GOOD SEED.
THE young Shawanoe smiled, shook his head and looked into the keen eyes
before him.
“Deerfoot thanks his brother, but he never tasted of liquor and will die
before he wets his lips with it.”
The amazement of the trapper was not without its humorous feature. He
remained leaning toward the youth, his hand outstretched with the
uncorked flask in it and staring at him as if literally paralyzed. Then
he drew a deep breath, swung back and exclaimed:
“Wal, I’ll be skulped! You’re the first Injin I ever seed that wouldn’t
sell his moccasins for a swaller of red eye. It gits me!”
Deerfoot watched him with amused interest. Jack Halloway held up the
flask at arm’s length and surveyed it thoughtfully. Once he started to
place it to his lips, but shook his head, then jammed the cork back in
place (the screwed tops were unknown in those days) and thrust the flask
into his pocket again.
“Ef you won’t drink with me, Shawanoe, I won’t drink afore you.”
“Let my brother do as he feels like doing.”
“Which the same is what I’ve done. As I was sayin’, I allers take a keg
of the extract of happiness with me and manage things so it will last
till I get back to St. Louis; but bein’ as I stayed longer than usual,
I’ve come so near running out that that flask has got to keep me alive
for some weeks to come. I tell you it’s powerful tough, but there’s no
help for it. Every trapper or hunter that I run across—if I run across
any—will be as bad off as me.”
“When my brother gets to St. Louis what will he do with his peltries!”
“Why, sell ’em, of course. What did you think?”
“He has a good many,” remarked Deerfoot, glancing at the piles on the
ground near at hand.
“You’re right. It has been a good season, and them skins is vallyble.
There’s one black fox that’s the same as a hundred dollars to me, and
the rest will bring three hundred dollars more.”
“My brother has much money saved from his labor.”
“Much money! Not a blamed cent, though I orter have. Shawanoe, the
biggest fools—I admit it—is we trappers, who spend winters in the
mountains, freezin’, starvin’ and dodging redskins, and then travel
hundreds of miles to git back to St. Louis, where we can sell our
peltries as quick as a wink. Then we go onto a big, glorious spree, and
at the end of a week or two haven’t enough left to buy a plug of
’backer. We loaf around, doin’ ’nough odd jobs to keep us from starvin’
till the weather begins to git cold, when we’re off for the mountains
agin. And so it goes year after year, and we’re fools to the end.”
“Is my brother alone in the world?”
“Lucky I haven’t any wife or children, but I’ve got the best old mother
that ever drawed breath. She has a little home which she manages to hold
onto by takin’ in sewin’ and doin’ little fancy things for the
neighbors, who be kind to her. If they warn’t I don’t know what would
become of her, for I’m no good; I don’t deserve such a mother,” added
the trapper with a sigh, “for she is never as happy as when I’m with
her, and she’d work her fingers off for me. ’Bout all she does is work
and pray, and never an unkind word to say to her good for nothin’ son.”
“By and by she will close her eyes and go to the Great Spirit, and when
my brother walks into the little home she will be gone and”——
“Thar! thar! Don’t say nothin’ more!” interrupted the trapper with a
wave of his hand. “I can’t stand it. If I go back home and find her
dead, as I ’spose I shall some day, I’ll die myself; if I don’t, I’ll
blow my worthless brains out, for I won’t want to live.”
“My brother longs to see his mother again. If he should kill himself or
do wrong he will never see her more. Let him live right and they shall
dwell together forever. Let him go back to St. Louis and drink no more.
Let him give the money to the mother who loves her son and has suffered
much for him. Then my brother will make her face shine with happiness,
and she will live much longer.”
Jack Halloway turned his head and stared at Deerfoot for a full minute
without stirring or speaking. The Shawanoe kept his gaze upon the fire,
but he knew the scrutiny he was under, and he “waited.” When the trapper
spoke it was in a low voice, as if addressing himself:
“To think of an Injin talkin’ that way to Jack Halloway! Why, I never
had a white man do it; but his words are as true as gospel. Fact is,
they _are_ gospel.”
He relapsed into a reverie which lasted so long that Deerfoot gently
interposed.
“My brother tells me that his mother prays. Does my brother pray?”
