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THE TALKING LEAVES
An Indian Story
by
WILLIAM O. STODDARD
[Frontispiece: "Halt! They've brought out the boys"]
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London
Copyright, 1882, by Harper & Brothers
Copyright, 1910, by William O. Stoddard
THE TALKING LEAVES
AN INDIAN STORY
CHAPTER I
"Look, Rita! look!"
"What can it mean, Ni-ha-be?"
"See them all get down and walk about."
"They have found something in the grass."
"And they're hunting for more."
Rita leaned forward till her long hair fell upon the neck of the
beautiful little horse she was riding, and looked with all her eyes.
"Hark! they are shouting."
"You could not hear them if they did."
"They look as if they were."
Ni-ha-be sat perfectly still in her silver-mounted saddle, although her
spirited mustang pony pawed the ground and pulled on his bit as if he
were in a special hurry to go on down the side of the mountain.
The two girls were of about the same size, and could not either of them
have been over fifteen years old. They were both very pretty, very
well dressed and well mounted, and they could both speak in a strange,
rough, and yet musical language; but there was no other resemblance
between them.
"Father is there, Rita."
"Can you see him?"
"Yes, and so is Red Wolf."
"Your eyes are wonderful. Everybody says they are."
Ni-ha-be might well be proud of her coal-black eyes, and of the fact
that she could see so far and so well with them. It was not easy to
say just how far away was that excited crowd of men down there in the
valley. The air was so clear, and the light so brilliant among those
snow-capped mountain ranges, that even things far off seemed sometimes
close at hand.
For all that there were not many pairs of eyes, certainly not many
brown ones like Rita's, which could have looked, as Ni-ha-be did, from
the pass into the faces of her father and brother and recognized them
at such a distance.
She need not have looked very closely to be sure of one thing
more--there was not a single white man to be seen in all that long,
deep, winding green valley.
Were there any white women?
There were plenty of squaws, old and young, but not one woman with a
bonnet, shawl, parasol, or even so much as a pair of gloves.
Therefore, none of them could have been white.
Rita was as well dressed as Ni-ha-be, and her wavy masses of brown hair
were tied up in the same way, with bands of braided deer-skin, but
neither of them had ever seen a bonnet. Their sunburnt, healthy faces
told that no parasol had ever protected their complexions, but Ni-ha-be
was a good many shades the darker. There must have been an immense
amount of hard work expended in making the graceful garments they both
wore. All were of fine antelope-skin; soft, velvety, fringed, and
worked and embroidered with porcupine quills. Frocks and capes and
leggings and neatly fitting moccasins, all of the best, for Ni-ha-be
was the only daughter of a great Apache chief, and Rita was every bit
as important a person according to Indian notions, for Ni-ha-be's
father had adopted her as his own.
Either one of them would have been worth a whole drove of ponies or a
wagon-load of guns and blankets, and the wonder was that they had been
permitted to loiter so far behind their friends on a march through that
wild, strange, magnificent land.
Had they been farther to the east, or south, or north, it is likely
they would have been kept with the rest pretty carefully; but Many
Bears and his band were on their way home from a long buffalo-hunt, and
were already, as they thought, safe in the Apache country--away beyond
any peril from other tribes of Indians, or from the approach of the
hated and dreaded white men.
To be sure, there were grizzly bears and wolves and other wild animals
to be found among those mountain passes, but they were not likely to
remain very near a band of hunters like the one now gathered in that
valley.
Great hunters, brave warriors, well able to take care of themselves and
their families, but just now they were very much excited about
something--something on the ground.
The younger braves, to the number of more than a hundred, were standing
back respectfully, while the older and more experienced warriors
carefully examined a number of deep marks on the grass around a
bubbling spring.
There had been a camp there not long before, and the first discovery
made by the foremost Apache who had ridden up to that spring was that
it had not been a camp of his own people.
The prints of the hoofs of horses showed that they had been shod, and
there are neither horseshoes nor blacksmiths among the red men of the
South-west.
