DISCOVERY
More than a mere name was Fort Yankton. Original in construction, as
necessity ever induces the unusual, it was nevertheless formidable. To
the north was a typical entrenchment with a ditch, and a parapet eight
feet high. To the east was a double board wall with earth tamped
between: a solid curb higher than the head of a tall man. Completing the
square, to the south and west stretched a chain of oak posts set close
together and pierced, as were the other walls of the stockade, by
numerous portholes. Within the enclosure, ark of refuge for settlers
near and afar, was a large blockhouse wherein congregated, mingled and
intermingled, ate, slept, and had their being, as diverse a gathering of
humans as ever graced a single structure even in this land of myriad
types. Virtually the entire population of frontier Yankton was there.
Likewise the settlers from near-by Bon Homme. An adventurer from the
far-away country of the Wahpetons and a trapper from the hunting ground
of the Sissetons drifted in together, together awaited the signal of the
peace pipe ere returning to their own. Likewise from the wild west of
the great river, from the domain of the Uncpapas, the Blackfeet, the
Minneconjous, the Ogallalas, came others; for the alarm of rapine and of
massacre had spread afar. Very late to arrive, doggedly holding their
own until rumour became reality unmistakable, was the colony from the
Jim River valley to the east; but even they had finally surrendered, the
dogging grip of fear, that makes high and low brothers, at their
throats, had fled precipitately before the conquering onslaught of the
Santees. Last of all, boldest of all, most foolhardy of all, as you
please, came the tiny delegation from the settlement of Sioux Falls.
Hungry, thirsty, footsore, all but panic-stricken, for with the actual
retreat apprehension had augmented with each slow mile, thanking the
Providence which had permitted them to arrive unmolested, a
sorry-looking band of refugees, they faced the old smoothbore cannon
before the big south gate and craved admittance. Out to them went
Colonel William Landor, colonel by courtesy, scion of many generations
of Landors, rancher at present, cattle king of the future. The
conversation that followed there with the east reddening in the morning
sun was very brief, very swift to the point.
"Who are you, friends?" The shrewd grey eyes were observing them
collectively, compellingly.
"My name is McPherson."
"Mine is Horton."
"Never mind the names," shortly. "I can learn them later."
"We're homesteaders." Again it was stubby, sandy-whiskered McPherson who
took the lead.
"From where?"
"Sioux Falls."
"Any news?"
Curt as the question came the answer, the tale of massacre now a day
old.
"And the rest of your settlement--where are they?"
McPherson told him.
"They all went, you say?"
For the first time the Scotchman hesitated. "All except one family," he
qualified.
"There was but one family there." Landor was not observing the company
collectively now. "You mean to tell me Sam Rowland did not go?"
"Yes."
"That you--men here went off and left him and his wife and little girl
alone at this time?" The questioner's eyelids were closing ominously.
"You come here with that story and ask me to let you inside?"
McPherson was no coward. His short legs spread belligerently, his
shoulders squared.
"We're here," he announced laconically.
"I observe." Just a shade closer came the tightened eyelids. "Moreover,
strange to say, I'm glad to see you." He leaned forward involuntarily;
his breath came quick. "It gives me the opportunity, sir, to tell you to
your face that you're a damned coward." In spite of an obvious effort at
repression, the great veins of the speaker's throat swelled visibly. "A
damned coward, sir!"
"What! You call me--"
"Men! Gentlemen!"
"Don't worry." Swift as had come the burst of passion, Landor was
himself again; curt, all-seeing, self-sufficient, "There'll be no blood
shed." Early as it was, a crowd had collected now, and, as he had done
with the newcomers, he addressed them collectively, authoratively. "When
I fight it will not be with one who abandons a woman and a child at a
time like this.... God! it makes a man's blood boil. I've known the
Rowlands for ten years, long before the kid came." Cold as before he had
been flaming, he faced anew the travel-stained group. "Out of my sight,
every one of you, and thank your coward stars I'm not in command here.
If I were, not a man of you would ever get inside this stockade--not if
the Santees scalped you before my eyes."
For a second there was silence, inaction.
"But Rowland wouldn't come," protested a voice. "We tried--"
"Not a word. If you were too afraid of your skin to bring them in, there
are others who are not." Vital, magnetic, born leader of men, he turned
to the waiting spectators. "It may be too late now,--I'm afraid it is;
but if Sam Rowland is alive, I'm going to bring him here. Who's with me?
