THE DESPISED
Squaw Charley crouched, dull-eyed, among the dogs. The dark folds of his
blanket were drawn tight over his tattered waist. Close around his feet,
which were shod in old and cracking moccasins, was tucked his fringed
skirt. An empty grain-sack covered his head and shielded his face from
the wind. As an icy gust now and then filtered in through the chinks of
the stockade wall and swept him, he swayed gently back and forth; while
the tailless curs snuggling against him whined in sympathy and fought
for a warmer place. For the kennel roof of shingles, put up in one
corner of the enclosure as a protection for the pack, had served only,
during the week that followed the storm, to prevent the pale beams of
the winter sun from reaching the pariah and his dumb companions.
Presently the flap of a near-by lodge was flung aside. An Indian woman
emerged and threw a handful of bones toward the shelter. At once Squaw
Charley awoke to action. Shedding sack and blanket, he scrambled forward
with the half-starved, yelping beasts to snatch his portion.
His bone picked clean of its little, the pariah resumed his crouching
seat once more; and the pack closed quietly about him, licking his face
and the hands that had cuffed them as, with much turning and shivering,
they settled down to sleep.
A warrior stalked proudly past, ignoring both his disgraced brother and
the sentries that paced the high board walk at the wall's top. Two
Indian lads approached, chattering to each other over the heart-shaped
horn tops they were swinging on buckskin strings, and tarried a moment
to scoff. Squaw Charley paid no heed to either brave or boys. His face
was hidden, his eyes shut. He seemed, like the dogs, to be sleeping.
Of a sudden there came a shrill summons from a distant wigwam, and the
pariah sprang up eagerly. Afraid-of-a-Fawn stood in the tepee opening,
her evil face with its deep scar thrust forward to look about.
"Skunk!" she shrieked, as he hurried toward her, and her long, black
teeth snapped together; "a fire!" Then she spat to cleanse her mouth.
Squaw Charley hastened back to the shingle roof for an armful of fuel.
Returning, he entered the wigwam and knelt beneath the smoke-hole. And
while he arranged the sticks carefully upon a twist of grass, the aged
crone hovered, hawk-like, over him, ready with fist or foot for any lack
of haste, or failure with the fire. Not until, with flint and steel, he
lighted a strip of spongy wood and thrust it under the dry hay, and a
flame leaped up and caught the soot on a hanging kettle, did she leave
him and go on a quest for breakfast rations.
The pariah had not dared to lift his eyes from his task while the hag
was watching. But now he stole a swift glance toward the back of the
lodge, where the maid, Brown Mink, was reclining, and his dull eyes,
like the fuel at his knees, leaped into sudden flame. But, with the
deftness of a woman, he kept on putting bits of wood into the mounting
blaze.
Brown Mink did not look his way. She lay on a slanting frame of saplings
held together by a network of thongs. The gay blanket on which she had
ridden during the march was folded under her. A buffalo-robe was spread
over her bead-wrought leggins and shoes, its hairy side under, its
tanned face, which was gaudily painted, uppermost. Festoonings of beads
fell from her neck to the top of her richly embroidered skirt, and heavy
ear-drops of gilt pushed through the purple-black masses of her hair.
Squaw Charley fed his sight gladly with her loveliness, thankful that
she, who once had looked upon him kindly, did not now turn to see his
squalor. The blaze was thawing his chilled limbs and fast warming him,
the brass pot was singing merrily. He kept his hands gratefully near it,
and as, from time to time, the girl held up her arms admiringly to let
the firelight shine upon her bracelets and pinchbeck rings, he watched
her furtively from half-closed eyes.
But not for long. Afraid-of-a-Fawn soon returned with meat and meal and,
cursing, ordered him away.
"Off, Ojibway coward," she cried; "to the dogs. But see that there is
wood for to-night's cooking and tomorrow's."
The pariah gave the fire under the kettle a last touch, and slunk out
hastily into the snow. The hag pursued him, moving backward and pulling
after her the partly dressed hide of a black-tailed deer.
"Make it ready for the cutting-board," she bade, and threw the piece of
hard stone for the fleshing so that it split the pariah's cheek.
Squaw Charley took up the hide and dug in the snow for the stone.
A young warrior was lingering at the lodge flap, blowing spirals of
kinnikinick. He burst into a laugh. "Ho! ho!" he taunted. "The squaw of
a squaw drudges to-day. Ho! ho!"
