THE RUSE OF THE BUFFALO TRAIL
Simon Sprott approached them, smiling as Indian medicine men are not
supposed to smile.
"You'll put up in my lodge until we can get your own outfit brought
along," he said. "You'll both be hungry, after what you've gone
through. Indian food, cooked by Indians, isn't at all bad."
He conducted them into his teepee, and Rube Carter was surprised to see
how comfortably furnished it was, with a camp bed and washing-stand, a
table and two or three chairs, as well as a stove, and even a shelf of
books.
Simon Sprott looked at Kiddie in deliberate scrutiny.
"Friend of Gid Birkenshaw's, you tell me?" he said very slowly. "And
the son of Buckskin Jack. Well, Gid and me, we was pals years and
years ago, trapping up on the head waters of the Platte. Yes, and
afterwards, when he'd settled down in his ranch on the Sweetwater, I
seem to remember a nipper that he'd bought from an Indian and adopted.
Dare say it was yourself. What was the name he'd given you? Little
Cayuse, was it?"
"Quite right," answered Kiddie. "That was me, sure. And you mended my
wheelbarrow and taught me how to throw the lariat."
"As for Buckskin Jack," continued Sprott, "there never was any one like
him. Best all-round scout I've ever known, Red or White; and the
truest gentleman. English, too, he was, and that means a lot to me--a
lot it means. I'm proud to meet the son of Buckskin Jack. And if
there's anything I can do for you, just name it."
"Thank you, Simon," returned Kiddie. "But you've done enough in
helping me to rescue young Rube here. We'll stay the night in your
camp and then get back to our canoe and home to Sweetwater Bridge."
"What's your all-fired hurry?" questioned Simon. "You'll stay as long
as ever you like. It can't be as long as I should like. Stay a while
for my sake. Just consider. It's years since I've heard my mother
tongue spoken as you speak it, and I'm sore longing to have a chat with
a friend who isn't a Crow Indian. Your young partner'd like to stay,
if I know anything of boyhood. The adventure would suit him, and
to-morrow the Crows are going out on a buffalo hunt. A big herd has
been seen, back of Washakee Peak."
Kiddie glanced towards Rube.
"Like to go buffalo huntin', Rube?" he asked.
"Wouldn't I just!" Rube answered. "But you'll come, too, won't you?"
"Oh, yes," Kiddie agreed.
Rube was so hungry after his long fast that he considered the Indian
food quite delicious, and he ate heartily.
After the meal he wandered out of the lodge; but there was little for
him to see except the dark shapes of the wigwams and here and there a
group of silent Indians seated round their camp fire; and so he
returned and took comfortable refuge between the blankets and buffalo
robes provided for him by one of Simon Sprott's attendant braves.
Before he fell asleep, however, he listened to the conversation between
Kiddie and their host.
"He's got spies everywhere," Simon was saying. "Yes, even among the
trappers, even working among the cowboys on the ranches. Many of the
cowboys themselves are in his pay, stealing horses for him from the
outlying corrals, or smuggling firearms into his reservation. For, as
a rule, he gets others to do his dirty work for him. Naturally, we've
got scouts as well as he, and we're not ignorant of his strength or his
intentions."
Rube knew by now that it was of Broken Feather that they were speaking.
"If all I've heard of him is true," said Kiddie, "he has as strong a
following as any chief within a week's ride. As for his intentions, I
don't pretend to have any special knowledge, excepting that he's a man
who thinks a tremendous lot of himself and has the ambition to be a
great military genius like Sitting Bull or Red Cloud."
"That's just the point," resumed Simon Sprott. "And to achieve his
ambition, he's aiming at conquering the smaller tribes, one by
one--Crows, Blackfeet, Arapahoes, Pawnees. But the Crows first of all.
Any day he may lead his army on the war trail against us, here in the
Falling Water Reserve."
"If you're certain of that, why not be the first to attack?" suggested
Kiddie. "You could take him by surprise."
Short Nose grunted deep in his throat and shook his head.
"Unfortunately," he answered, "the Crows have no warrior capable of
planning and carrying out such an enterprise. It'll be as much as we
can do to defend our village when we ourselves are attacked. Now, if
Buckskin Jack were here----!"
