PLAYING A MAN'S PART
The two men rode silently, one behind the other, trailing their led
ponies; the hoofs of their horses going out in sound on the
pine-needles, anon cracking a dead branch as they stepped over fallen
timber, or grunting under the strain of steep hillsides. Far across the
wide valley the Shoshone range suddenly lost its forms and melted into
blue-black against the little light left by the sun, which sank as a
stone does in water. In swift pursuit of her warrior husband, came She
of the night, soft and golden, painting everything with her quiet,
restful colors, and softly soothing the fevers of day with her cooling
lotions.
[Illustration]
Wolf-Voice and John Ermine emerged from the woods, dog-trotting along on
their ponies after the fashion of Indian kind. Well they knew the
deceptions of the pale light; while it illumined the way a few steps
ahead, it melted into a protecting gloom within an arrow's-flight. An
unfortunate meeting with the enemy would develop a horse-race where
numbers counted for no more than the swiftest horse and the rider who
quirted most freely over the coulée or dog-town. The winner of such
races was generally the one who had the greatest interest at stake in
the outcome,--the hunted, not the hunter.
As the two riders expected, they traversed the plains without incident,
forded the rivers, and two hours before sunrise were safely perched on
the opposite range, high enough to look down on the eagles. These vast
stretches of landscape rarely showed signs of human life. One
unaccustomed to them would as soon expect to find man or horses walking
the ocean's bed; their loneliness was akin to the antarctic seas. That
was how it seemed, not how it was. The fierce savages who skulked
through the cuts and seams made by erosion did not show themselves, but
they were there and might appear at any moment; the desert brotherhood
knew this, and well considered their footsteps. Seated on a rock
pinnacle, amid brushwood, one man slept while the other watched. Long
before nightfall they were again in motion. Around the camp, Indians are
indolent, but on the war-path their exertions are ceaseless to the point
of exhaustion. It was not possible to thread their way through the
volcanic gashes of the mountains by night, but while light lasted they
skirted along their slopes day after day, killing game with arrows which
Wolf-Voice carried because of their silence and economy.
These two figures, crawling, sliding, turning, and twisting through the
sunlight on the rugged mountains, were grotesque but harmonious. America
will never produce their like again. Her wheels will turn and her
chimneys smoke, and the things she makes will be carried round the world
in ships, but she never can make two figures which will bear even a
remote resemblance to Wolf-Voice and John Ermine. The wheels and
chimneys and the white men have crowded them off the earth.
Buckskin and feathers may swirl in the tan-bark rings to the tune of
Money Musk, but the meat-eaters who stole through the vast silences,
hourly snatching their challenging war-locks from the hands of death,
had a sensation about them which was independent of accessories. Their
gaunt, hammer-headed, grass-bellied, cat-hammed, roach-backed ponies
went with them when they took their departure; the ravens fly high above
their intruding successors, and the wolves which sneaked at their
friendly heels only lift their suspicious eyes above a rock on a far-off
hill to follow the white man's movements. Neither of the two mentioned
people realized that the purpose of the present errand was to aid in
bringing about the change which meant their passing.
Wolf-Voice had no family tree. It was enough that he arrived among the
traders speaking Gros Ventre; but a man on a galloping horse could see
that his father was no Gros Ventre; he blew into the Crow camp on some
friendly wind, prepared to make his thoughts known in his mother tongue
or to embellish it with Breed-French or Chinook; he had sought the camp
of the white soldiers and added to his Absaroke sundry "God-damns" and
other useful expressions needed in his business. He was a slim fellow
with a massive head and a restless soul; a seeker after violence, with
wicked little black eyes which glittered through two narrow slits and
danced like drops of mercury. His dress was buckskin, cut in the red
fashion; his black hat had succumbed to time and moisture, while a huge
skinning-knife strapped across his stomach, together with a
brass-mounted Henry rifle, indicated the danger zone one would pass
before reaching his hair.
At a distance John Ermine was not so different; but, closer, his yellow
braids, strongly vermilioned skin, and open blue eyes stared hard and
fast at your own, as emotionless as if furnished by a taxidermist. His
coat was open at the front as the white men made them; he wore blanket
breeches encased at the bottom in hard elkskin leggings bound at the
knee. He also carried a fire-bag, the Spencer repeating carbine given
him by his comrade, together with an elk-horn whip. In times past Ermine
had owned a hat, but long having outlived the natural life of any hat,
it had finally refused to abide with him. In lieu of this he had bound
his head with a yellow handkerchief, beside which polished brass would
have been a dead and lonely brown. His fine boyish figure swayed like a
tule in the wind, to the motions of his pony. His mind was reposeful
though he was going to war--going to see the white men of whom he had
heard so much from his tutor; going to associate with the people who
lost "ten thousand men" in a single battle and who did not regard it as
wonderful. He had seen a few of these after the Long-Horse fight, but he
was younger and did not understand. He understood now, however, and
intended to drink his eyes and feast his mind to satiety on the people
of whom he was one.
