SIGNS AND OMENS.
The marshal and citizens of Skyline watched Buffalo Bill’s party out of
town with strange interest.
And it was a suggestive and attractive sight, even setting aside for the
moment the occasion of their going forth.
In the lead, stirrup to stirrup, rode Buffalo Bill and old Nick Nomad,
the scout mounted on his superb horse, Bear Paw, and Nomad astride of
Hide-rack. The contrast between the scout, with his erect, fine bearing,
and the wizened old trapper, was almost startling. Yet no one knowing
old Nomad could ever doubt that, in his way, he was a wonderful man.
Nomad would not ride with Tom Conover, so Wild Bill fell in at Conover’s
side, and they followed right behind Cody and Nomad.
The contrast here was almost as great, for Conover, with his baggy
corduroy clothing, his puffy face and watery eyes, and the livid scar
high on his forehead, resembled no more that dashing free lance of the
plains, Wild Bill Hickok, than Nick Nomad did Buffalo Bill.
There was always something light and jaunty in Wild Bill’s appearance,
wherever he was seen. He liked flashing bits of silver on the trappings
of his horse, and soft velvet in his attire when it could be had; even
though the attire was only that of a frontiersman and often rough from
hard usage. There was usually a light smile on his open, fearless,
almost reckless countenance; it rested there now, as he rode out from
the town of Skyline toward the forbidding mountains, even though he
could not be sure he was not riding out to meet death.
Behind Wild Bill and Conover rode Little Cayuse, the Piute Indian boy;
and at his side one of his Apache scouts.
The other two of his three Apaches brought up the rear of the warlike
procession; the four Indians silent and grave, with impassive, dark
faces; but their blankets were new and gorgeous in color, while their
clothing was paint and feather decked.
The marshal and the people of Skyline gave Buffalo Bill’s little caravan
a prolonged and rousing farewell cheer, which Cody returned with a wave
of his hand; then the little cavalcade broke into a trot, down the steep
incline of the plain below the town, and clattered away in a cloud of
dust.
It was just past midday.
Only that morning had Buffalo Bill and his small band entered Skyline;
and that morning Tom Conover, shooting to tatters the queen of hearts,
had accidentally wounded a Mexican woman and been thrown into the
Skyline jail.
Through the good offices of the great scout he had been released in
record time; and, the preparations for the pursuit of the kidnaping
Indians being hastened, the work for which Buffalo Bill had come to
Skyline was already begun.
Below the knoll back of Morgan’s, Little Cayuse and his Apache trailers,
Chappo, Yuppah, and Pedro, picked up the track of the supposed kidnaper.
To ordinary eyes the trail would not have been visible, and eyes as keen
and trained as those of the white men of the party would have made hard
work of following it; yet the three Apaches found it without trouble,
and pursued it with the certainty of bloodhounds tracking familiar game.
Little Cayuse and his Apaches took the lead now, and rode straight along
at a swinging gallop on their wiry, ponies, bending over as they rode,
their eyes searching the hard ground.
Suddenly Chappo drew in, and slipped like a snake from the back of his
saddleless pony.
When he stood up he held something small and shiny in the palm of his
brown hand.
“Ugh!” he grunted.
The object he exhibited was a tiny red bead, of a glowing scarlet, so
that it resembled a small scarlet berry or seed.
“Sabe?” he said, his black eyes searching the face of the scout, to whom
he exhibited his find. “Injun moccasin, Pa-e-has-ka; Injun kick um pony
make um go fast, and little bead fall off. Wuh!”
Buffalo Bill inspected it critically; and saw that it was a moccasin
bead, for a bead of a different kind is often used for moccasins than
those used for clothing, or for the hair.
“Right, Chappo,” he said. “What tribe—can you tell?”
“No can tell tribe,” said Chappo.
“That’s right, too, and I shouldn’t have asked it; for white men
manufacture the beads, and all Indians are able to get them, by purchase
or barter. But do you see anything else, Chappo?”
There was nothing more at that point; though a mile or so farther on
Little Cayuse, trying not to be outdone by his Apaches, made a discovery
that seemed really astounding; but which probably he would not have made
first if in his desire to excel he had not at the moment been some yards
in advance.
The discovery seemed to indicate that they were following the trail of a
woman!