Jack started and again stared at the dusky youth.
“This beats all creation. Yas, I used to pray, but it was a long time
ago, when I was a younker and bowed my head at my mother’s knee. I’ve
been a wild, wicked scamp that ain’t worth the prayer of such an angel
as she is. Shawanoe, do _you_ pray?”
“Once when Deerfoot was a child he was as wicked as Satan himself; but
he was made a prisoner by the palefaces. There was a good woman among
them who told him about the Great Spirit who is a loving Father to all
His children, and she taught him to pray to Him. Deerfoot prays to his
Father every morning and night, and often through the day, and his
Father always listens and does that which is best for him. Let my
brother do the same. He will give him strength to drink that poison no
more, and when he dies he will see his mother again.”
Again Jack Halloway asked himself whether he was awake or dreaming. He
had heard in a vague way of the missionaries and their labors among the
Indians. He had been told that there were some converts among the red
men, but never until now had he seen one. Like most of his calling, he
looked upon all Indians as bad, and therefore the implacable enemies of
the white men. He had had more than one desperate encounter with them,
and when he groped his way into the mountains it was always a contest of
wits between him and them, with the prospects more than once against
him. He looked upon them as he looked upon so many rattlesnakes, that
were likely to be found coiled at any moment in his path.
And yet here was a full-blooded Indian talking to him better than he had
ever heard any missionary talk. The trapper knew from the build, the
alertness, the assurance of movement of the youth, and a certain
something impossible to describe that he would be a terrific antagonist
in a fight, but nothing seemed further from the Shawanoe’s thoughts. He
talked with the persuasive gentleness of a woman, and in all his
experience never had the grizzled trapper felt such an arrow pierce
right into the core of his heart.
In a few simple words Deerfoot had drawn a vivid picture of that sweet,
patient, forgiving, praying parent, waiting in her far-away home the
return of the rough, profane, wicked son, for whom she was ready to
sacrifice her life at any time, and, indeed, was sacrificing it to his
thoughtlessness and indifference. Most astounding of all, the Shawanoe
had held out a hope to him that he had never known of or in fact dreamed
had an existence.
With that fine-grained tact which was one of Deerfoot’s most marked
traits, he refrained from breaking in upon the meditation of the other.
He knew the leaven was working and did not wish to interfere with it.
Jack Halloway, the trapper, now did a singular and unexpected thing.
Without a word, he rose to his feet and faced the stream flowing past
the camp. The youth, who was watching his movements, saw him bring the
flask from his breast pocket and swing his arm backward. Then he brought
it quickly forward, striking and checking his hand smartly against his
hip and making the throw known as “jerking.” The flask shot from his
grasp and sped out in the gloom, falling with a splash that was plainly
heard in the stillness.
“Thar, Shawanoe!” he exclaimed, facing about, “you’ve made me do what I
never believed any man could, make Jack Halloway do. Now I’ve got to
travel all the way to St. Louis without a swaller of the infarnal stuff.
It’ll take two or three weeks, and I know it’ll be powerful tough, but
_I’m going to do it_!”
Deerfoot had risen to his feet and, in a voice tremulous with emotion,
he said:
“My brother has done well. He will never be sorry. The Great Spirit will
make him strong, but my brother must pray to Him for himself.”
“Pray!” repeated the trapper; “that’s goin’ to be ’bout all I’ll do
atween here and St. Louis, and I won’t let up till the good Lord does
what you say, and what I know He’ll be powerful glad to do for such a
miserable scamp as me.”
The next act of the trapper was as remarkable as the former one. He
strode out to where he had sent the three horses, roused each and began
reloading them and saddling and bridling his own. Suspecting his
purpose, Deerfoot asked:
“Will not my brother wait till morning?”
“Not a minute longer than I have to. I’m afeard that mother of mine will
die afore I can git to her and beg her to forgive and help me to be a
half-decent man.”
Instead of protesting, Deerfoot aided in reloading the animals. Neither
spoke while this was going on. When it was finished and the massive
trapper had swung again into his saddle, he reached his broad palm down
to his new friend.
