AN INDIAN TRAIL.
The next day was Sunday, and, true to their New England training, the
settlers refrained from labor on the day of rest. Mr. Bryant took his
pocket Bible and wandered off into the wild waste of lands somewhere.
The others lounged about the cabin, indoors and out, a trifle sore and
stiff from the effects of work so much harder than that to which they
had been accustomed, and glad of an opportunity to rest their limbs.
The younger of the boy settlers complained that they had worn their
legs out with punching holes in the sod while planting corn. The soles
of their feet were sore with the pressure needed to jam the dibble
through the tough turf. In the afternoon, they all wandered off
through the sweet and silent wilderness of rolling prairie into the
woods in which they proposed to lay off another claim for pre-emption.
At a short distance above their present home, cutting sharply through
the sod, and crossing the Republican Fork a mile or so above their own
ford, was an old Indian trail, which the boys had before noticed but
could not understand. As Charlie and Oscar, pressing on ahead of
their elders, came upon the old trail, they loitered about until the
rest of the party came up, and then they asked what could have cut
that narrow track in the turf, so deep and so narrow.
"That's an Injun trail," said Younkins, who, with an uncomfortably new
suit of Sunday clothes and a smooth-shaven face, had come over to
visit his new neighbors. "Didn't you ever see an Injun trail before?"
he asked, noting the look of eager curiosity on the faces of the boys.
They assured him that they never had, and he continued: "This yere
trail has been here for years and years, long and long before any
white folks came into the country. Up north and east of yer, on the
head-waters of the Big Blue, the Cheyennes used to live,"--Younkins
pronounced it Shyans,--"and as soon as the grass began to start in the
spring, so as to give feed to their ponies and to the buffalo, they
would come down this yere way for game. They crossed the Fork just
above yere-like, and then they struck down to the head-waters of the
Smoky Hill and so off to the westwards. Big game was plenty in those
days, and now the Injuns off to the north of yere come down in just
the same way--hunting for game."
The boys got down on their knees and scanned the trail with new
interest. It was not more than nine or ten inches across, and was so
worn down that it made a narrow trench, as it were, in the deep sod,
its lower surface being as smooth as a rolled wagon-track. Over this
well-worn track, for ages past, the hurrying feet of wild tribes had
passed so many times that even the wiry grass-roots had been killed
down.
"Did war parties ever go out on this trail, do you suppose?" asked
Sandy, sitting up in the grass.
"Sakes alive, yes!" replied Younkins. "Why, the Cheyennes and the
Comanches used to roam over all these plains, in the old times, and
they were mostly at war."
"Where are the Cheyennes and the Comanches now, Mr. Younkins?" asked
Uncle Aleck.
"I reckon the Comanches are off to the south-like somewhere. It
appears to me that I heard they were down off the Texas border,
somewheres; the Cheyennes are to the westwards, somewhere near Fort
Laramie."
"And what Indians are there who use this trail now?" inquired Oscar,
whose eyes were sparkling with excitement as he studied the well-worn
path of the Indian tribes.
Younkins explained that the Pottawottomies and the Pawnees, now
located to the north, were the only ones who used the trail. "Blanket
Indians," he said they were, peaceable creatures enough, but not good
neighbors; he did not want any Indians of any sort near him. When one
of the boys asked what blanket Indians were, Younkins explained,--
"There's three kinds of Injuns, none on 'em good,--town Injuns,
blanket Injuns, and wild Injuns. You saw some of the town Injuns when
you came up through the Delaware reserve--great lazy fellows, lyin'
round the house all day and lettin' the squaws do all the work. Then
there's the blankets; they live out in the woods and on the prairie,
in teepees, or lodges, of skins and canvas-like, moving round from
place to place, hunting over the plains in summer, and living off'n
the Gov'ment in winter. They are mostly at peace with the whites, but
they will steal whenever they get a chance. The other kind, and the
worst, is the wild ones. They have nothing to do with the Government,
and they make war on the whites whenever they feel like it. Just now,
I don't know of any wild Injuns that are at war with Uncle Sam; but
the Arapahoes, Comanches, and Cheyennes are all likely to break loose
any time. I give 'm all a plenty of elbow room."
As the boys reluctantly ceased contemplating the fascinating Indian
trail, and moved on behind the rest of the party, Charlie said: "I
suppose we must make allowance for Younkins's prejudices. He is like
most of the border men, who believe that all the good Indians are
dead. If the Cheyennes and the Comanches could only tell their story
in the books and newspapers, we might hear the other side."
The idea of a wild Indian's writing a book or a letter to the
newspapers tickled Sandy so much that he laughed loud and long.
Some two miles above the point where the settlers' ford crossed the
Republican Fork, the stream swept around a bluffy promontory, and on a
curve just above this was the tract of timber land which they now
proposed to enter upon for their second claim. The trees were oak,
hickory, and beech, with a slight undergrowth of young cottonwoods and
hazel. The land lay prettily, the stream at this point flowing in a
southerly direction, with the timber claim on its northwesterly bank.
The sunny exposure of the grove, the open glades that diversified its
dense growth, and the babbling brook that wound its way through it to
the river, all combined to make it very desirable for a timber claim.
At a short distance from the river the land rose gradually to a high
ridge, and on the top of this grew a thick wood of spruce and fir.
"That's what you want for your next cabin," said Younkins, pointing
his finger in the direction of the pines. "Best kind of stuff for
building there is in these parts." Then he explained to the boys the
process of cutting down the trees, splitting them up into shakes, or
into lengths suitable for cabin-building, and he gave them an
entertaining account of all the ways and means of finishing up a
log-cabin,--a process, by the way, which they found then more
entertaining in description than they afterward found it in the
reality.
