THE MEDICINE LODGE
Okapa uttered a name. A young warrior, bare to the waist, stepped
forward, entering the circular space within the ropes. He called a
second name, and a second warrior responded in like manner, then a third
and fourth, and so on until his list was complete with twelve. These
were to be the dancers. One was chosen for every one hundred
persons--men, women, and children--in the band. Therefore, this village
had a population of twelve hundred.
The dancers, all young men, stood close together, awaiting the signal.
They had been taking strange compounds, like drugs, that the Indians
make from plants, and their eyes were shining with wild light. Their
bodies already moved in short, convulsive jerks. Any dancer who did not
respond to his name would have been disgraced for life.
After a few moments Okapa called six more names, with a short delay
after every one. Six powerful warriors, fully armed with rifle,
tomahawk, and knife, responded, and took their position beside the
ropes, but outside the ring. They were the guard, and the guard was
always half the number of the dancers.
Now the breathing of the multitude became more intense and heavy, like a
great murmur, and Okapa handed to every one of the dancers a small
whistle made of wood or bone, in the lower end of which was fastened a
single tail feather of the chaparral cock or road runner, known to the
Indians as the medicine bird. The dancers put the little whistles in
their mouths, then the shaman arranged them in a circle facing the
center. The crowd in the medicine lodge now pressed forward, uttering
short gasps of excitement, but the guards kept them back from the ropes.
To the boy at the slit between the buffalo skins it was wild, unreal,
and fantastic beyond degree, some strange, mysterious ceremony out of an
old world that had passed. He saw the bare chests of the warriors rising
and falling, the women as eager as the men, a great mass of light
coppery faces, all intense and bent forward to see better. He knew that
the air in the medicine lodge was heavy, and that its fumes were
exciting, like those of gunpowder. Parallel with the dancers, and
exactly in the center of their circle, hung the hideously carved and
painted joss or wooden image. The twelve looked fixedly at it.
The shaman, standing on one side but within the circle, uttered a short,
sharp cry. Instantly the twelve dancers began to blow shrilly and
continuously upon their whistles, and they moved slowly in a circle
around and around toward the right, their eyes always fixed upon the
joss. The multitude broke into a wild chant, keeping time to the
whistles, and around and around the dancers went. The shaman, stark
naked, his whole body painted in symbols and hieroglyphics, never ceased
to watch them. To Philip's eyes he became at once the figure of
Mephistopheles.
It was difficult for Phil afterward to account for the influence this
scene had over him. He was not within the medicine lodge. Where he lay
outside the fresh cool air of the night blew over him. But he was
unconscious of it. He saw only the savage phantasmagoria within, and by
and by he began to have some touch of the feeling that animated the
dancers and the crowd. An hour, two hours went by. Not one of the men
had ceased for an instant to blow upon his whistle, nor to move slowly
around and around the wooden image, always to the right. The dance,
like the music, was monotonous, merely a sort of leaping motion, but no
warrior staggered. He kept his even place in the living circle, and on
and on they went. Perspiration appeared on their faces and gleamed on
their naked bodies. Their eyes, wild and fanatical, showed souls
steeped in superstition and the intoxication of the dance.
Many of those in the crowd shared in the fierce paroxysm of the hour,
and pressed forward upon the ropes, as if to join the dancers, but the
armed guard thrust them back. The dancers, their eyes fixed on the
joss, continued, apparently intending to go around the circle forever.
The air in the lodge, heavy with dust and the odors of oil and paint and
human beings, would have been intolerable to one just coming from the
outside, but it only excited those within all the more.
Phil's muscles stiffened as he lay on the bough, but his position
against one of the wooden scantlings that held the buffalo skins in
place was easy, and he did not stir. His eyes were always at the slit
and he became oppressed with a strange curiosity. How long could the
men maintain the dancing and singing? He was conscious that quite a
long time had passed, three or four hours, but there was yet no
faltering. Nor did the chant of the crowd cease. Their song, as Phil
learned later, ran something like this:
"The Comanche goes forth to war,
His arrow and bow he takes,
The shaman's blessing is on his head.
His eye is keen and his arm is strong;
He rides the plain like the wind;
His spirit is hot as the touch of fire.
The foeman fights but his strength fails;
His scalp hangs at the Comanche's belt."
