Again I must ask my young friends to mount my hippogriff and hie with
me to the almost inaccessible heights of the Rocky Mountains. There,
for years, a band of wild and untamable savages, known as the "Pigeon
Feet," had resisted the blankets and Bibles of civilization. For years
the trails leading to their camp were marked by the bones of teamsters
and broken wagons, and the trees were decked with the drying scalp
locks of women and children. The boldest of military leaders hesitated
to attack them in their fortresses, and prudently left the scalping
knives, rifles, powder, and shot, provided by a paternal government for
their welfare, lying on the ground a few miles from their encampment,
with the request that they were not to be used until the military had
safely retired. Hitherto, save an occasional incursion into the
territory of the "Knock-knees," a rival tribe, they had limited their
depredations to the vicinity.
But lately a baleful change had come over them. Acting under some evil
influence, they now pushed their warfare into the white settlements,
carrying fire and destruction with them. Again and again had the
government offered them a free pass to Washington and the privilege of
being photographed, but under the same evil guidance they refused.
There was a singular mystery in their mode of aggression.
School-houses were always burned, the schoolmasters taken into
captivity, and never again heard from. A palace car on the Union
Pacific Railway, containing an excursion party of teachers en route to
San Francisco, was surrounded, its inmates captured, and--their
vacancies in the school catalogue never again filled. Even a Board of
Educational Examiners, proceeding to Cheyenne, were taken prisoners,
and obliged to answer questions they themselves had proposed, amidst
horrible tortures. By degrees these atrocities were traced to the
malign influence of a new chief of the tribe. As yet little was known
of him but through his baleful appellations, "Young Man who Goes for
his Teacher," and "He Lifts the Hair of the School Marm." He was said
to be small and exceedingly youthful in appearance. Indeed, his
earlier appellative, "He Wipes his Nose on his Sleeve," was said to
have been given to him to indicate his still boy-like habits.
It was night in the encampment and among the lodges of the "Pigeon
Toes." Dusky maidens flitted in and out among the camp-fires like
brown moths, cooking the toothsome buffalo hump, frying the fragrant
bear's meat, and stewing the esculent bean for the braves. For a few
favored ones spitted grasshoppers were reserved as a rare delicacy,
although the proud Spartan soul of their chief scorned all such
luxuries.
He was seated alone in his wigwam, attended only by the gentle
Mushymush, fairest of the "Pigeon Feet" maidens. Nowhere were the
characteristics of her great tribe more plainly shown than in the
little feet that lapped over each other in walking. A single glance at
the chief was sufficient to show the truth of the wild rumors
respecting his youth. He was scarcely twelve, of proud and lofty
bearing, and clad completely in wrappings of various-colored scalloped
cloths, which gave him the appearance of a somewhat extra-sized
pen-wiper. An enormous eagle's feather, torn from the wing of a bald
eagle who once attempted to carry him away, completed his attire. It
was also the memento of one of his most superhuman feats of courage.
He would undoubtedly have scalped the eagle but that nature had
anticipated him.
"Why is the Great Chief sad?" asked Mushymush, softly. "Does his soul
still yearn for the blood of the pale-faced teachers? Did not the
scalping of two professors of geology in the Yale exploring party
satisfy his warrior's heart yesterday? Has he forgotten that Hayden
and Clarence King are still to follow? Shall his own Mushymush bring
him a botanist to-morrow? Speak, for the silence of my brother lies on
my heart like the snow on the mountain, and checks the flow of my
speech."
Still the proud Boy Chief sat silent. Suddenly he said: "Hist!" and
rose to his feet. Taking a long rifle from the ground he adjusted its
sight. Exactly seven miles away on the slope of the mountain the
figure of a man was seen walking. The Boy Chief raised the rifle to
his unerring eye and fired. The man fell.
A scout was dispatched to scalp and search the body. He presently
returned.
"Who was the pale face?" eagerly asked the chief.
"A life insurance agent."
A dark scowl settled on the face of the chief.
"I thought it was a book-peddler."
"Why is my brother's heart sore against the book-peddler?" asked
Mushymush.
"Because," said the Boy Chief, fiercely, "I am again without my regular
dime novel, and I thought he might have one in his pack. Hear me,
Mushymush; the United States mails no longer bring me my 'Young
America,' or my 'Boys' and Girls' Weekly.' I find it impossible, even
with my fastest scouts, to keep up with the rear of General Howard, and
replenish my literature from the sutler's wagon. Without a dime novel
or a 'Young America,' how am I to keep up this Injin business?"
Mushymush remained in meditation a single moment. Then she looked up
proudly.
"My brother has spoken. It is well. He shall have his dime novel. He
shall know what kind of a hair-pin his sister Mushymush is."
And she arose and gamboled lightly as the fawn out of his presence.
In two hours she returned. In one hand she held three small flaxen
scalps, in the other "The Boy Marauder," complete in one volume, price
ten cents.
"Three pale-faced children," she gasped, "were reading it in the tail
end of an emigrant wagon. I crept up to them softly. Their parents
are still unaware of the accident," and she sank helpless at his feet.
"Noble girl!" said the Boy Chief, gazing proudly on her prostrate form;
"and these are the people that a military despotism expects to subdue!"