That night when Sandy lay down to refreshing sleep it was to dream of
picturesque Indian fights, witnessed at a safe distance from afar.
Accordingly, he was not very much surprised next morning, while he was
helping Charlie to get ready the breakfast, when Oscar ran in
breathless, with the one word, "Indians!"
"Come out on the hill back of the cabin," panted Oscar. "There's a lot
of 'em coming out on the trail we saw yesterday, all in Indian file.
Hurry up!" and away he darted, Sandy hastening with him to see the
wonderful sight.
Sure enough, there they were, twenty-five or thirty Indians,--blanket
Indians, as Younkins would have said,--strung along in the narrow
trail, all in Indian file. It amazed the lads to see how the little
Indian ponies managed to keep their feet in the narrow path. But they
seemed to trot leisurely along with one foot before the other, just as
the Indians did. Behind the mounted men were men and boys on foot,
nearly as many as had passed on horseback. These kept up with the
others, silently but swiftly maintaining the same pace that the
mounted fellows did. It was a picturesque and novel sight to the young
settlers. The Indians were dressed in the true frontier style, with
hunting-shirt and leggings of dressed deerskin, a blanket slung
loosely over the shoulder, all bareheaded, and with coarse black hair
flowing in the morning breeze, except for the loose knot in which it
was twisted behind. Some of them carried their guns slung on their
backs; and others of them had the weapons in their hands, ready for
firing on the instant.
"There they go, over the divide," said Oscar, as the little cavalcade
reached the last roll of the prairie, and began to disappear on the
other side. Not one of the party deigned even to look in the direction
of the wondering boys; and if they saw them, as they probably did,
they made no sign.
"There they go, hunting buffalo, I suppose," said Sandy, with a
sigh, as the last Indian of the file disappeared down the horizon.
"Dear me! don't I wish I was going out after buffalo, instead of
having to dibble corn into the sod all day! Waugh! Don't I hate
it!" And the boy turned disconsolately back to the cabin. But he
rallied with his natural good-humor when he had his tale to tell at
the breakfast-table. He eagerly told how they had seen the Indians
passing over the old trail, and had gazed on the redskins as they
went "on the warpath."
"Warpath, indeed!" laughed Charlie. "Pot-hunters, that's what they
are. All the warfare they are up to is waged on the poor innocent
buffalo that Younkins says they are killing off and making scarcer
every year."
"If nobody but Indians killed buffalo," said Mr. Bryant, "there would
be no danger of their ever being all killed off. But, in course of
time, I suppose this country will all be settled up, and then there
will be railroads, and after that the buffalo will have to go. Just
now, any white man that can't saddle his horse and go out and kill a
buffalo before breakfast thinks they are getting scarce. But I have
heard some of the soldiers say that away up north of here, a little
later in the season, the settlers cannot keep their crops, the buffalo
roam all over everything so."
"For my part," put in Charlie, "I am not in the least afraid that the
buffalo will be so plenty around these parts that they will hurt our
crops; and I'd just like to see a herd come within shooting distance."
And here he raised his arms, and took aim along an imaginary rifle.
Later in the forenoon, when the two younger boys had reached the end
of the two rows in which they had been planting, Sandy straightened
himself up with an effort, and said, "This is leg-weary work, isn't
it, Oscar? I hate work, anyhow," he added, discontentedly, leaning on
the top of his dibble, and looking off over the wide and green prairie
that stretched toward the setting sun. "I wish I was an Indian."
Oscar burst into a laugh, and said, "Wish you were an Indian!--so you
could go hunting when you like, and not have any work to do? Why,
Sandy, I didn't think that of you."
Sandy colored faintly, and said, "Well, I do hate work, honestly; and
it is only because I know that I ought, and that father expects me to
do my share, that I do it, and never grumble about it. Say, I never do
grumble, do I, Oscar?" he asked earnestly.
"Only once in a while, when you can't help it, Sandy. I don't like
work any better than you do; but it's no use talking about it, we've
got to do it."
"I always feel so in the spring," said Sandy, very gravely and with a
little sigh, as he went pegging away down another furrow.
Forty acres of land was all that the settlers intended to plant with
corn, for the first year. Forty acres does not seem a very large tract
of land to speak of, but when one sees the area marked out with a
black furrow, and realizes that every foot of it must be covered with
the corn-planter, it looks formidable. The boys thought it was a very
big piece of land when they regarded it in that way. But the days soon
flew by; and even while the young workers were stumping over the
field, they consoled themselves with visions of gigantic ripe
watermelons and mammoth pumpkins and squashes that would regale their
eyes before long. For, following the example of most Kansas farmers,
they had stuck into many of the furrows with the corn the seeds of
these easily grown vines.
"Keep the melons a good way from the pumpkins, and the squashes a good
way from both, if you don't want a bad mixture," said Uncle Aleck to
the boy settlers. Then he explained that if the pollen of the
squash-blossoms should happen to fall on the melon-blossoms, the fruit
would be neither good melon nor yet good squash, but a poor mixture of
both. This piece of practical farming was not lost on Charlie; and
when he undertook the planting of the garden spot which they found
near the cabin, he took pains to separate the cucumber-beds as far as
possible from the hills in which he planted his cantaloupe seeds. The
boys were learning while they worked, even if they did grumble
occasionally over their tasks.