There were four or five verses of this, but as soon as they were all
sung, the singers went back to the beginning and sang them again and
again in endless repetition, while the twelve little whistles shrilled
out their piercing accompaniment. The wind began to blow outside, but
Phil did not feel it. Heavy clouds and vapors were drifting past, but
he did not notice them, either. Would this incantation, for now it was
nothing else, go on forever? Certainly the shaman, naked and hideously
painted, presided with undiminished zest at this dance of the imps. He
moved now and then about the circle of dancers, noting them sharply, his
eye ready for any sign of wavering, whether of the spirit or the body.
Phil observed presently some shifting in the crowd of spectators, and
then a new face appeared in the copper-colored mass. It was the face of
a white man, and with a little start the boy recognized it as that of
Bill Breakstone. It may seem singular, but he felt a certain joy at
seeing him there. He had felt sure all the while that Breakstone was a
prisoner, and now he had found him. Certainly he was in the midst of
enemies. Nevertheless, the boy had gone a step forward in his search.
Breakstone was not bound--there was no need of it, a single white man in
such a crowd--and Phil thought he could see pallor showing through his
tan, but the captive bore himself bravely. Evidently he was brought
forward as a trophy, as the chant was broken for a moment or two, and a
great shout went up when he approached, except from the dancers, who
circled on and on, blowing their whistles, without ceasing. Okapa
walked over to Breakstone and brandished a tomahawk before his face,
making the sharp blade whistle in front of his nose and then beside
either cheek. Phil held his breath, but Bill Breakstone folded his arms
and stood immovable, looking the ferocious shaman squarely in the face.
It was at once the best thing and the hardest thing to do, never to
flinch while a razor edge of steel flashed so close to one's face that
it felt cold as it passed.
Two or three minutes of such amusement satisfied the shaman, and, going
back inside the ropes, he turned his attention again to the dancers. It
was now much past midnight, and the slenderest and youngest of the
warriors was beginning to show some signs of weakness. The shaman
watched him keenly. He would last a long time yet, and if he gave up it
would not occur until he fell unconscious. Then he would be dragged
out, water would be thrown over him, and, when he recovered, he would be
compelled to resume dancing if the shaman ordered it. Sometimes the
dancers died of exhaustion. It was well to be in the good graces of the
shaman.
But Phil was now watching Bill Breakstone, who was pressing back in the
crowd, getting as far as possible from the ropes that enclosed the
dancers. Once or twice he saw Breakstone's face, and it seemed to him
that he read there an intention, a summoning of his faculties and
resolution for some great attempt. The mind of a man at such a time
could hold only one purpose, and that would be the desire to escape.
Yet he could not escape single-handed, despite the absorption of the
Comanches in the medicine dance. There was only one door to the great
lodge, and it was guarded. But Phil was there. He felt that the hand of
Providence itself had sent him at this critical moment, and that Bill
Breakstone, with his help, might escape.
He watched for a long time. It must have been three or four o'clock in
the morning. The whistling, shrill, penetrating, now and then getting
horribly upon his nerves, still went on. The wavering warrior seemed to
have got his second wind, and around and around the warriors went, their
eyes fixed steadily upon the hideous wooden face of the joss. Phil
believed that it must be alive to them now. It was alive to him even
with its ghastly cheek of black and its ghastly cheek of white, and its
thick, red lips, grinning down at the fearful strain that was put upon
men for its sake.
Phil's eyes again sought Breakstone. The captive had now pushed himself
back against the buffalo skin wall and stood there, as if he had reached
the end of his effort. He, too, was now watching the dancers. Phil
noted his position, with his shoulder against one of the wooden pieces
that supported the buffalo hide, and the lad now saw the way. Courage,
resolution, and endurance had brought him to the second step on the
stairway of success.
Phil sat on the bough and stretched his limbs again and again to bring
back the circulation. Then he became conscious of something that he had
not noticed before in his absorption. It was raining lightly. Drops
fell from the boughs and leaves, but his rifle, sheltered against his
coat, was dry, and the rain might serve the useful purpose of hiding the
traces of footsteps from trailers so skilled as the Comanches.
He dropped to the ground and moved softly by the side of the lodge,
which was circular in shape, until he came to the point at which he
believed Bill Breakstone rested. There was the wooden scantling, and,
unless he had made a great mistake, the shoulder of the captive was
pressed against the buffalo hide on the left of it. He deliberated a
moment or two, but he knew that he must take a risk, a big risk. No
success was possible without it, and he drew forth his hunting-knife.
