Old Pogosa was seated in the shade of a farm-wagon, not far from the
trader's store at Washakie, eating a cracker and mumbling to herself,
when a white man in miner's dress spoke to her in a kindly voice and
offered her an orange. She studied him with a dim, shining, suspicious
gaze, but took the orange. Eugene, the grandson of her niece, stood
beside the stranger, and he, too, had an orange.
"Tell her," said the white man, "that I want to talk with her about old
days; that I am a friend of her people, and that I knew Sitting Bull and
Bear Robe. They were great chiefs."
As these words were interpreted to the old witch, her mouth softened a
little and, raising her eyes, she studied her visitor intently. At last
she said: "Ay, he was a great chief, Sitting Bull. My cousin. I came to
visit Shoshoni many moons ago. Never returned to my own people."
To this the miner replied, "They say your husband, Iapi, was one of the
sheep-eaters exiled to the mountains?"
Her eyes widened. Her gaze deepened. She clipped her forefinger in sign
of agreement. "It was very cold up there in winter. We were often
hungry, for the game had all been driven to the plain and we could not
follow. Many of our children died. All died but one."
The stranger, whose name was Wetherell, responded with a sigh: "My heart
is heavy when I hear of it. Because you are old and have not much food I
give you this money." And he handed her a silver dollar and walked away.
The next day, led by Eugene, Wetherell and Kelley, his partner, again
approached the old Sioux, this time with a generous gift of beef.
"My brother, here, is paper-chief," he explained. "As a friend of the
red people he wants to put in a book all the wrongs that the
sheep-eaters suffered."
In this way the gold-seekers proceeded to work upon Pogosa's withered
heart. Her mind was clouded with age, but a spark of her old-time
cunning still dwelt there, and as she came to understand that the white
men were eager to hear the story of the lost mine she grew forgetful.
Her tongue halted on details of the trail. Why should not her tale
produce other sides of bacon, more oranges, and many yards of cloth? Her
memory wabbled like her finger--now pointing west, now north. At one
time the exiles found the gold in the cabin in a bag--like shining sand;
at another it lay in the sand like shining soldiers' buttons, but always
it was very beautiful to look upon, and always, she repeated, the white
men fled. No one slew them. They went hurriedly, leaving all their
tools.
"She knows," exulted Wetherell. "She knows, and she's the one living
Indian who can direct us." To Eugene he exclaimed: "Say to her pretty
soon she's going to be rich--mebbe go home to Cheyenne River. If she
shows us the trail we will take her to her own people."
Like a decrepit eagle the crone pondered. Suddenly she spoke, and her
speech was a hoarse chant. "You are good to me. The bones of my children
lie up there. I will go once more before I die."
Kelley was quick to take advantage of sunset emotion. "Tell her we will
be here before sunrise. Warn her not to talk to any one." And to all
this Eugene gave ready assent.
Wetherell slept very little that night, although their tent stood close
beside the singing water of the Little Wind. They were several miles
from the fort and in a lonely spot with only one or two Indian huts
near, and yet he had the conviction that their plans and the very hour
of their starting were known to other of the red people. At one moment
he was sure they were all chuckling at the "foolish white men"; at
another he shivered to think how easy it would be to ambush this crazy
expedition in some of the deep, solitary defiles in those upper forests.
"A regiment could be murdered and hidden in some of those savage
glooms," said he to himself.
Kelley slept like a top, but woke at the first faint dawn, with the
precision of an alarm-clock. In ten minutes he had the horses in, and
was throwing the saddles on. "Roll out, Andy," he shouted. "Here comes
Eugene."
Wetherell lent himself to the work with suddenly developed enthusiasm,
and in half an hour the little train of laden animals was in motion
toward the hills. Pogosa was waiting, squatted on the ground at some
distance from her tepee. Slipping from his horse, he helped her mount.
She groaned a little as she did so, but gathered up the reins like one
resuming a long-forgotten habit. For years she had not ventured to
mount a horse, and her withered knees were of small service in
maintaining her seat, but she made no complaint.
Slowly the little train crawled up the trail, which ran for the most
part along the open side of the slope, in plain view from below. At
sunrise they were so well up the slope that an observer from below would
have had some trouble in making out the character of the cavalcade. At
seven o'clock they entered the first patch of timber and were hidden
from the plain.