As the sun westered, the two adventurers blinded their trail in the
manner most convenient at the time; a thing not so difficult to do in
the well-watered northwest as in the dry deserts of the south; besides
which the buffalo-hunting, horse-using Indians were not the equals of
the mountain foot brethren in following trails. After doing this they
doubled and twisted back on their track. While the sun was yet bright
they broiled their evening meat on a tiny fire of dry sticks. Blowing
the tobacco smoke to the four corners of the earth, Wolf-Voice said: "We
will be rich, brother, if the Sioux do not get a chance to dry our hair;
the soldiers always make their scouts rich; there is plenty to eat in
their wagons, and cartridges cost nothing. The soldiers always fight;
they are like the gray bears,--they do not know any better,--and then is
the time when we must watch close to get away before the Sioux have an
advantage of them. They are fools and cannot run. They are tied to the
ground. If you get a chance to carry the talking papers from one white
chief to another, they pour the money into your blanket. I have never
had a paper to carry, but I think they will give you one. If they do,
brother, we will take the silver and get one of the white soldiers to
buy us a bottle of whiskey from the sutler." And Wolf-Voice's malignant
features relaxed into a peaceful state which made Ermine laugh outright.
A bottle of whiskey and ten thousand dead men--quite a difference,
thought Ermine. "That is it--that is it," continued the musing white man
to himself; "he goes to war for a bottle of whiskey, and I go for ten
thousand men." His unframed thoughts wrestled and twisted, lined and
rounded, the idea of ten thousand men; yet the idea never took a form
which satisfied him. Ten thousand buffalo--yes, he had calculated their
mass; he had seen them. Ten thousand trees--that, too, he could arrange;
he had blocked them out on the mountain-side. But there were many times
ten thousand men who had not been killed; that he gave up altogether.
Nothing had saved him but blind faith in his old comrade.
Leaving the mountains again, they stalked over the moon-lit land more
like ghosts than men, and by day they lay so low that the crawling ants
were their companions. By the Elk[8] River Wolf-Voice pointed to a long,
light streak which passed through the sage-brush: "Brother, that is the
sign of the white men. The buffalo, when they pass once, do not make a
deeper path than that, and, brother, what is that in the road which
shows so bright?"
[8] Indian for Yellowstone.
Appropriating the gleaming thing, the Indian reached from his pony and
picked it up, holding it close to his eyes for a moment before passing
it to his companion. "What is that, brother?"
Ermine examined it closely, turning it in the moonlight. "I do not know;
it is a paper; I will keep it until daylight."
A few steps ahead was found another glistening article, dropped by the
passing soldiers. They knew what that was; it was the canteen, lost on
the march, by a pony soldier. Wolf-Voice appropriated it.
"We must not stay here; the trail is old, but the Sioux will be near the
soldiers. They are between us and the white men; you may be sure of
that, brother," said one; and the four ponies stumbled off through the
sage-brush, melting into the night.
They stopped for the day at the head of a rocky coulée, eating dried
meat for fear of making a smoke. Ermine drew the paper from his pocket,
laid it on the ground before him, and regarded it for a few moments;
then he turned it round, seeing it was upside down by the writing on the
bottom. "Bogardus," he read on the left-hand corner. The image on the
card spread, opened, and flowered in Ermine's mind; it was a
picture--that was plain now; it was a photograph such as he had heard
Crooked-Bear tell about--an image from the sun. He had never seen one
before. Wolf-Voice bent his beady eyes on the black and white thing, but
it suggested nothing to him. Nature had not been black and white to his
scarlet vision. The rude conventionalized lines painted on the
buffalo-robes differentiated buffalo, ponies, and men, but this
thing--"Humph!"--he lighted his pipe.
Before the persistent gaze of Ermine the face of a young woman
unravelled itself from a wonderful headgear and an unknown frock. The
eyes looked into his with a long, steady, and hypnotic gaze. The gentle
face of the image fascinated the lad; it stirred his imagination and
added "a beautiful white woman" to his "ten-thousand-dead-men" quest.
Wolf-Voice had to call him twice to take his watch, saying as he lay
down, "Put the paper away, brother; it takes your eyes from the Sioux."
The travellers could not make long journeys in the short summer nights
through the open country, and exercise a proper vigilance at the same
time. The moon rose later every night, thus cutting their time. Neither
did they see any signs of human beings or know where to find the white
men; but recourse to the trail along the river, from time to time,
assured them that the wagons had continued down the stream. The trail
was very old, and was full of Indian pony-tracks which had followed it.
One day as they lay in a washout, Wolf-Voice pointed to columns of dust
far to the south. Was it buffalo, Indians, or soldiers? The dust stayed
all day in one place; it might be a buffalo-surround or big herds about
camps, but this they were not able to determine.
