Ni-ha-be and Rita had escaped any scolding from Many Bears; but when
the story of their morning's adventure was related to Mother Dolores
that plump and dignified person felt bound to make up for the chief's
neglect. She scolded them in the longest and hardest words of the
Apache language; and when she could not think of anything new to add
she begun again, and said it all over in Mexican Spanish. By that time
she was out of breath, and Ni-ha-be exclaimed,
"I don't care, Mother Dolores--I hit one of them in the arm with an
arrow. It went right through. Rita missed; but she isn't an Apache."
"Two young squaws!" said Dolores, scornfully. "Where would you have
been now, and Red Wolf too, if it wasn't for that old pale-face and his
boy?"
"He wasn't his boy," said Rita. "He didn't look like him a bit."
"Didn't he? And what are all your talking leaves good for? Why didn't
they tell you to stay in camp?"
"I didn't ask them. Besides, that isn't what they're good for."
"Not good for much, anyhow. I don't believe they can even cure the
rheumatism."
Poor Dolores had never heard the story of the squaw who had a tract
given her by a missionary, and who tied it on her sore foot, but that
was a good deal her idea of some of the uses of printing.
"No," said Rita, "I don't believe they're good for rheumatism."
"Anyhow," said Ni-ha-be, "the whole camp is getting ready to move.
Come, Rita, let's you and I ride on ahead."
"No you won't, not either of you. You'll stay near me now. If the
great chief wants you again, I must have you where I can find you."
The girls looked at one another, but there was no wisdom in a
rebellion. They had offended quite enough for one day.
"Ni-ha-be," said Rita, "we can keep close together. They won't go
fast, and we can look at the leaves all the way."
On an ordinary march a good many of the squaws would have had to go on
foot and carry their pappooses, and perhaps heavy loads besides; but
the orders of Many Bears prevented that this time. The poorest brave
in camp had a pony provided for his wife and children, and as many more
as were needed for all his baggage, for the chief was in a hurry, and
there was to be no straggling. His orders were to push on as fast as
possible until the squad of braves who had ridden ahead should find a
safe spot to camp in--one that could be more easily defended than the
exposed level they were leaving.
The idea of coming danger, too, was going around among the squaws
themselves, and they were in as great a hurry as Many Bears. They did
not know exactly what to be afraid of, but they did not feel any better
on that account, with such a swarm of little copper-colored children to
take care of.
Some ponies had more to carry and some had less, but there was one poor
little, long-eared, patient-looking mule who had more than his share.
There was no saddle on him, but where a saddle might have been sat a
very fat and dreadfully homely squaw, with a pappoose on her back, his
round head popping out, as if all he wanted was to look at the country
as they went along.
The squaw rode her mule after the fashion of her people, and that was
just as if she had been a brave instead of a squaw. But no brave in
all the band would have allowed a twelve-year-old boy to climb up in
front of him, as she did, or let his younger brother and sister cling
on behind her; so that the little mule was turned into a sort of
four-footed omnibus.
It did seem, too, as if there were more and more wretched-looking dogs
following after that forlorn mule than behind the ponies of any chief's
family in the whole band.
"Look, Rita," said Ni-ha-be--"look at old Too Many Toes and her mule!"
That squaw had a name of her own, as well as anybody, but it had not
been given her for her beauty.
"Isn't she homely?" said Rita. "I wonder where the rest of her
children are?"
"I guess she's divided them around among her relations. There's enough
of them to load another mule. Her husband'll never be rich enough to
buy ponies. He's lazy."
"He doesn't beat her?"
"He's too lazy for that. And he's afraid of her. I don't believe he's
an Apache. Think of a brave afraid of his own squaw!"
There was something very bad in that, according to all Indian notions;
but Rita only said,
"What would that mule do if she wanted him to run?"
Just then the shrill voice of Mother Dolores behind them shouted,
"I'm coming. They wanted to make me help them pack!"
The pride of the best cook in the band was seriously offended. As if
all such hard work did not properly belong to ugly and ignorant squaws
who had not education enough to fry corn-bread for the great chief!
She knew her dignity better than that, and she meant to assert it.
Perhaps if Many Bears himself had been close at hand, Dolores might
have been more willing to work, but there was no opportunity for any
appeal to him, and she took her own way.
She was all the more willing that her two charges should ride on to the
very head of the little column, and even keep away a short distance to
the right of it. They were perfectly safe within whooping distance if
they were wanted, and none of the other squaws of Many Bears would dare
to leave their ponies and baggage to come and scold. That was worth
something.
Silent and submissive as are all Indian women in the presence of braves
or of white men, they make up for it all in the use they make of their
tongues among themselves. They can talk wonderfully fast and say as
many sharp things as may be necessary.
"Now, Rita, see if you can make the leaves tell you anything about
Knotted Cord."
"He isn't in them; nor Send Warning either."
"Look. They must be there."
Neither Steve Harrison nor Murray were to be found in the pages of
those three magazines; Rita felt sure of that; but she turned the pages
carefully as she and Ni-ha-be rode on side by side at a very slow walk.
She came to something else, however, in the back part of one of them
which almost drove from her mind the face and form of Send Warning.
Ni-ha-be forgot the brown hair and handsome face of the Knotted Cord.
"Oh, so many squaws!"
"All of them so tall, too. I wonder if pale-face squaws ever grow as
tall as that? Look at the things on their heads."