There was a long spell of silence in the lodge, broken only by the
crackling of the fire. Rube had closed his heavy eyes when he again
heard Kiddie's voice.
"Tell me this, Simon," said Kiddie, seeming to change the subject from
warfare to hunting. "Exactly how did you learn of that herd of
buffalo, back of Washakee Peak?"
Simon Sprott was meditatively puffing at his tobacco pipe; but he
paused to answer--
"Word was brought in by one of our scouts."
"Did that scout see the herd with his own eyes?" Kiddie pursued.
"Well, no; I believe not," Simon answered absently. "A lone trapper on
Box Elder Creek gave him the information; said it was the biggest herd
seen on these hunting grounds for many summers back."
"Trapper might have been one of Broken Feather's spies," Kiddie
suggested very quietly.
"Eh?" Simon Sprott looked up sharply and blew a long, slow jet of
smoke from his lips.
"It's possible," he acknowledged; "quite possible, but not just likely.
And why should the trapper, if he was a spy, tell the scout that the
buffalo were there, and even recommend the hunt?"
"Yes, why?" Kiddie asked. "For my own part, I don't believe that
there's a herd of buffalo within a hundred miles of Washakee Peak. I
guess the trapper had his instructions to tell that story, just to get
your warriors out on the buffalo trail, leaving your village undefended
for Broken Feather to make his unopposed attack upon it in your
absence."
Simon Sprott stared at Kiddie in amazement.
"That's cute," he said, "very cute indeed of you to hit upon such an
idea. It's just the sort of idea that Buckskin Jack himself might have
sprung out of that wonderful brain of his. I believe you're right.
Broken Feather would do a cunning thing like that. It's quite in his
line. Nothing more likely. In any case, the Crows are going to alter
their programme. All preparations for the buffalo surround are
complete. You and friend Rube there were to have had a great time.
But that buffalo hunt isn't going to come off."
When Rube Carter awoke the following morning he found himself alone in
the teepee, and might have believed himself to be back in Kiddie's camp
on Sweetwater Lake but for the medley of sounds that came to him
through the open door-flap.
He heard the neighing of horses, the barking of dogs, and the
high-pitched voices of squaws and children.
He listened sleepily for a while. Just outside of the lodge a party of
young braves were quarrelling for possession of a cooking-pot.
"For people who have the reputation of bein' silent, Injuns are capable
of makin' a heap of noise," Rube said to himself, "I never heard such a
racket in all my days."
He sat up and reached for his moccasins, and was surprised to find his
lost fur cap, with the bedraggled eagle's feathers in it, lying beside
them. His revolver also had been restored to him.
He was examining the injury done by the fire to his leggings and
moccasins when he heard Kiddie's voice from outside raised almost to a
shout of command, as if he were drilling a company of soldiers. Rube
flung his blankets aside and crept across the floor to look out. What
he saw astonished him greatly.
The wide open space in front of the chief's lodge was now crowded with
mounted Indians, in full war paint, drawn up in regular ranks. Apart
from them, and halted in a group facing them, were Falling Water and
his principal warriors, all wearing their feathered war bonnets and
armed with rifles, clubs, and tomahawks.
Falling Water, mounted on a fine black mustang, carried his great staff
of high office, decorated with coloured beads and fringed with
scalp-locks. He looked very magnificent and dignified, and younger
than Rube had at first supposed him to be.
But it was the rider at the chief's side--a rider astride of a lank,
piebald prairie pony--who arrested Rube's closest attention. There
were but two feathers in his simple war bonnet, which was partly hidden
by his blue-and-white blanket. His back was towards Rube, who could
not see his face or know if it was painted with vermilion, but by his
seat on horseback and the way he held himself Rube instantly knew that
it was Kiddie.
Kiddie was giving commands to the Crows in their own language. Clearly
he had been placed in authority over them as their general and
field-marshal--he who, hardly twelve hours before, had crept secretly
into their camp, an unknown trespasser!
Rube Carter marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, though not
for an instant did he doubt Kiddie's fitness and ability. In Rube's
estimation there was nothing great and honourable that Kiddie was
incapable of doing.