Who's willing to make the ride back to Sioux Falls?"
"Who?" It was another rancher, surnamed Crosby, hatchet-faced, slow of
speech, who spoke, "Ain't that question a bit superfluous, pard? We're
all with you--that is, as many as you want, I reckon. None of us ain't
cats, so we can't croak but once--and that might as well be now as ten
years from now."
"All right." Hardened frontiersman, Landor took the grammar and the
motive alike for granted. "Get your horses and report here. The first
twenty to return, go."
From out the group of newcomers one man emerged. It was McPherson.
"Who'll lend me a horse?" he queried.
No man gave answer. Already the group had separated.
For a moment the Scotchman halted, grim-jawed, his legs an inverted V;
then silent as they, equally swiftly, he followed.
Very soon, almost unbelievably soon, they began to trickle back. Not in
ignorance of possibilities in store did they come. They had no delusions
concerning the red brother, these frontiersmen. Nor in the hot
adventurous blood of youth did they respond. One and all were
middle-aged men; many had families. All save Landor were strangers to
the man they went to seek. Yet at a moment's call they responded; as
they took it for granted others would respond were they in need. Had
they been conscious of the fact, the action was magnificent; but of it
they were not conscious. They but answered an instinct: the eternal
brotherhood of the frontier. Far away in his well-policed, steam-heated
abode urban man listens to the tale of unselfishness, and, supercilious,
smiles. We believe what we have ourselves felt, we humans. First of all
to come was lean-faced Crosby, one cheek swelled round with a giant
quid. Close at his heels followed Trapper Conway: grizzled,
parchment-faced veteran, who alone had followed the Missouri to its
source and, stranger to relate, had alone returned with his scalp. Then
came Landor himself, the wiry little mustang he rode all but blanketed
under the big army saddle. Following him, impassive, noncommittal as
though an event of the recent past had not occurred, came McPherson,
drew up in place beside the leader. All-seeing, Crosby spat
appreciatively, but Landor gave never a glance. Following came not one
but many riders; a half dozen, a score,--enough to make up the
allotment, and again. In silence they came, grim-faced, more grimly
accoutred. All manner of horseflesh was represented: the broncho, the
mustang, the frontier scrub, the thoroughbred; all manner of apparel,
from chaperajos to weather-beaten denim; but, saddled or saddleless,
across the neck of every beast stretched the barrel of a long rifle, at
the hip of every rider hung a holster, from every belt peeped the hilt
of a great knife. Long ere this word of the unusual had passed about,
and now, on the rise of ground at the back of the stockade, a goodly
group had gathered. Silent as the prairies, as the morning itself, they
watched the scene below, awaited the _dénouement._ Not without influence
was the taciturn example of the red man in this land from which he was
slowly being crowded. From over the uplands to the east the red face of
the morning sun was just peeping when Landor separated himself from the
waiting group, led the way to the big gate and paused. "Twenty only,
men," he repeated. "All ready."
First through the opening went Crosby.
"One."
Close as before, at his horse's heels followed Conway.
"Two."
From out the motley, looking neither to right nor left, came Scotchman
McPherson; but though he passed fair before the leader's eyes and not a
yard away, no number was spoken; no hint of recognition, of cognisance,
crossed the latter's face. Implacable, relentless as time, he awaited
the next in line, then voiced the one word: "Three."
On filed the line; close formed as convicts, as convicts silent--halting
at a lifted hand. A moment they paused, one and twenty men who counted
but as a score, started into motion, halted again; as by common consent
every head save one of a sudden going bare. Hitherto silent as they, the
watching group back in the stockade had that instant found voice. All
but to the ground swept twenty sombreros as out over the prairies, out
where no human ear could hear, rolled a cheer, and repeated, and again;
tribute of Fort Yankton to those who went. At the rear of the column one
rider alone did not respond, apparently did not hear. Implacable as
Landor himself, he looked straight before him, awaited the silence that
would bring with it renewed activity.
And it came. With a single motion as before, every hat returned to its
place, was drawn low over its owner's eyes. From his position by the
gate Landor advanced, took the lead. Behind him, impassive again as
figures in a spectacle, the others fell in line. At first a mere walk,
the pace gradually quickened, became a canter, a trot. By this time the
confines of the tiny frontier town were passed. Before them on the one
hand, bordering on the river, stretched a range of low hills, dun-brown
from its coat of sun-dried grass. On the other, greener by contrast,
glittering now in the level rays of the early morning sun on myriad
dew-drops, and seemingly endless, unrolled the open prairie. Straight
into this Landor led the way, and as he did so the cavalcade for the
first time broke into a gallop; not the fierce, short-lived pace of
civilisation, but the long-strided, full-lunged lope of the frontier,
which accurately and as tirelessly as a clock measures time, counts off
the passing miles. Hitherto a preliminary, at last the play was on.