On the steep places, where the old squaw was forced to cling to her
saddle, groaning with pain, the kindly Wetherell walked beside her,
easing her down the banks. In crossing the streams he helped her find
the shallowest fording, and in other ways was singularly considerate.
Kelley couldn't have done this, but he saw the value of it.
"It's a hard trip and we've got to make it as easy for the old bird as
we can."
"She's human," retorted Wetherell, "and this ride is probably painful
for her, mentally as well as physically."
"I s'pose it does stir her up some," responded Kelley. "She may balk any
minute and refuse to go. We'd better camp early."
A little later Eugene called out, "She says set tepee here." And Kelley
consented.
Again it was Wetherell who helped her from her saddle and spread his
pack for her to rest upon. He also brought a blanket and covered her as
tenderly as if she were his own grandmother. "She's pretty near all in,"
he said, in palliation of this action. He took a pleasure in seeing her
revive under the influence of hot food.
When she began to talk, Eugene laughingly explained: "She stuck on you.
She say you good man. Your heart big for old Injun woman."
Kelley chuckled. "Keep it up, Andy," he called through the tent. "I
leave all that business to you."
Pogosa's face darkened. She understood the laugh. "Send him away," she
commanded Eugene, all of which made Kelley grin with pleasure.
The whole enterprise now began to take on poetry to Wetherell. The
wilderness, so big, so desolate, so empty to him, was full of memories
to this brown old witch. To her the rushing stream sang long-forgotten
songs of war and the chase. She could hear in its clamor the voices of
friends and lovers. This pathway, so dim and fluctuating, so indefinite
to the white man, led straight into the heroic past for her. Perhaps she
was treading it now, not for the meat and flannel which Kelley had
promised her, but for the pleasure of reliving the past. She was young
when her husband was banished. In these splendid solitudes her brave
young hunter adventured day by day. Here beside one of these glorious
streams her children were born in exile; here they suffered the snows of
winter, the pests of summer; and here they had died one by one, till
only she remained. Then, old and feeble, she had crawled back into the
reservation, defiant of Washakie, seeking comfort as a blind dog returns
to the fireside from which he has been cruelly spurned.
As she slept, the men spread a map on the ground, and for the hundredth
time Wetherell measured the blank space lying between Bonneville Basin
and Fremont's Peak marked "unexplored," and exclaimed:
"It's wonderful how a mountain country expands as you get into it. Don't
look much on the map, but, gee! a fellow could spend ten years looking
for this mine, and then be no better off than when he started."
"Yes," responded Kelley, "it's certainly up to you to cherish the old
lady."
In the morning Wetherell dressed hastily and crept into the little tent
where Pogosa lay. "How are you, granny?" he asked. She only shook her
head and groaned.
"She say her back broke," Eugene interpreted.
A brisk rubbing with a liniment which he had brought from his kit
limbered the poor, abused loins, and at last Pogosa sat up. She suddenly
caught Wetherell's hand and drew it to her withered breast.
"Good white man," she cried out.
"Tell her I'll make her eyes well, too," he commanded Eugene. "The
medicine will hurt a little, but it will make her eyes stronger to see
the trail."
Kelley could not suppress his amusement as he watched Wetherell's
operations. "You'll spoil gran'ma," he remarked. "She'll be discontented
with the agency doctor. I'm not discouragin' your massage operations,
mind you, but I can't help thinking that she'll want clean towels, and
an osteopath to stroke her back every morning, when she goes back to her
tepee."
"If she only holds out long enough to help us to find the mine she can
have a trained nurse, and waiting-maid to friz her hair--if she wants it
frizzed."
"You don't mean to let her in as a partner?"
"I certainly do! Isn't she enduring the agonies for us? I'm going to see
that she is properly paid for it."
"A hunk of beef and plenty of blankets and flannel is all she can use;
but first let's find the mine. We can quarrel over its division
afterward."
"I doubt if we get her ahorse to-day. She's pretty thoroughly battered
up."
"We must move, Andy. Somebody may trail us up. I want to climb into the
next basin before night. Let me talk to her."
She flatly refused to move for Kelley, and Eugene said: "She too sick.
Legs sick, back sick, eyes sick. Go no further."