Little Cayuse announced this with a grunt of surprise.
“Squaw trail!” he declared, something of scorn in his tone, for he held
to the Indian notion that a squaw is an inferior creature. It did not
please him to think he had been following the trail of one; there was no
honor in it. “All same only squaw, Pa-e-has-ka.”
The rider whose pony they had been following had there dismounted, for
some reason, and the prints of small moccasins were visible in the sand.
The tracks had been overlooked by the marshal’s men when they came that
way.
Tom Conover stared down at the marks pointed out by little Cayuse, while
the grip on his bridle rein tightened and his face became suddenly an
ashen gray, with all the high color driven out of it.
At the instant no one was looking at him; all were staring, like him, at
the small footprints pointed out by the Piute boy.
Buffalo Bill swung from the back of his horse and carefully examined the
tracks.
“The moccasins of an Indian woman,” he said; “yet the tracks don’t seem
exactly like those of an Indian. We can’t tell though, for she didn’t
walk about, to give us much of a line on that.”
Nomad drove old Hide-rack closer in and peered down, wrinkling his
brows.
“It couldn’t have been an Injun boy, eh, Buffler?” he said.
“It might have been a boy; but he was wearing a woman’s moccasins, if
so.”
“Waugh! Yer right, Buffler. Yer kin see thar whar ther fringe o’ beads
an’ quills cut inter ther sand at ther side o’ ther track; an Injun
buck, er even er boy, wouldn’t wear ther likes o’ thet, particularly
when on a difficult trail. All o’ ther female kind loves ornaments, and
sometimes it tell agin’ ’em, as hyar. Et war shore a woman, Buffler;
even an Injun boy wouldn’t wore a thick bead an’ quill fringe like thet
on the sides of his moccasins.”
Conover took no part in the conversation, but kept his horse back, and
apparently gave scant attention to the tracks in the sand.
But it was the subject of lively discussion, as the trailers continued
on their way.
Finding the spot where the trail of the woman—they were almost sure it
was a woman—entered the main beaten trail, they kept a close watch on
each side to see when the pony tracks left it.
When they found them they were much nearer the dreaded Cumbres
Mountains, and night was at hand.
They stopped, on finding a water hole, and went into camp. Nothing was
to be accomplished by hastening on in the darkness. In doing that, they
might miss the trail altogether, though it seemed now to point straight
to the notch before them, which for some time they had seen, and which
appeared to lead directly toward the heart of the Cumbres. It was the
mountain notch which Tom Conover had stared at so hard and often when he
was shooting the queen of hearts into tatters before the mesquite bush
just outside the town of Skyline.
Tom Conover was so silent that evening round the hidden camp fire that
it was noticeable.
Nomad spoke of it, in an aside, to Wild Bill:
“Thar’s two things, Pard Hickok, that don’t speak until they’re ready
ter strike—rattlesnakes an’ Injuns; an’ now I’m addin’ a third—this hyar
wart hog what w’ars that three-cornered red nick in his forrud. Ef
you’ll take a look at it by the flickin’ o’ that match which Buffler is
recklessly usin’ this minute you’ll see that it’s redder’n common, like
ther wattles of a turkey cock when it’s thinkin’ mischief.”
“You’ve got as healthy an imagination as a kid schoolboy,” said Wild
Bill, with his light laugh. “You’ll soon be finding a suspicious
circumstance in the fact that he eats just like an ordinary man.”
“But he don’t,” Nomad persisted; “he ain’t et a thing this evenin’,
though thar war a lot o’ good chuck in thet war bag which Buffler opened
up fer us. Thar’s somethin’ on his mind.”
Wild Bill laughed again, skeptically.
“What else, you superstitious old mummy?”
“Don’t go ter callin’ me names, Hickok, fer I won’t stand it; but I’m
watchin’ him constant. Ter-night I sleeps like er cat—wi’ one eye open.
An’ I dunno but I’ll tie my scalp lock down, so’s he can’t lift my ha’r
ef I sh’d fall asleep.”
Then he, too, gave a laugh; but it had not the merriment of Wild Bill’s.
Buffalo Bill talked much that evening with Little Cayuse and his three
Apache scouts. The great scout trusted the Indians, for they had been
true on many occasions; and though they had the redskin failings, they
were faithful and marvelous trailers.