Phil was proud of this hunting-knife. It was long, and large of blade,
and keen of edge. He carried it in a leather scabbard, and he had used
it but little. He put the sharp point against the buffalo hide at a
place about the height of a man, and next to the scantling on the left.
Then he pressed upon the blade, and endeavored to cut through the skin.
It was no easy task. Buffalo hide is heavy and tough, but he gradually
made a small slit, without noise, and then, resting his hand and arm,
looked through it.
Phil saw little definite, only a confused mass of heads and bodies, the
light of torches gleaming beyond them, and close by, almost against his
eyes, a thatch of hair. That hair was brown and curling slightly, such
hair as never grew on the head of an Indian. It could clothe the head
of Bill Breakstone and none other. Phil's heart throbbed once more.
Courage and decision had won again. He put his mouth to the slit and
whispered softly:
"Bill! Bill! Don't move! It is I, Phil Bedford!"
The thatch of brown hair, curling slightly at the ends, turned gently,
and back came the whisper, so soft that it could not have been heard
more than a foot away:
"Phil, good old Phil! You've come for me! I might have known it!"
"Are they still looking at the dance?"
"Yes, they can't keep their eyes off it."
"Then now is your only chance. You must get out of this medicine lodge,
and I will help you. I'm going to cut through the buffalo hide low
down, then you must stoop and push your way out at the slash, when
they're not looking."
"All right," said Bill Breakstone, and Phil detected the thrill of joy
in his tone. Phil stooped and bearing hard upon the knife, cut a slash
through the hide from the height of his waist to the ground.
"Now, Bill," he whispered, "when you think the time has come, press
through."
"All right," again came the answer with that leaping tone in it.
Phil put the knife back in its scabbard, and, pressing closely against
the hide beside the slash, waited. Bill did not come. A minute,
another, and a third passed. He heard the monotonous whistling, the
steady chant, and the ceaseless beat of the dancer's feet, but
Breakstone made no sound. Once more he pressed his lips to the slit,
and said in the softest of tones:
"Are you coming, Bill?"
No answer, and again he waited interminable minutes. Then the lips of
the buffalo skin parted, and a shoulder appeared at the opening. It was
thrust farther, and a head and face, the head and face of Bill
Breakstone, followed. Then he slipped entirely out, and the tough
buffalo hide closed up behind him. Phil seized his hand, and the two
palms closed in a strong grasp.
"I had to wait until nobody was looking my way," whispered Breakstone,
"and then it was necessary to make it a kind of sleight-of-hand
performance. I slipped through so quick that any one looking could only
see the place where I had been."
Then he added in tones of irrepressible admiration:
"It was well done, it was nobly done, it was grandly done, Sir Philip of
the Night and the Knife."
"Hark to that!" said Phil, "they miss you already!"
A shout, sharp, shrill, wholly different from all the other sounds, came
from within the great medicine lodge. It was the signal of alarm. It
was not repeated, and the whistling and wailing went on, but Phil and
Breakstone knew that warriors would be out in an instant, seeking the
lost captive.
"We must run for it," whispered Breakstone, as they stood among the
trees.
"It's too late," said Phil. Warriors with torches had already appeared
at either end of the grove, but the light did not yet reach where the
two stood in the thick darkness, with the gentle rain sifting through
the leaves upon them. Phil saw no chance to escape, because the light
of the torches reached into the river bed, and then, like lightning, the
idea came to him.
"Look over your head, Bill," he said. "You stand under an Indian
platform for the dead, and I under another! Jump up on yours and lie
down between the mummies, and I'll do the same here. Take this pistol
for the last crisis, if it should come!"
He thrust his pistol into his companion's hand, seized a bough, and drew
himself up. Bill Breakstone was quick of comprehension, and in an
instant he did likewise. Two bodies tightly wrapped in deerskin were
about three feet apart, and Phil, not without a shudder, lay down
between them. Bill Breakstone on his platform did the same. They were
completely hidden, but the soft rain seeped through the trees and fell
upon their faces. Phil stretched his rifle by his side and scarcely
breathed.