“Good-bye, Shawanoe. May I ax you when you’re at your prayers to put in
a word for me! I’ve an idee that the Lord will be more pleased to hear
from you than me.”
“Deerfoot will never forget to do as his brother asks, and he is sure
that all will now be well with his brother.”
“I’ll make a big wrastle for it. Good-bye!”
He struck his heels against the side of his horse, who, though roused
from rest, moved off, followed by the pack animals as if they were a
couple of docile dogs. They soon disappeared in the moonlight, but
Deerfoot stood for a long time gazing thoughtfully toward the point
where he had last seen the man who had come so strangely into his life
and then passed out again.
“Something tells Deerfoot that his brother shall do well and they shall
meet again.”
The Shawanoe, as we shall learn in due time, was right in this belief.
A soft rustling caused him to look round. The Blackfoot was standing at
his side.
“My brother is late in awaking Mul-tal-la,” he quietly said.
“My brother did not need to be awakened, for he heard the words of the
white man who has just gone.”
“Yes; Mul-tal-la heard all that was said by him and Deerfoot. The Great
Spirit is pleased with Deerfoot.”
“Deerfoot prays that He will ever be pleased with him. He is striving to
live so the Great Spirit will not frown upon him.”
Forgetting in his ardor the somewhat formal manner of speaking, the
Blackfoot earnestly said:
“If you are not good, then there _never_ was a good man. Let my brother
rest, for the Great Spirit will watch over him like a father.”
The Shawanoe walked to the place vacated by the other and lay down,
while the Blackfoot took upon himself the duty of sentinel for the
remainder of the night.
As Deerfoot stretched out he recalled the singular disturbance heard
earlier in the evening, and he shifted the enveloping blanket so as to
allow him to rest one ear against the cool, damp earth.
As he did so he caught the same faint, curious pulsing again. It was
more distinct and instantly drove all thought of sleep from his brain.
It was as if thousands of feet were striking the ground, mingling,
running into one another, and yet preserving a certain regularity that
was puzzling to the last degree.
Because the noises were heard more plainly he believed that whatever
caused them was drawing near the camp. Still the approach was slow,
which it would seem could not have been the fact if the unknown animals
were approaching. They must be following a course that, while bringing
them somewhat closer, would carry them by on one side or the other.
The strange peculiarity already noted again presented itself. By and by
the sounds grew fainter, as if the creatures, whatever their nature,
were receding. This suggested the odd theory that they were traveling in
a great circle and might again approach. Deerfoot rose and walked to
where Mul-tal-la was standing near the resting horses, which still
showed no signs of uneasiness. The Shawanoe told of the puzzle that
troubled him.
The Blackfoot had not observed anything of that nature. When lying on
his blanket it interposed between him and the earth, and thus shut out
the almost inaudible throbbings that mystified his companion. Mul-tal-la
now knelt and pressed his ear against the ground, Deerfoot doing the
same.
Both held their position for some time and then rose.
“They are strange sounds,” remarked the Blackfoot, “but very soft.”
“They were a little louder when Deerfoot first heard them. They must be
made by some animals that cannot be buffaloes.”
“No, the noise would be different. Mul-tal-la knows what they are, for
he heard them when he came this way many moons ago and his eyes rested
on the animals.”
“What are they?” asked the surprised Deerfoot.
“Wild horses,” was the answer.
The Shawanoe was astonished, for he had never thought of anything of
that nature. He had heard rumors, as far away as his own home, of droves
of wild horses that roamed over the western plains, numbering many
thousands. Reports of the same nature reached him when in St. Louis.
Some one had told him that when the Spaniards came to the Southwest,
more than two centuries before, a few of their horses had wandered off,
and it was from them that the numberless droves had descended.
You need not be reminded that this is a fact. A century ago enormous
droves of wild horses roamed over the Llano Estacado and in northern
Texas, to which region and neighborhood they mainly confined themselves,
though many of them were met on the plains a considerable distance to
the northward. It would not be strange if our friends came in contact
with them, though not one had yet been seen.
Mul-tal-la said that he and his companion encountered a herd that was as
numerous as the buffaloes that had lately threatened them, and at one
time the two were in danger of being run down by the equine rovers. By
hard work, however, they got out of their way.
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