The principal trouble with them was that they were more superstitious
and more governed by signs than was even Nick Nomad.
That afternoon, Little Cayuse had seen a circling vulture close his
wings and drop like a hawk shooting downward at prey. It was bad
medicine, for never before had he seen a thing like that; it foretold
disaster—some enemy, he thought, was observing them from the high
cliffs, and would drop on them with the suddenness of that drop of the
vulture.
Worse than this, Yuppah had crossed the trail of a three-legged sage
rabbit. That there might be no mistake about it, Yuppah had slid from
the back of his pony and closely inspected the rabbit’s tracks. The
rabbit, he believed, had four legs, but for some reason which boded ill
for this expedition, it was holding up one leg and using but three.
Buffalo Bill tried to make Yuppah see that the rabbit had lost a leg;
that a coyote had probably nabbed it at some time, and it had escaped
with the loss of a leg, bitten off by the snap of the coyote. But Yuppah
would not believe it; the rabbit had four legs, he said—all rabbits
have—this was a spirit, or witch rabbit, and bad luck was sure to
follow.
That night Nick Nomad tried to sleep like a cat—with one eye open; but
he failed, because he was too tired to lie awake all the time, and the
night was so quiet it lulled one to sleep.
Every one else slept soundly, except Little Cayuse, who stood guard the
first half of the night, and Chappo, who acted as sentry the last half.
Neither of them, so they declared afterward, heard nor saw anything,
though their superstitious fears, it seemed to the scout, ought to have
been enough to keep them wide-eyed until morning.
But in the morning came a startling discovery, which showed, also, that
at some time in the night one of them, at least, had been asleep.
Tom Conover was gone from the camp! And no one had known when he went.
The fact of his disappearance was announced by Nomad, who awoke early,
and, looking round for him, did not find him, and had hardly expected
that he would find him.
“Whoop!” he shouted, and sprang to his feet; he had lain down with all
his clothing on. “Waugh! Me no cumtax this. Onless, mebbe, it’s ther
whiskizoos workin’!”
What whiskizoos were was a thing old Nomad had never been able to say to
the satisfaction of Buffalo Bill or any one else. But whenever the old
trapper came company front with what struck him as much out of the
ordinary, or supernatural, or inexplicable, then the whiskizoos had been
at work. He never tried to explain beyond that.
His whooping exclamations brought Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill out of
their blankets and roused the sleeping Indians, starting also to his
feet Chappo, who was on guard, but at the moment was squatting in a
growth of sagebrush by the camp fire, hugging his rifle between his
brown knees.
“What’s up?” demanded Wild Bill, pulling out his revolver and staring
round.
“Lookee thar!” said Nomad, pointing to the spot where all had seen Tom
Conover lie down for his night’s sleep. “What is it yer sees thar,
anyhow?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s jest what I see, too—nothing; and Scar-face Conover ought ter be
layin’ thar, hadn’t he? Whar is he? Call ther roll, Buffler.”
Buffalo Bill looked about, and off over the surrounding country.
The sun had not yet risen, and a gray haze, of early dawn, hid much of
the rugged landscape from his view.
“Cayuse?” he called, a strange quaver in his voice.
“Ai, Pa-e-has-ka.”
“Yuppah!”
“Huh!”
“Chappo!”
“Wuh!”
“Pedro!”
“All same here, Pa-e-has-ka!”
Little Cayuse and his Apache scouts lined up.
“The white man who was here is gone,” said the scout shortly. “Find his
trail.”
“Ai, Pa-e-has-ka.”
They began to circle the camp, with heads down, black eyes scanning the
earth and rocks.
At once they were puzzled, if not baffled; there was no trail of a white
man’s boots leading out from the camp.
Wider and wider grew the circle in which they swung, closer and nearer
they bent their heads to the ground.
At last, more than a hundred yards out from the camp, Chappo uttered a
low, triumphant whoop.
He stopped, staring at the ground, and the other Indians hastened to
him.
Buffalo Bill and his white companions walked out to where the Indians
were grouped.
“Me find um, Pa-e-has-ka,” said Chappo proudly.
He pointed to the ground.
“Waugh!” said Nomad. “Thar’s his boot heel, shore enough! But how’d he
git hyar without making tracks before this? Whiskizoos ag’in, I reckon.”