The crone joined in the laugh. Then, "Standing Buffalo may enter," she
said, and respectfully led the way into the wigwam.
The pariah heard, yet did not pause. But when, among the dogs again, he
cleaned at the deer hide with short, swift strokes, a light once more
flamed up in his dull eyes--a light unlike the one that had burned in
them at Brown Mink's fireside.
* * * * *
He was still working diligently, the sack over his head as before, when,
about the middle hour of the day, Lieutenant Fraser entered the
sliding-panel of the stockade and began to go rapidly from lodge to
lodge, as if in search of someone. Seeing the intruder, the dogs about
Squaw Charley bounded up, hair bristling and teeth bared.
The outcast laid aside his rubbing-stone and strove to quiet them. But
the sudden commotion under the roof had already attracted the young
officer. Stooping, he caught a glimpse of The Squaw.
"Oh, there you are!" he exclaimed, and motioned for him to come forth.
When the Indian appeared, the deer-skin in his arms, Lieutenant Fraser
pointed toward the entrance. "You come with me," he said, with a
gesture in the sign language.
Squaw Charley moved slowly along with him. No one was in sight in the
enclosure--no one seemed even to be looking on. But, opposite Brown
Mink's lodge, the old woman dashed out, seized the hide with a scream of
rage and dashed back again. The next moment, Charley passed through the
sliding-panel and took up his march to headquarters.
"So this is your last wild pet, eh, Robert?" said Colonel Cummings, as
they entered. He backed up to his stove and surveyed Squaw Charley
good-naturedly. "Let me see, now: You've run the scale from a devil's
darning-needle to a baby wolf. Next thing, I suppose, you'll be
introducing us to a youngish rattlesnake."
Lieutenant Fraser rumpled his hair sheepishly. "But you ought to see the
way they're treating him--banging him around as if he were a dog."
"Hm. He certainly doesn't look strong."
"They work him to death, Colonel."
The commanding officer laughed. "A redskin, working, must be a sight for
sore eyes!"
"But they don't feed him, sir."
The outcast, wrapped close in his blanket, lifted his pinched face to
them.
"How'd it happen I didn't notice this fellow during the march?" inquired
the colonel, a trifle suspiciously.
"He was with the squaws when there was anything to do; but when we were
on the move, he fell to the rear."
"Didn't try to get away?"
"No; just straggled along."
"Ah. Do you know whether or not he took part in the fight the day we
captured them?"
At the question, a swift change came over Squaw Charley. He retreated a
little, and bent his head until his chin rested upon his breast.
Lieutenant Fraser threw out his arm in mute reply. No feathers, no
paint, no gaudy shirt or bonnet marked the Indian as a warrior.
The elder man approached the silent, shrinking figure not unkindly. "And
what do you want me to do for him, Robert?" he asked.
Lieutenant Fraser sprang forward eagerly, his face shining. "He's so
quiet and willing, sir--so ready to do anything he's told. I'd be
grateful if you thought you could trust him outside the stockade. He
could get the odds and ends from the bachelor's mess."
"I'll be hanged! Robert," cried his superior, annoyed. "Most men, just
out of West Point, have an eye to killing redskins, not coddling 'em."
The other crimsoned. "I'm sorry you look at it that way, Colonel," he
said. "I'm ready to punish or kill in the case of bad ones. But--you'll
pardon my saying it--I don't see that it's the duty of an officer to
harm a good one."
Squaw Charley raised his head, and shifted timidly from foot to foot.
"Well, Robert," replied Colonel Cummings, quietly, "you still have the
Eastern view of the Indian question. However, let me ask you this: Has
this man a story, and what is it? For all you know, he may deserve being
'banged around.'"
Lieutenant Fraser was shaking his head in answer, when swift came one
from the pariah. He searched in his bosom, under the tattered waist,
drew out the rag-wound paper and handed it to the commanding officer.
Very carefully the latter read it, his interest growing with every line.
Finally, giving it over to the lieutenant, he smiled at Squaw Charley.
"That tells the tale," he said. "I knew the man that wrote that when I
was with Sibley in Minnesota, the summer after the massacre. He's a man
that writes the truth. He talks the truth, too, and I wish I had him
here, now, so that he could interpret for me."