Sixty-odd miles as migrates the sandhill crane, separated the
settlements of Yankton and Sioux Falls. Trackless as a desert was the
prairie, minus even the buffalo trails of a quarter century before; yet
with the sun only as guide, they forged ahead, straight as a line drawn
taut from point to point. Nothing stopped their advance, nothing made
them turn aside. Seemingly destitute of animal life, the country fairly
teemed at their approach. Grouse, typical of the prairie as the
blue-faced anemone, were everywhere; singly, in coveys, in flocks.
Troops of antelope, startled in their morning feeding, scurried away
from the path of the invaders; curious as children, paused on the safety
of the nearest rise, to watch the horsemen out of sight. Every marshy
spot, every prairie pond, had its setting of ducks. The teal, the
mallard, the widgeon, the shoveller, the canvasback--all mingled in the
loud-voiced throng that arose before the leader's approach, then, like
smoke, vanished with almost unbelievable swiftness into the hazy
distance. Prairie dog towns, populous as cities of man a minute before
their approach, went lifeless, desolate, as they passed through. In the
infrequent draws and creek beds between the low, rolling hills,
great-eyed cotton tails scampered to cover or, like the antelope, just
out of harm's way, watched the passage of this strange being, man.
Wonder of wonders that display of life would have been to another
generation; but of it these grim-faced riders were apparently
unconscious, oblivious. Their eyes were not for things near at hand, but
for the distance, for the possibility that lurked just beyond that
far-away rise which formed their horizon, when they had reached that for
the next beyond, and the next.
Hour by hour the morning wore away. Hotter and hotter rose the sun above
them. Instead of drops of dew, tiny particles of sun-dried grass flew
away from beneath the leaders' feet, mingled with the dust of prairie,
became a cloud shutting the leaders from the sight of those in the rear.
From being a mere breath, the south wind augmented, became positive,
insistent. Hot with the latent heat of many days, it sang in their ears
as they went, bit all but scorching, at their unprotected hands and
throats. Under its touch the horses' necks, dark before with sweat,
became normal again: between their legs, under the, edges of the great
saddles where it had churned into foam, dried into white powder, like
frostwork amid the hair. Gradually with the change, their breathing
became audible, louder and louder, until in unison it mingled with the
dull impact of their feet on the heavy sod like the exhaust of many
engines. No horseman who values the life of the beast between his legs,
fails to heed that warning. Landor did not, but at the first dawdling
prairie creek that offered water and, with its struggling fringe of
willows, a suggestion of shade, he gave the word to halt, and for four
mortal, blistering hours while, man and beast alike, the others slept,
kept watch over them from the nearest rise. Relentless to others this
man might be, but not even his dearest enemy could accuse him of sparing
himself.
It was three by the clock when again they took up the trail. It was 3.45
when they swam what is now the Vermilion River, the last water-course of
any size on their way. The dew was again beginning to gather when, well
to the south, they approached the bordering hills that concealed the
site of Sioux Falls settlement. Then for the first time since they
began that last relay Landor gave an order.
"It'll be a miracle if we don't find Sioux there in the bottom, men," he
prophesied. "Perhaps there are a whole band, perhaps it'll only be
stragglers; but no matter how many or how few there may be, charge them.
If they run you know what to do--this is no holiday outing. If they
stand, charge them all the harder." He faced his horse to the north and
gave the word to go. "It's our only chance," he completed.
What followed belongs to history. Over that last intervening rise they
went like demons. The first to gain the crown, to look down into the
valley beyond, was Landor. As he did so, grim Anglo-Saxon as he was, his
whole attitude underwent a transformation. Back to the others he turned
his face, and, plain as on canvas thereon was portrayed war, carnage,
and the lust of battle.
"They're there; a hundred, if a single red!" he shouted. "Come on!" and
the rowels of his great spurs dug deep at his horse's flanks, dug until
the blood spurted.
