want here? If I could only make them see me. Eh? What do you
want?” he added, turning fiercely upon one of the Indian women who
seized him by the arm and tried to draw him inside the tepee. “Get
away.”
Carl abruptly thrust out his foot and tumbled the woman over
backwards. She fell all in a heap, but at the same time she uttered a
yell so loud and piercing that it straightway aroused the squawman, who
came out with a rush.