The medicine dance continued unbroken inside. Okapa, greatest shaman of
the Comanches, still stood in the ring watching the circling twelve.
The symbols and hieroglyphics painted on his naked body gleamed ruddily
in the light of the torches, but the war chief, Black Panther, and the
other great war chief, Santana, had gone forth with many good warriors.
The single cry had warned them. Sharp eyes had quickly detected the
slit in the wall of buffalo skin, and even the littlest Indian boy knew
that this was the door by which the captive had passed. He knew, too,
that he must have had a confederate who had helped from the outside, but
the warriors were sure that they could yet retake the captive and his
friend also.
Black Panther, Santana, and a dozen warriors, some carrying torches,
rushed into the grove. They ran by the side of the medicine lodge until
they came to the slit. There they stopped and examined it, pulling it
open widely. They noticed the powerful slash of the knife that had cut
through the tough buffalo hide four feet to the ground. Then they knelt
down and examined the ground for traces of footsteps. But the rain, the
beneficent, intervening rain, had done its work. It had pushed down the
grass with gentle insistence and flooded the ground until nothing was
left from which the keenest Comanche could derive a clue. They ran
about like dogs in the brake, seeking the scent, but they found nothing.
Warriors from the river had reported, also, that they saw nobody.
It was marvelous, incomprehensible, this sudden vanishing of the captive
and his friend, and the two chiefs were troubled. They glanced up at
the dark platforms of the dead and shivered a little. Perhaps the
spirits of those who had passed were not favorable to them. It was well
that Okapa made medicine within to avert disaster from the tribe. But
Black Panther and Santana were brave men, else they would not have been
great chiefs, and they still searched in this grove, which was more or
less sacred, examining behind every tree, prowling among the bushes, and
searching the grass again and again for footsteps.
Phil lay flat upon his back, and those moments were as vivid in his
memory years afterward as if they were passing again. Either elbow
almost touched the shrouded form of some warrior who had lived intensely
in his time. They did not inspire any terror in him now. His enemies
alive, they had become, through no will of their own, his protectors
dead. He did not dare even to turn on his side for fear of making a
noise that might be heard by the keen watchers below. He merely looked
up at the heavens, which were somber, full of drifting clouds, and
without stars or moon. The rain was gradually soaking through his
clothing, and now and then drops struck him in the eyes, but he did not
notice them.
He heard the Comanches walking about beneath him, and the guttural notes
of their words that he did not understand, but he knew that neither he
nor Bill Breakstone could expect much mercy if they were found. After
one escape they would be lucky if they met quick death and not torture
at the hands of the Comanches. He saw now and then the reflection of the
torch-lights high up on the walls of the medicine lodge, but generally
he saw only the clouds and vapors above him.
Despite the voices and footsteps, Phil felt that they would not be seen.
No one would ever think of looking in such places for him and
Breakstone. But the wait was terribly long, and the suspense was an
acute physical strain. He felt his breath growing shorter, and the
strength seemed to depart from his arms and legs. He was glad that he
was lying down, as it would have been hard to stand upon one's feet and
wait, helpless and in silence, while one's fate was being decided.
There was even a fear lest his breathing should turn to a gasp, and be
heard by those ruthless searchers, the Comanches. Then he fell to
calculating how long it would be until dawn. The night could not last
more than two or three hours longer, and if they were compelled to
remain there until day, the chance of being seen by the Comanches would
become tenfold greater.
He longed, also, to see or hear his comrade who lay not ten feet away,
but he dared not try the lowest of whispers. If he turned a little on
his side to see, the mummy of some famous Comanche would shut out the
view; so he remained perfectly still, which was the wisest thing to do,
and waited through interminable time. The rain still dripped through
the foliage, and by and by the wind rose, the rain increasing with it.
The wet leaves matted together, but above wind and rain came the sound
from the medicine lodge, that ceaseless whistling and beating of the
dancers' feet. He wondered when it would stop. He did not know that
Comanche warriors had been known to go around and around in their dance
three days and three nights, without stopping for a moment, and without
food or water.
After a long silence without, he heard the Comanches moving again
through the grove, and the reflection from the flare of a torch struck
high on the wall of the medicine lodge. They had come back for a second
search! He felt for a few moments a great apprehension lest they invade
the platforms themselves, but this thought was quickly succeeded by
confidence in the invisibility of Breakstone and himself, and the
superstition of the Indians.
