_THE SPEECH OF THE APACHE CHIEF._
THE first question the head engineer asked as we came up, although he
was surprised to see the Indians with us, was what had become of the
bear.
Rattler instantly replied: “We’ve shot him, and we’ll have bear-paws for
dinner, and bear-steak to-night for supper.”
Our three guests looked at me as if to see whether I would let this
pass, and I said: “I claim to have stabbed the bear. Here are three
witnesses who have corroborated my statement; but we’ll wait till
Hawkins, Stone, and Parker come, and they will give their opinion, by
which we will be guided. Till then the bear must lie untouched.”
“Not much will I leave it to the scouts,” growled Rattler. “I’ll go with
my men and cut up the bear, and whoever tries to hinder us will be
driven off with a dozen shots in his body.”
“Hold on, Mr. Rattler,” said I. “I’m not as much afraid of your shots as
you were of the bear. You won’t drive me up a tree with your threats. I
recommend you to bury your dead comrade; I would not leave him lying
thus.”
“Is some one dead?” asked Bancroft, startled.
“Yes, Rollins,” Rattler replied. “The poor fellow had jumped for a tree,
like the rest of us, and would have been all right, but this greenhorn
came up, excited the bear, and it tore Rollins horribly.”
I stood speechless with amazement that he should dare go so far. It was
impossible to endure such lying, and in my very presence. I turned on
Rattler and demanded: “Do you mean to say Rollins was escaping, and I
prevented it?”
“Yes,” he nodded, drawing his revolver.
“And I say the bear had seized him before I came.”
“That’s a lie,” said Rattler.
“Very well; here’s a truth for you,” and with these words I knocked his
revolver from his hand with my left, and with the right gave him such a
blow on the ear that he staggered six or eight feet away, and fell flat
on the ground.
He sprang up, drew his knife, and came at me raging like a wild beast. I
parried the knife-thrust with my left hand, and with my right laid him
senseless at my feet.
“Ugh! ugh!” grunted Intschu-Tschuna, surprised into admiration, which
his race rarely betray.
“That was Shatterhand again,” said Wheeler, the surveyor.
I kept my eye on Rattler’s comrades; they were angry, but no one dared
attack me, and though they muttered among themselves they did no more.
“You must send Rattler away, Mr. Bancroft,” I said. “I have done nothing
to him, yet he constantly seeks a quarrel with me. I am afraid he’ll
make serious trouble in the camp. Send him away, or, if you prefer, I’ll
go myself.”
“Oh, things aren’t as bad as that,” said Bancroft easily.
“Yes, they are, just as bad as that. Here are his knife and revolver;
don’t let him have them, for I warn you they’d not be in good hands.”
Just as I spoke these words our three scouts joined us, and having heard
the story of Rattler’s lying claim, and my counter-statement, they set
off at once to examine the bear’s carcass to settle the dispute. They
returned in a short time, and as soon as he was within hailing distance
Sam called out: “What idiocy it was to shoot a grizzly and then run! If
a man doesn’t intend making a fight, then what on earth does he shoot
for? Why doesn’t he leave the bear in peace? You can’t treat grizzlies
like poodle-dogs. Poor Rollins paid dear for it, though. Now, who killed
that bear, did you say?”
“I did,” cried Rattler, who had come to. “I killed him with my gun.”
“Well, that agrees; that’s all right. The bear was shot.”
“Do you hear that, men? Sam Hawkins has decided for me,” cried Rattler
triumphantly.
“Yes, for you,” said Sam. “You shot him, and took off the tip of his
ear, and such a loss naturally ended the grizzly, ha! ha! ha! If you
shot again it went wide of the mark, for there’s no other gun-shot on
him. But there are four true knife-thrusts, two above the heart and two
in it; who gave him those?”
“I did,” I said.
“You alone?”
“No one else.”
“Then the bear belongs to you. That is, the pelt is yours; the flesh
belongs to all, but you have the right to divide it. This is the custom
of the West. Have you anything to say, Mr. Rattler?”
Rattler growled something that condemned us to a much warmer climate,
and turned sullenly to the wagon where the liquor was stored. I saw him
pour down glass after glass, and knew he would drink till he could drink
no more.
The Indians had listened to our discussion, and watched us in silent
interest; but now, our affairs being settled, the chief,
Intschu-Tschuna, turned to the head engineer, saying: “My ear has told
me that among these pale-faces you are chief; is this so?”
“Yes,” Bancroft replied.
“Then I have something to say to you.”
“What is it?”
“You shall hear. But you are standing, and men should sit in
conference.”
“Will you be our guest?” asked Bancroft.
“No, for it is impossible. How can I be your guest when you are on my
lands, in my forests, my valleys, my prairies? Let the white men be
seated.”
“Tell me what you wish of me,” said Bancroft.