The tracks left by the feet of men were not such as can be made by
moccasins. There are no heels on moccasins, and no nails in the soles
of them.
Even if there had been Indian feet in the boots, the toes would not
have been turned out in walking. Only white men do that.
So much was plain at a mere glance; but there were a good many other
things to be studied and interpreted before Many Bears and his
followers could feel satisfied.
It was a good deal like reading a newspaper. Nobody tears one up till
it has been read through, and the Apaches did not trample the ground
around the spring till they had searched out all that the other
tramplings could tell them.
Then the dark-faced, ferocious looking warriors who had made the search
all gathered around their chief and, one after another, reported what
they had found.
There had been a strong party of white men at that spot three days
before; three wagons, drawn by mule teams; many spare mules;
twenty-five men who rode horses, besides the men who drove the wagons.
"Were they miners?"
Every warrior and chief was ready to say "No" at once.
"Traders?"
No, it could not have been a trading-party.
"All right," said Many Bears, with a solemn shake of his gray head.
"Blue-coats--cavalry. Come from Great Father at Washington--no stay in
Apache country--go right through--not come back--let them go."
Indian sagacity had hit the nail exactly on the head; for that had been
a camp of a United States military exploring expedition, looking for
passes and roads, and with instructions to be as friendly as possible
with any wandering red men they might meet.
Nothing could be gained by following such a party as that, and Many
Bears and his band began at once to arrange their own camp, for their
morning's march through the pass had been a long and fatiguing one.
If the Apache chief had known a very little more, he would have sent
his best scouts back upon the trail that squad of cavalry had come by,
till he found out whether all who were travelling by that road had
followed it as far as the spring. He might thus have learned something
of special importance to him. Then, at the same time, he would have
sent other scouts back upon his own trail, to see if anybody was
following him, and what for. He might have learned a good deal more
important news in that way.
He did nothing of the kind; and so a very singular discovery was left
for Rita and Ni-ha-be to make, without any help at all.
As they rode out from the narrow pass, down the mountain-side, and came
into the valley, it was the most natural thing in the world for them to
start their swift mustangs on a free gallop; not directly toward the
camping-place, for they knew well enough that no girls of any age would
be permitted to approach very near to warriors gathered in council.
Away to the right they rode, following the irregular curve of the
valley, side by side, managing the fleet animals under them as if horse
and rider were one person.
So it came to pass that before the warriors had completed their task
the two girls had struck the trail along which the blue-coated cavalry
had entered the valley.
"Rita, I see something."
"What is it?"
"Come! See! Away yonder."
Rita's eyes were as good as anybody's, always excepting Apaches' and
eagles', and she could see the white fluttering object at which her
adopted sister was pointing.
The marks of the wheels and all the other signs of that trail, as they
rode along, were quite enough to excite a pair of young ladies who had
never seen a road, a pavement, a sidewalk, or anything of the sort; but
when they came to that white thing fluttering at the foot of a
mesquite-bush they both sprung from their saddles at the same instant.
One, two, three--a good deal dog's-eared and thumb-worn, for they had
been read by every man of the white party who cared to read them before
they were thrown away, but they were very wonderful yet. Nothing of
the kind had ever before been imported into that region of the country.
Ni-ha-be's keen black eyes searched them in vain, one after another,
for anything she had ever seen before.
"Rita, you are born white. What are they?"
Poor Rita!
Millions and millions of girls have been "born white," and lived and
died with whiter faces than her own rosy but sun-browned beauty could
boast, and yet never looked into the fascinating pages of an
illustrated magazine.
How could any human being have cast away in the wilderness such a
treasure?
Rita was sitting on the grass, with one of the strange prizes open in
her lap, rapidly turning the leaves, and more excited by what she saw
than were Many Bears and his braves by all they were discovering upon
the trampled level around the spring.
"Rita," again exclaimed Ni-ha-be, "what are they?"
"They are talking leaves," said Rita.