The tread of the Comanches and their occasional talk died away, the
lights disappeared from the creek bed, and the regions, outside the
medicine lodge and the other lodges, were left to the darkness and the
rain. Phil felt deep satisfaction, but he yet remained motionless and
silent. He longed to call to Breakstone, but he dreaded lest he might
do something rash. Bill Breakstone was older than he, and had spent
many years in the wilderness. It was for him to act first. Phil,
despite an overwhelming desire to move and to speak, held himself rigid
and voiceless. In a half hour came the soft, whispering question:
"Phil, are you there?"
It was Breakstone from the next tree, and never was sound more welcome.
He raised himself a little, and drops of rain fell from his face.
"Yes, I'm here, Bill, but I'm mighty anxious to move," he replied in the
same low tone.
"I'm tired of having my home in a graveyard, too," said Bill Breakstone,
"though I'll own that for the time and circumstances it was about the
best home that could be found this wide world over. It won't be more
than an hour till day, Phil, and if we make the break at all we must
make it now."
"I'm with you," said Phil. "The sooner we start, the better it will
please me."
"Better stretch yourself first about twenty times," said Bill
Breakstone. "Lying so long in one position with the rain coming down on
top of you may stiffen you up quite a lot."
Phil obeyed, flexing himself thoroughly. He sat up and gently touched
the mummy on either side of him. He had no awe, no fear of these dead
warriors. They had served him well. Then, swinging from a bough, he
dropped lightly to the ground, and he heard the soft noise of some one
alighting near him. The form of Bill Breakstone showed duskily.
"Back from the tombs," came the cheerful whisper. "Phil, you're the
greatest boy that ever was, and you've done a job that the oldest and
boldest scout might envy.
"I was a captive,
The Indians had me;
Phil was adaptive,
Now they've lost me.
"I composed that rhyme while I was lying on the death platform up there.
I certainly had plenty of time--and now which way did you come, Phil?"
"Under the shelter of the creek bank. The woods run down to it, and it
is high enough to hide a man."
"Then that is the way we will go, and we will not linger in the going.
Let the Comanches sing and dance if they will. They can enjoy
themselves that way, but we can enjoy ourselves more by running down the
dark bed of a creek."
They slipped among the wet trees and bushes, and silently lowered
themselves down the bank into the sand of the creek bottom. There they
took a parting look at the medicine lodge. It showed through a rift in
the trees, huge and dark, and on either side of it the two saw faint
lights in the village. Above the soft swishing of the rain rose the
steady whistling sound from the lodge, which had never been broken for a
moment, not even by the escape of the prisoner and the search.
"I was never before so glad to tell a place good-by," whispered Bill
Breakstone.
"It's time to go," said Phil. "I'll lead the way, as I've been over it
once."
He walked swiftly along the sand, keeping well under cover of the bank,
and Bill Breakstone was close behind him. They heard the rain pattering
on the surface of the water, and both were wet through and through, but
joy thrilled in every vein of the two. Bill Breakstone had escaped
death and torture; Phil Bedford, a boy, had rescued him in face of the
impossible, and they certainly had full cause for rejoicing.
"How far down the creek bed do you think we ought to go?" asked
Breakstone.
"A quarter of a mile anyway," replied Phil, "and then we can cut across
the plain and enter the forest."
Everything had been so distinct and vivid that he remembered the very
place at which he had dropped down into the creek bed, when he
approached the medicine lodge, and when he came to it again, he said:
"Here we are," springing up at one bound. Breakstone promptly followed
him. Then a figure appeared in the dusk immediately in front of Phil,
the figure of a tall man, naked save the breech cloth, a great crown of
brightly colored feathers upon his head. It was a Comanche warrior,
probably the last of those returning from the fruitless search for the
captive.
The Comanche uttered the whoop of alarm, and Phil, acting solely on
impulse, struck madly with the butt of his rifle. But he struck true.
The fierce cry was suddenly cut short. The boy, with a shuddering
effect, felt something crush beneath his rifle stock. Then he and Bill
Breakstone leaped over the fallen body and ran with all their might
across the plain toward the woods.
"It was well that you hit so quick and hard," breathed Breakstone, "but
his single yell has alarmed the warriors. Look back, they are getting
ready to pursue."