"See!" exclaimed Rita. "All clothes! No squaws in them."
"Great chief. Ever so many squaws. Lose part of them. Keep their
blankets."
Rita could not quite explain the matter, but she knew better than that.
The series of pictures which so excited and puzzled the two Indian
maidens was nothing in the world but what the publishers of that
magazine called "A Fashion Plate Supplement."
There was enough there, indeed, to have puzzled anybody. Gradually
they began to understand it a little, and their wonder grew accordingly.
"Are they not ugly?" said Ni-ha-be. "Think of being compelled to wear
such things. I suppose, if they won't put them on, they get beaten.
Ugh! All black things."
"No. Only black in the pictures. Many colors. It says so; 'red,'
'yellow'--all colors."
That was better, and Ni-ha-be could pity the poor white squaws a little
less. Rita allowed her to take that magazine into her own keeping; but
mile after mile went by, and all she found in it worth studying was
that wonderful array of dresses, with and without occupants. She had
never dreamed of such things before, and her bright young face grew
almost troubled in its expression.
Oh, how she did long just then for a look at a real pale-face woman,
gotten up and ornamented like one of those pictured on the pages before
her! She was learning a great deal--more than she had any idea of.
But Rita had learned a great deal more; for the faces and the dresses
had joined themselves in her mind with ever so many things that came
floating up from her memory--things she had forgotten for so long a
time that they would never have come back to her at all if something
like this had not stirred them up.
Just now, while Ni-ha-be had the fashion plates, Rita was busy with the
illustrations of "gold-mining" which had so aroused the mind of Many
Bears.
Not that she knew or cared anything about mines or ores or miners, but
that some of those pictures also seemed to her to have a familiar look.
"Did I ever see anything like that?" she murmured to herself. "The
great chief says he did. It is not a lie. Maybe it will come back to
me some day. I don't care for any more pictures now; I'll try and read
some words."
That was harder work; but there were strange, new thoughts beginning to
come to Rita.
"You have not spoken to me," said Dolores at last. "Do the leaves talk
all the while?"
"Look at these," said Ni-ha-be. "They are better than the one you cut
out. There's only one squaw in that, and a pappoose. Here are ever so
many. And look at the funny little children. How those things must
hurt them! The pale-faces are cruel to their families."
Dolores look earnestly enough at the fashion plates. With all her
ignorance she had seen enough in her day to understand more of them
than the girls could. Once, long ago, when the band of Many Bears had
been near one of the frontier "military posts," where United States
troops were encamped, she had seen the beautiful "white squaws" of the
officers, in their wonderful dresses and ornaments, and she knew that
some of these were much like them. She could even help Ni-ha-be to
understand it.
Rita had been silent a very long time. All the while the train had
travelled nearly five miles. Now she suddenly exclaimed, "Oh,
Ni-ha-be! Dolores!" And when they turned to look at her her face was
perfectly radiant with triumph and pleasure.
"What is it? Have you found either of them?"
"I can do it! I have done it!"
"What have you done?"
"It is a story talk. Big lie about it all, such as the Apache braves
tell at the camp-fire when they are too lazy to hunt. I have read it
all."
"Is it a good talk?"
"Let me tell it. I can say it all in Apache words."
That was not the easiest thing in the world to do. It would have been
impossible, if the short story which Rita had found had not been of the
simplest kind--only about hunters following chamois in the Alps and
tumbling into snow-drifts, and being found and helped by great, wise,
benevolent St. Bernard dogs.
There were mountains in sight of the girls now that helped make it
real, and among them were big-horn antelopes as wild as the chamois,
and with very much the same habits. There were snow-drifts up there,
too, for they could see the white peaks glisten in the sinking sun. It
was all better than the talk of the braves around the winter
camp-fires; and, besides, there were the pictures of the dogs and of
the chamois. Neither Ni-ha-be nor Dolores uttered a word until Rita
had rapidly translated that "story talk" from beginning to end.
"Oh, Rita! are there any more talks like that?"
"Maybe. I don't know. Most of them are very long. Big words,
too--more than I can hear."
"Let me see it."
The pictures of the great, shaggy dogs and of the chamois were easy
enough to understand. Ni-ha-be knew that she could see a real
"big-horn" at a greater distance than Rita. But how was it that not
one word came to her of all the "story talk" Rita had translated from
those little black "signs" on those two pages of the magazine? It was
quite enough to try the patience of a daughter of a great chief, but
Dolores said,
"Never mind, Ni-ha-be; if the talking leaves could speak Apache you and
I could hear the stories and tell them to Rita?"
That was a little comforting, but Ni-ha-be knew there were no
illustrated monthly magazines printed by any of her people, and she
grew more and more jealous of her adopted sister.
"Anyhow," she said, "you must hear them all and tell them to us. If
any of the words are too big for you, you can leave them out."
Perhaps she could have done that, but what would then have become of
the stories and other things?
Rita's prizes promised to be a source of a good deal of annoyance to
her, as well as pleasure and profit. They did one thing for all three
that day--they made the afternoon's ride across the grassy rolls of the
plain seem very short indeed.
Only a few warriors were to be seen when the order to halt was given;
but they had picked out a capital place for a camp--a thick grove of
large trees on the bank of a deep, swift river. There were many
scattered rocks on one side of the grove, and it was just the spot Many
Bears had wanted. It was what army officers would call "a very strong
position, and easily defended."