Without a word Chappo began to search the ground in the direction of the
camp, which he soon was aided in by the other Indians. They talked
excitedly, using many gestures, their guttural words flowing so fast
that no one not an Indian could make out just what they were saying.
Even Little Cayuse, being a Piute, could not comprehend all the words of
the Apache scouts who worked under him.
Buffalo Bill and the others, following along, saw now what the Indians
saw, but none would have seen, probably, but for that discovery of the
boot-heel mark.
The owner of the boot heel, apparently, had got out of the camp without
stepping on the ground, merely because in doing it he had stepped on a
blanket laid on the ground.
It was all plain enough, after it was understood. A blanket had been
spread down and walked on; then the loose end of it had been flung round
in front and that walked on; with a continued repetition of this until
what was supposed to be a safe distance from the camp was gained. The
place where this blanket maneuver was discontinued was rocky.
When they had run back to the camp in this way, the Apaches and Little
Cayuse returned at once to the spot where the boot heel had been
discovered.
There was but one indentation; the next step had been taken on solid
rock; and after that the trail went, as it were, “into the air”; it
could not be followed farther at that point.
“Waugh!” grunted old Nomad. “What does yer think o’ et?”
Little Cayuse and his Indian trailers halted and began again their vocal
gymnastics, when the trail disappeared on the rocks.
“Whiskizoos,” said Nomad, staring about. “No man what w’ars a red scar
like Conover does kin be honest, and from ther fust I said it.”
The Indians talked of the three-legged rabbit, and of the vulture that
dropped for its prey like a hawk.
“Heap bad medicine!” said Chappo, deeply disturbed.
Little Cayuse, inasmuch as he was the chief of the Indian scouts, dared
not, in the presence of Pa-e-has-ka, express what he thought; but his
dark face looked troubled and his eyes were big and bright. Buffalo Bill
saw him paw a circle quickly through the air.
The circle, emblem of the egg, is everywhere the “sign” of life; and
life is the opposite of death. Little Cayuse made the “life” sign, to
keep away the shadow of death.
All looked off toward the Cumbres Mountains. Scarred and splintered, the
bare peaks lifted themselves in the gray morning. The high rays of the
rising sun struck them and seemed to burn there.
As they did so, the outline of a great black head—the head of a giant
with grizzly black hair—came into view on the side of the nearest of the
mountains.
The Indians lifted groans of fright and horror and dropped downward on
their faces, groveling.
Old Nomad uttered a snort of amazement, and stared until his little old
eyes popped.
“Waugh!” he grunted.
“Thunder and carry one!” cried Wild Bill, with biting scorn, as he
addressed the trapper. “Have a bit of sense, will you?”
“You see it? You see it, eh?” said Nomad.
“Anybody can see that, of course; he’d be blind as a mole if he didn’t
see it. But what of it?”
“It’s a head—a black head—the head of a giant! Whiskizoos!”
“Fiddlesticks! Can’t you see, Nomad—you can if you aren’t an idiot—that
that which looks like a head is just a big, cavernous hole in the side
of the mountain, ringed all round, where you think you see hair, by a
fringe of chaparral! The sunshine is lighting up the rest of the
mountain, but that hole lies in the shadow, and is black. It
happens—just happens—to take the shape of the head of a negro, with
bushy, or woolly, hair. But it’s only a rocky hole, ringed round with
chaparral.”
Nomad looked again, incredulously.
“Whiskizoos!” he sputtered. “Waugh! It’s shore bad medicine; and the
skedaddling of ole Scar-face Conover means trouble for the hull of us,
ef we go on. I’m ready ter backtrack ter wonst.”
“Look at it again,” urged Buffalo Bill. “The head is disappearing, as
the sunshine creeps down into the hole.”
It was true. In a little while the black head was gone, and they could
see the deep hole, with its fringe of chaparral, clearly outlined on the
mountainside.
“Yit that don’t mean that we won’t have a heap er trouble ef we go on,”
said Nomad. “I’m fer backtrackin’ prompt.”
The Indians still groveled, with their faces against the ground, praying
mightily to the spirits of the mountains; they were in a blue funk.
Three-footed rabbits, eccentric vultures, and giant black heads on the
mountains, were altogether too much for their courage.