"We will go to the dust this sleep and we will ride the war-horses; the
others which we have been riding are stiff and sore; we will leave them
here and come after them if we can," spoke Ermine as he braided the tail
of his favorite pony. When Wolf-Voice's attention was directed
elsewhere, he took his medicine, the dried hoof of the white stallion,
and rubbed it gently on his pony's heels. The prophet would not approve
of this, he felt, but it could do no harm, since he also prayed God to
make his pony run fast and not stumble, to blind the Sioux, stop their
ears, and otherwise to cherish appropriately the poor life of John
Ermine who believed in Him and now wanted His help.
Slowly they made their way south through the gloom, trusting their
range-bred ponies to pick out the footing. Hour after hour they stepped
along, stopping at intervals to listen.
Late at night as they made their way down a long ridge, they heard a
horse whinny somewhere far down in one of the breaks of the land.
Without a word they turned away from the noise. Later Wolf-Voice
whispered: "Indians; the white men never let their horses loose in the
night. That pony was alone, or we should have heard more sounds. He was
calling his brothers. Now we must blind our trail; their scouts will
find it in the morning."
Accordingly they allowed their horses to feed slowly along, not
attempting to guide them, and after a mile felt that any one who should
follow those tracks would think that they were loose horses grazing. By
the light of the late moon they made their way more quickly, but always
stopping to separate the sounds of the night--the good sounds from the
bad. They could see that they were coming to the river, and as they rose
on a wave of the land, they saw a few faint sparks glitter far down the
valley.
"It is the white soldiers--the big fires of the white men, brother. We
will go in when the sun comes up. If we should go near them now, they
would fire at us. The white men shoot at anything which moves in the
dark; a wolf is not safe near their camps when the sun has gone."
Before the gray of morning they were safely ensconced under a bluff,
waiting for the daylight and within a mile of the long line of Sibley
tents. They heard the hungry mule chorus, the clank of chains, the
monotonous calls of the sentries; and the camp slowly developed before
their eyes like a photographic negative in a bath of chemicals; then
John Ermine began to understand ten thousand men.
Softly the metallic réveille drifted to their ears; it spread from one
group of tents to another until the whole air danced with the delightful
sound. The watchers on the sage-brush hillside were preoccupied with the
movements of the soldiers. They listened to the trumpets and saw the men
answer them by forming long lines. In a moment the lines broke into
hurrying individuals, the fires began to send up the quiet morning
smoke, while the mule chorus ceased.
As though shot out of the ground by some hidden force, Wolf-Voice
bounded up. "G---- d----! Mit-wit![9] Coo-ley!"[10] he yelled, and as
responsive as a swallow which follows the swift flight of another in
play, Ermine bounded on to his horse. One look behind told the story.
The Sioux were coming. He saw the lightning play of the ponies' legs,
heard the whips crack on their quarters, and was away like a flash,
bearing hard on the soldier camp. Before many bounds he recovered from
his surprise; it was not far, and his horse was answering the medicine.
He had never run like this before. The Sioux had found and followed
their trail and had nearly caught them napping. After their long journey
they had almost been cut off during the last mile of it. Seeing that
their prey had escaped, the Sioux swerved like hawks, pulling up on the
hill.
[9] Get up!
[10] Run!
Turning, Wolf-Voice and Ermine shouted back taunts at them, fired their
guns at the group, and then leisurely loped toward the camps. While yet
quite a way out, three white soldiers rose suddenly from a dry wash with
their rifles: "Halt! Who goes there?"
[Illustration: "'HALT! WHO GOES THERE?'"]
The riders drew down to a walk, Wolf-Voice raising his hand in the
peace sign, and saying, "We are your frens, we aire two Crow Enjun; don'
shoot!" and continued to advance.
The soldiers stood with their guns in readiness, while one answered:
"Get off them ponies; lay your guns on the ground. I guess you are all
right." And then, looking at Ermine with a laugh: "Is that blonde there
a Crow? Guess them Sioux scared him white. I've often heard tell of a
man's hair turning white in a single night."
"Ach sure, Bill, and it don't tourn a mon's face red to be schared
sthiff," observed another picket.
The faintest suggestion of a smile stole over John Ermine as he
comprehended.
"No, soldiers, we are not afraid. Why can't you let two men go into the
big camp; are all those soldiers afraid of two men?" And the pickets
laughed at the quaint conjecture. Shortly an officer rode up on a horse
and questioned Ermine.
"Who are you?"
"We are friends of the white people. Did you see that we are not friends
of the Sioux?"
"Yes; I saw those Indians chase you. Were they Sioux?"
"We took that for granted." And again the corner of John Ermine's mouth
relaxed.
"Yes, of course, I admire your judgment; come with me," replied the
officer, as he turned to ride back. The three ambled along together.
"Who are you?"
"I am a white man, and my comrade is an Indian."
"What is your name?"
"My name is John Ermine, and I want to be a scout. Will you take me?"
"That is not my business; but I have no doubt the proper authority will
be glad to put you on the pay-roll. You don't seem any more popular with
the Sioux than we are."