"Why, sir!" exclaimed the younger man, "it says this chap knows
English!"
"By all the gods! Of _course_ it does. Robert, I'll make him my
interpreter." The colonel strode up and down in his excitement, pausing
only to contend with the other for the paper. "Red Moon," he said at
last, motioning the pariah forward, "do you know what I am saying to
you?"
Squaw Charley nodded.
"Good! good! This is fortunate. Now we can have a talk with these
Sioux." He addressed the Indian again. "And you speak English?" he
asked.
There was a second grave nod.
"You shall be my interpreter, Red Moon. You shall have a log house near
the scouts, and the Great Father at Washington will pay you. You shall
have double rations for yourself and your squaw, and more, if you have
papooses. What do you say to that?"
Squaw Charley had not taken his eyes from the other's face for an
instant while he was talking. Now, for answer, he shook his head slowly
and sadly from side to side.
"Don't want to?" cried the colonel.
"I'll tell you, sir," interposed Lieutenant Fraser, studying the paper,
"I don't believe he ever speaks. You'll notice that it says here: '_but
he has never_.' I can't be sure, but I think the next word is
'_spoken_.'"
"Vow of silence?"
"Something of the kind. Captain Oliver has been telling me about these
bucks that are degraded; and I don't believe that, even if this fellow
spoke, the rest of the tribe would treat with us through him."
"That's probably true."
"They've made a squaw of him, sir."
Deep humiliation instantly showed in the pariah's eyes and posture. He
looked at Lieutenant Fraser imploringly, and drew his blanket still more
closely about him. Then, as, with a sign, he was bidden to put it off,
he suddenly let it drop to the floor.
"Great Scott!" cried the colonel. "He's _dressed_ like one!"
"His punishment, sir. And he won't be taken back as a warrior till he
does some big deed."
"What does that paper say again? _'Out of the weakness of the flesh he
wept under the tortures of the sun-dance.'_ So _that's_ the cause of his
trouble! What did they do to you, Red Moon?"
To reply, Squaw Charley quickly divested himself of the calico waist and
turned about. And Colonel Cummings, uttering his horror, traced with
tender finger the ragged, ghastly seams that lined the pariah's back.
"Muscles torn loose," he said. "Not old wounds, either." As Squaw
Charley resumed waist and blanket, he looked on pityingly.
"I'll give him his freedom," he said, when the outcast stood ready to
depart. "He can come and go in the post as he likes. Robert, see that
the adjutant understands my order. Now, let him get something to eat in
the kitchen."
When Squaw Charley's hunger had disappeared before the enforced, and
rather nervous, generosity of Colonel Cummings' black cook, and
Lieutenant Fraser had left him, he hurried away from headquarters.
Making his way to the sentry line north of Brannon, he gathered firewood
along the Missouri until dark.
* * * * *
The lantern had been out for an hour in the cottonwood shack. Father and
daughters were asleep. But, at the end of that time, Dallas was suddenly
awakened by the sound of loud stamping and rending in the lean-to. Ben
and Betty, roused by the fear of something, were plunging and pulling
back on their halter-ropes. Startled, her heart beating wildly, the
elder girl crept softly to the warped door.
Her father and sister still slept, undisturbed by the noise in the
stable, which now quieted as abruptly as it had begun. Dallas heard the
team begin to feed again. And from outside the shack there came only a
faint rustle. Was it the uncovered meadow-grass of the eaves as the wind
brushed gently through it? Or the whisper of moccasins on snow?
* * * * *
Later, when The Squaw entered the sliding panel of the stockade, he
crept noiselessly toward the shingle roof. But he was not to gain it
unseen. Afraid-of-a-Fawn, who had been looking about for him, hailed him
savagely as he neared.
"Wood for the morning fire," she demanded.
By the light streaming out of a near-by lodge she saw that Squaw Charley
was looking at her defiantly. She set upon him, cursing and kicking, and
drove him before her to the shelter.
"The pig!" she cried. "Running free since the sun was at the centre of
the sky, and yet not a stick! May a thousand devils take the coward! He
quakes like an aspen!"
Squaw Charley was indeed trembling, but only with the cold, and soon,
under the shingle roof, the snuggling dogs would warm him. Blows and
abuse counted nothing this night. He was fed; freedom was his; and he
had paid a debt of gratitude.