But a few minutes it took to make the run, yet only a fraction of the
time that mounted swarm in the valley held their ground. Outnumbering
those who charged many times, it was not in savage nature to face that
unformed oncoming motley of howling, bloodthirsty maniacs. Slowly at
first began the retreat; then as, with great swiftness, the others
shortened the distance intervening, it became a contagion, a mania, a
stampede. Every brave for himself, stumbling, crowding through the
dismantled ruins of what had the day before been a settlement, howling
like their pursuers, seeking but one thing, escape, they headed for the
thicket surrounding the river bank; the whistle of bullets in their
ears, cutting at the vegetation about them. Into its friendly cover they
plunged, as a fish disappears beneath the surface of a lake, and were
swallowed from sight. That is, all but one. That one, unhorsed by
accident, was left to face that oncoming flood. . . . But why linger.
Like the charge itself, his fate is history. These men were but human,
and thick about them were the ashes from the roof-trees of their
friends.
Summer night, dreamy with caress of softest south wind, musical with the
drone of myriad crickets, with the boom of frogs from the low land
adjoining the river, melancholy with the call of the catbird, with the
infrequent note of the whip-poor-will, was upon the land of the Mandans
when the score and one, their dripping ponies once more dry, took up the
last relay of their journey. Night had caught them there in the deserted
settlement, and Landor had given the word to halt, to wait. Now, far to
the east, apparently from the breast of Mother Earth herself, the face
of the full harvest moon, red as frosted maple leaves through the heated
air, slowly rising, lit up the level country softly as by early
twilight. Lingeringly, almost reluctantly, Landor got into his saddle.
Just to his left, impassive as the night, well to the front of the
company as he had been that mortal dragging day, sat Scotchman
McPherson. Not once since that early morning scene at Fort Yankton had
he spoken a word, not once had he been addressed, had another man shown
consciousness of his presence. A pariah, he had so far kept them
company; a pariah, he now awaited the end. A moment, fair in his seat,
Landor paused; then that which the watchers had expected for hours came
to pass. Deliberately he crossed over, drew rein beside the other man.
"McPherson," he said, "this morning I called you coward. That you are
not such you have proven, you are proving now. For this reason I ask
your pardon. For this reason as well, I give you warning. What we will
find--where we are going, I do not doubt, now. I do not believe you
doubt. For it I hold you responsible. You had best turn back before
belief becomes certainty." Unnaturally precise, cold as November
raindrops came the words, the sentences. Deadly in meaning was the pause
that followed. "I repeat, you had best turn back."
For a long half minute, face to face there in the moonlight, Landor
waited; but no answer came. Just perceptibly he shifted in his place.
"I may forget, give my promise of the morning the lie. Do you
understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
Another half minute, ghastly in its significance, passed; then without a
word Landor turned. "You have heard, men," he said, "and may God be my
judge."
The full moon was well in the sky, showing clear every detail in that
scene of desolation, when they arrived. Patter, patter, patter sounded
their hoof-beats in the distance. More and more loud they grew, muffled
yet penetrating in the silence of night, always augmenting in volume.
Out of the shadows figures came dimly into view, taking form against the
background of constellations. The straining of leather, the music of
steel in bit and buckle, the soft swish of the sun-dried grass
proclaimed them very near; then across the trampled corn patch, into the
open where had stood the shanty, where now was a thin grey layer of
ashes, came the riders, and drew rein; their weary mounts crowding each
other in fear at something they saw. Like a storm cloud they came; like
the roll of thunder following was the oath which sprang to the lips of
every rider save one. Good men they were, God-fearing men; yet they
swore like pirates, like humans when ordinary speech is not adequate. In
the pause but one man acted, and none intervened to prevent what he did.
Out into the open, away from the others, rode Scotchman McPherson;
halted, his hand on the holster at his hip. For a second, and a second
only, he sat so, the white moonlight drawing clear every line of his
grizzled face, his stocky figure. Then deliberately his hand lifted,
before him there appeared a sudden blaze of fire, upon the silence there
broke a single revolver report, from beneath his lifeless bulk the
horse he rode broke free, gave one bound, by instinct halted, trembling
in every muscle; then over all, the quick and the dead, returned
silence: silence absolute as that of the grave.
How long those twenty men sat there, gazing at that mute, motionless
figure on the ground not one could have told. Death was no stranger to
them. For years it had lurked behind every chance shrub they passed, in
the depths of every ravine, in the darkness of night, from every tangle
of rank prairie grass in broad daylight. To it from long familiarity
they had become callous; but death such as this, deliberate,
cold-blooded, self-inflicted--it awed them while it fascinated, held
them silent, passive.