Rube wanted to go up to Kiddie now and ask him how this transformation
had all come about; but he did not dare. Instead, he stood watching
Kiddie riding slowly along the files, inspecting them, followed by
Falling Water, Short Nose, and the principal warriors.
It was not until after Rube had washed and made himself tidy that he
had a chance of speaking with Kiddie. They were then at breakfast, or
what passed for breakfast in the Indian encampment. As a matter of
fact, it was an enormous feast that was served to them, of buffalo
steak, beaver tail, prairie chicken, stewed berries, and great
quantities of rich new milk, with all the other luxuries that the
attentive Crows could lavish upon them.
"Looks as if they'd bin turnin' you into a boss war chief, Kiddie,"
Rube began. "Some sudden on their part, ain't it?"
"Well, yes," returned Kiddie, "it's certainly sudden, seeing that I'm
just a stranger among 'em. But you see, it's this way. After you'd
gone to sleep last night, one of Falling Water's scouts came in,
reportin' that the story of the herd of buffalos was all a made-up
affair. He'd been on a big scout round about the Broken Feather
Agency, and he was able to prove that Broken Feather and his warriors
and braves were busy gettin' ready to come out on the war-path against
the Crows. The expedition's timed to start so as to be right here
while the Crows are out huntin' imaginary buffaloes."
"Just your own idea," commented Rube, "the same idea to a tick! And so
the Crows are fixin' up things to be ready for the defence, I conclude?"
"Not exactly that," Kiddie corrected. "They're goin' ter strike the
first blow by makin' a surprise attack on the Sioux. They're not
figurin' to wait until Broken Feather makes the assault."
"But then," Rube objected, "didn't Short Nose--otherwise Simon
Sprott--say last night that the Crows hadn't a warrior capable of
undertakin' such an expedition?"
"Seems he's changed his mind," said Kiddie.
Rube scratched the back of his ear, which was his habit when thinking
deeply.
"Somethin' new, eh, t' get a English nobleman ter lead a band of
painted Redskins on the war-path?" he said. "Though I reckon you c'n
do it if anyone can. 'Tain't as if you was a tenderfoot at the
business."
"Feel inclined to come along with us, Rube?" Kiddie casually inquired.
"You c'n keep in the rear, you know."
"I shall keep right back in the rear if that's where you are goin' t'
be yourself, Kiddie," returned Rube. "I'm figurin' t' be alongside o'
you wherever you are. When d' we make a start?"
"As soon as you're ready," Kiddie intimated, "for I see you're
determined to be with us. I oughtn't to allow you; but I think you may
be of use, and if you come through it all right it will be a great
experience for you. I've found a good pony for you and an apology for
a saddle. Your own rifle would have been handy if you'd brought it.
The Crows have none light enough. Don't neglect to take cartridges for
your six-shooter. And if the battle comes off, don't expect me t' be
looking after you all the time."
"I understand," Rube acquiesced. "You've gotter concentrate on
defeatin' Broken Feather, and you mustn't be worried thinkin' of my
safety. Well, all right. I shall not interfere with you any."
Rube was certainly determined to be present in the expected battle. He
considered it a more than ample substitute for the mythical buffalo
hunt.
He did not speak with Kiddie again for many hours. But he saw him
frequently, riding at the head of the long procession of mounted
Indians.
The Crows were divided into three armies--the first commanded by
Kiddie, the second by Falling Water, and the third by Short Nose. They
rode in single file, with scouts in front and rear and on either flank.
Towards noon there was a halt on the banks of Poison Spider Creek, and
the march had not yet been renewed when Kiddie sent Rube out alone to
scout for possible signs of the enemy outposts.
Rube had not gone many miles in advance when on crossing the ridge of a
range of foothills he looked down upon the wide rolling prairie beyond
and saw a vast, well-ordered army of the Sioux, moving very quickly and
in numbers far surpassing the forces of the Crows, whom it was evident
they had come out to meet.
Making a rapid calculation of their strength, Rube rode back at top
speed and reported his significant discovery to Kiddie.
This unexpected news that the enemy were out of their reservation and
making a forced march towards Falling Water's encampment caused an
entire change of plan. The coming conflict was not to be a mere
surprise attack on Broken Feather's village, but a pitched battle in
the open. Kiddie, however, was equal to the occasion.