“It is not a wish, but a command,” answered Intschu-Tschuna proudly.
“We will take no command,” responded the head engineer with equal pride.
A look of anger passed over the chief’s face, but he controlled himself,
and said mildly: “My white brother will answer me one question
truthfully. Have you a house?”
“Yes.”
“With a garden?”
“Yes.”
“If a neighbor would cut a path through that garden would my brother
submit to it?”
“No.”
“The lands beyond the Rocky Mountains and east of the Mississippi belong
to the pale-faces. What would they say if the Indians came to build a
railroad there?”
“They would drive them away.”
“My white brother has answered truly. But the pale-faces come here on
these lands of ours, and drive away our mustangs and kill our buffaloes;
they seek among us for gold and precious stones, and now they will build
a long, long road on which their fire-horses can run. Then more
pale-faces will follow this road, and settle among us, and take the
little we have left us. What are we to say to this?”
Bancroft was silent.
“Have we fewer rights than they? You call yourselves Christians, and
speak of love, yet you say: We can rob and cheat you, but you must be
honest with us. Is that love? You say your God is the Good Father of all
men, red and white. Is He only our stepfather, and are you His own sons?
Did not all the land belong to the red man? It has been taken from us,
and what have we instead? Misery, misery, misery. You drive us ever
farther and farther back, and press us closer and closer together, and
in a little time we shall be suffocated. Why do you do this? Is it
because you have not room enough? No, for there is room in your lands
still for many, many millions. Each of your tribes can have a whole
State, but the red man, the true owner, may not have a place to lay his
head. Kleki-Petrah, who sits here before me, has taught me your Holy
Book. There it says that the first man had two sons, and one killed the
other, and his blood cried to Heaven. How is it with the two brothers,
the red and the white? Are you not Cain, and are we not Abel, whose
blood cries to Heaven? And when you try to destroy us you wish us to
make no defence. But we will defend ourselves, we will defend ourselves.
We have been driven from place to place, ever farther away; now we abide
here, where we believed ourselves at rest, but you come to build your
railroad. Have we not the same rights you have over your house and
garden? If we followed our own laws we should kill you; but we only wish
your laws to be fulfilled towards us: are they? No! Your laws have two
faces, and you turn them to us as it suits your advantage. Have you
asked our permission to build this road?”
“No,” said Bancroft. “It was not necessary.”
“Have you bought the land, or have we sold it?”
“Not to me.”
“Nor to any other. Were you an honest man sent here to build a way for
the fire-horse, you would first have asked the man who sent you whether
he had a right to do this thing, and made him prove it. But this you
have not done. I forbid you to measure further.” These last words were
spoken in a tone of most bitter earnest.
I had read much of the red man, but never had found in any book such a
speech from an Indian, and I wondered if he owed his fluent English and
forcible logic to Kleki-Petrah.
The head engineer found himself in an awkward predicament. If he was
honest and sincere he could not gainsay what Intschu-Tschuna had spoken;
but there were considerations more weighty with Bancroft than honesty,
so the chief had to wait his answer, looking him straight in the eyes.
Seeing that Bancroft was shifting about in his mind for a way out of his
difficulty, Intschu-Tschuna rose, saying decidedly: “There is no need of
further speech. I have spoken. My will is that you leave here to-day,
and go back whence you came. Decide whether you will obey or not. I will
now depart with my son Winnetou, and will return at the end of that time
which the pale-faces call an hour, when you will give me your answer. If
you go, we are brothers; if you stay, it shall be deadly enmity between
you and me. I am Intschu-Tschuna, the chief of all the Apaches. I have
spoken.”
Winnetou followed him as he went out from among us, and they were soon
lost to sight down the valley.
Kleki-Petrah remained seated, and Bancroft turned to him and asked his
advice. He replied: “Do as you will, sir. I am of the chief’s opinion.
The red race has been cruelly outraged and robbed. But as a white man I
know that the Indian must disappear. If you are an honest man and go
to-day, to-morrow another will come to carry on your work. I warn you,
however, that the chief is in earnest.”
He, too, rose, as if to put an end to further questioning. I went up to
him and said: “Sir, will you let me go with you? I promise to do or say
nothing that will annoy you. It is only because I feel extraordinary
interest in Intschu-Tschuna, and even more in Winnetou.”
That he himself was included in this interest I dared not say.
“Yes, come with me a little way,” he replied. “I have withdrawn from my
race, and must know them no more; but since you have crossed my path,
there can be no harm in our meeting, and some good may result from it.
We will walk a little together. You seem to me the most intelligent of
these men; am I right?”
“I am the youngest, and not clever, and I should be honored if you
allowed me to go with you,” I answered respectfully.
“Come, then,” said Kleki-Petrah kindly, and we walked slowly away from
the camp.
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