"In God's name!" Again it was Landor who roused them, Landor with his
hand on the holster at his hip, Landor who sat staring as one who doubts
his own sight. "Am I sane, men? Look, there to your right!"
They looked. They rubbed their eyes and looked again.
"Well, I'll be damned," voiced Crosby; and no man had ever heard him
express surprise before. To the north, from the edge of the tall
surrounding grass, moving slowly, yet without a trace of hesitation or
of fear, coming straight toward them across the trampled earth, were two
tiny human figures, hand in hand. No wonder they who saw stared; no
wonder they doubted their eyes. One, the figure to the right, was plump
and uncertain of step and all in white; white which in the moonlight
and against the black earth seemed ghostly. The other was slim and
certain of movement and dark--dark as a copper brown Indian boy, naked
as when he came on earth. On they came, the brown figure leading, the
white following trustfully, until they were quite up to the watchers,
halted, still hand in hand.
"How," said a voice, a piping childish voice.
Like rustics at a spectacle the men stared, turned mystified faces each
to each, and stared anew. All save one. Off from his horse sprang
Landor, caught the bundle of white in his arms.
"Baby Rowland! Baby Bess! And you,"--he was staring the other from head
to toe, the distance was short,--"who are you?"
"Uncle Billy," interrupting, ignoring, the tiny bit of femininity
nestled close, "Uncle Billy, where's papa and mamma! I want them."
Closer and closer the big bachelor arms clasped their burden; unashamed,
there with the others watching him, he kissed her.
"Never mind now, Kiddie. Tell me how you came here, and who this is with
you."
About the great neck crept two arms, clinging tightly.
"He just came, Uncle Billy. I was calling for papa. Papa put me to sleep
and forgot me. The boy heard me and took me out. I was afraid at first,
but--but he's a nice boy, only he won't talk and--and--" The narrative
halted, the tousled head buried itself joyously. "Oh, I'm so glad you
came, Uncle Billy!"
In silence Landor's eyes made the circle of interested watching faces,
returned to the winsome brown face so near his own.
"Aren't you hungry, Kid?" he ventured.
On his shoulder the dark poll shook a negative.
"No. We had corn to eat. The boy roasted it. He made a big fire. He's a
nice boy, only--only he won't say anything."
Again Landor's eyes made the circle, halted at the intrepid brown waif
who, that first word of greeting spoken, had silently stared him back.
"You're sure you don't know anything more, baby? You didn't hear
anything until the boy came?"
"No, Uncle Billy. I was asleep. When I woke up it was dark, and I was
hungry and--and--" At last it had come: the spattering, turbulent tear
storm. Her small body shook, her arms clasped tighter and tighter. "Oh,
Uncle Billy, I want my papa and mamma. I tried to find them, and I
couldn't. Please find them for me, Uncle Billy, Please! Please!"
* * * * *
It was well past midnight. The big full moon, high now in the sky, cast
their shadows almost about their feet when, their labour complete, the
party took up the homeward trail. But there were twenty no longer. At
their head as before rode Landor, in his arms not a rifle but a blanket;
a blanket from which as they journeyed on came now and anon a sound
that was alien indeed: the sobs of a baby girl who wept as she slept.
Back of him, likewise as when they had come, rode hatchet-faced Crosby;
but he, too, was not as before. His saddle had been removed and, in
front of him, astride the horse's bare back, warmed by the animal heat,
was a brown waif of a boy; not asleep or even drowsy, but wide awake
indeed, silently watchful as a prairie owl of every movement about him,
every low-spoken word. What whim of satirist chance had put him there,
what fate for good or evil, they could only conjecture, could not know,
could never know; yet there he was, strangest figure in a land that knew
only the bizarre, with whom the unbelievable was the normal. Slowly now,
weary to death with the long, long day, depressed with the inevitable
reaction from the excitement of the past hours, they moved away, to the
south, to the west. In front of them, glittering in the moonlight,
seemingly infinite, stretched the waves of the rolling prairie, bare as
the sea in a calm. Behind them, growing lesser and lesser minute by
minute, merging into the infinite white, were three black dots like tiny
boats on the horizon's edge. On they went, a half mile, a mile, looked
behind; and, with an awe no familiarity could prevent, faced ahead anew.
Back of them now as well as before, uniformly endless, uniformly
magnificent, stretched that giant ocean: silent, serene, as mother
nature, as nature's master, God himself.