Phil cast one hurried glance over his shoulder. He saw lights twinkling
among the Comanche lodges, and then he heard a long, deep, full-throated
cry, uttered by perhaps a hundred throats.
"Hark to them!" exclaimed Breakstone. "They know the direction from
which that cry came, and you and I, Phil, will have to make tracks
faster than we ever did before in our lives."
"At any rate, we've got a good start," said Phil.
They ran with all speed toward the woods, but behind them and in other
directions they heard presently the beat of hoofs, and both felt a
thrill of alarm.
"They are on their ponies, and they are galloping all over the plain,"
said Bill Breakstone. "Some of them are bound to find us, but you've
the rifle, and I've the pistol!"
They ran with all their might, but from two or three points the ominous
beat of hoofs came closer. They were devoutly glad now of the rain and
the shadowed moon that hid them from all eyes except those very near.
Both Phil and Breakstone stumbled at intervals, but they would recover
quickly, and continue at undiminished, speed for the woods, which were
now showing in a blacker line against the black sky.
There was a sudden swift beat of hoofs, and two warriors galloped almost
upon them. Both the warriors uttered shouts at sight of the fugitives,
and fired. But in the darkness and hurry they missed. Breakstone fired
in return, and one of the Indians fell from his pony. Phil was about to
fire at the other, but the Comanche made his pony circle so rapidly that
in the faint light he could not get any kind of aim. Then he saw
something dark shoot out from the warrior's hand and uncoil in the air.
A black, snakelike loop fell over Bill Breakstone's head, settled down
on his shoulders, and was suddenly drawn taut, as the mustang settled
back on his haunches. Bill Breakstone, caught in the lasso, was thrown
to the ground by the violent jerk, but with the stopping of the horse
came Phil's chance. He fired promptly, and the Comanche fell from the
saddle. The frightened mustang ran away, just as Breakstone staggered
dizzily to his feet. Phil seized him by the arm.
[Illustration: "A black, snakelike loop fell over Bill Breakstone's
head"]
"Come, Bill, come!" he cried. "The woods are not thirty yards away!"
"Once more unto the breach, or rather the woods!" exclaimed the
half-unconscious man. "Lead on, Prince Hal, and I follow! That's
mixed, but I mean well!"
They ran for the protecting woods, Breakstone half supported by Phil,
and behind them they now heard many cries and the tread of many hoofs.
A long, black, snake-like object followed Bill Breakstone, trailing
through the grass and weeds. They had gone half way before Phil noticed
it. Then he snatched out his knife and severed the lasso. It fell
quivering, as if it were a live thing, and lay in a wavy line across the
grass. But the fugitives were now at the edge of the woods, and Bill
Breakstone's senses came back to him in full.
"Well done again, Sir Philip of the Knife and the Ready Mind," he
whispered. "I now owe two lives to you. I suppose that if I were a cat
I would in the end owe you nine. But suppose we turn off here at an
angle to the right, and then farther on we'll take another angle. I
think we're saved. They can't follow us on horses in these dense woods,
and in all this darkness."
They stepped lightly now, but drew their breaths in deep gasps, their
hearts throbbing painfully, and the blood pounding in their ears. But
they thanked God again for the clouds and the moonless, starless sky.
It could not be long until day, but it would be long enough to save
them.
They went nearly a quarter of a mile to the right, and then they took
another angle, all the while bearing deeper into the hills. From time
to time they heard the war cries of the Comanches coming from different
points, evidently signals to one another, but there was no sound of
footsteps near them.
"Let's stop and rest a little," said Bill Breakstone. "These woods are
so thick and there is so much undergrowth that they cannot penetrate
here with horses, and, as they know that at least one of us is armed,
they will be a little wary about coming here on foot. They know we'd
fight like tigers to save ourselves. 'Thrice armed is he who hath his
quarrel just,' and if a man who is trying to save his life hasn't got a
just quarrel, I don't know who has. Here's a good place."
They had come to a great oak which grew by the side of a rock projecting
from a hill. The rain had been gentle, and the little alcove, formed by
the rock above and the great trunk of the tree on one side, was
sheltered and dry. Moreover, it contained many dead leaves of the
preceding autumn, which had been caught there when whirled before the
winds. It was large enough for two, and they crept into it, not
uttering but feeling deep thanks.