Long remembered at the agency and among the lodges of the assembled
Sioux was the morning of the arrival of Lieutenant Davies with a squad
of half-frozen troopers at his back. The gale that swept the prairies on
Wednesday had died away. The mercury in the tubes at the trader's store
had sunk to the nethermost depths. The sundogs blazed in the eastern
sky, and even the rapids of the Running Water seemed turned to solid
blue. Borne on the wings of the blast, straight from the frozen pole,
the Ice King had swooped upon the sheltered valley. Cold as is the wide
frontier at such times, even among the gray heads, the old medicine-men,
the great-grandmothers of the tribes, huddling in the frowzy,
foul-smelling tepees, were legends of no such bitter, biting cold as
this. Cattle lying here and there stark and stiffened, hardy ponies,
long used to Dakota blizzards, even some among the Indian dogs had
succumbed to its severity, while over at the agent's, behind
double-listed doors and frost-covered sashes, around roaring coal fires
in red-hot stoves, the employés and their families herded together
almost as did the Indians, execrating the drop in the temperature one
minute even while thanking God for it the next. It was the main thing
that had interposed to save them from the vengeance of Red Dog's band.
All through the desperate battling of the previous summer, even in the
face of fiercest triumph the Indians had known in years, one little band
of Sioux had kept faith with the white brother and refused all effort to
draw its young men to the war-path. For months, from early spring-tide,
against three columns of regular troops, the hostiles in the Big Horn
and Powder River countries had more than held their own, and under the
spell of Sitting Bull and led by such war chiefs as Crazy Horse and Gall
and Rain-in-the-Face, the turbulent spirits of nearly every tribe had
swelled the fighting force until at times six thousand warriors were in
the field engaged in bloody work. The whole Sioux nation seemed in arms.
Ogallalla and Brulé, Minneconjou, Uncapapa, Teton and Santee, Sans Arc
and Black Foot, leagued with their only rivals in plainscraft and
horsemanship and strategy, the Cheyennes, thronged to that wild and
beautiful land once the home of the Crows. Three columns had striven to
hem them in,--three thousand wagon-hampered soldiers to surround six
thousand free lances of the plains, and the Indians laughed them to
scorn. When the columns pressed too close they swarmed upon the nearest,
stung it, sent it staggering back; then watched for the next, and swept
it out of existence. They flew at Crook on the 17th of June and fought
him luringly, begging him to follow farther into their traps in the
cañon, but the Gray Fox knew them and divined the numbers that lurked in
hiding behind the bold green curtain of bluffs, and so slipped out of
the toils. They turned on Custer eight days later and left no tongue to
tell the tale. Three columns, against such energetic measures, fell back
to recruit and refit, and not until late in the season, doubled in
strength, could they resume the offensive. Then, the summer's work
accomplished, the warriors scattered, spoil laden, and the troops chased
madly hither and yon until brought up standing at the boundaries of Her
Britannic Majesty on the one side or those of the Indian Bureau on the
other. Across the border-land Sitting Bull snapped his fingers at his
pursuers. Across the reservation lines did many a jeering chief hurl
taunt and challenge at the baffled soldiery. When winter came on there
were still a few strong bands of Sioux and Cheyennes dancing to the
war-drums in the fastnesses of the Big Horn, whence Miles and Mackenzie
and the Frost King soon routed them; but most of the warriors who had
spent their season in saddle in the field were once more at home under
the sheltering wing of the Department of the Interior, while their
chiefs and leaders, their hands still red with the blood of Custer's
men, their wigwams freshly upholstered with cavalry scalps, went
eastward on their customary junket to the capital of the nation, to be
fed and fêted and lionized, to come back laden with more spoil, more
arms, ammunition, clothing, blankets, tobacco, kickshaws and trumpery
dear to the savage heart, rejoicing, even though they marvelled, at the
fatuity of a people that annually rewarded instead of punishing their
murderous work. They, the heroes of the summer's campaign, rode in
triumph through the very homes of their victims, and weeping women and
children listened in amaze to the plaudits with which their townspeople
greeted the very savages who, not six months before, were hacking out
the last flutter of life, drinking the heart's blood, revelling in the
dying moan of beloved husband or father. Verily, we're a nation of odd
contradictions.
And, just as a sojourn in Washington seems to turn many a white
brother's head, so did this, though with better reason, send the savage
homeward with boastful heart. He and his were welcomed back to the fold,
lavishly provided for, all manner of requests and demands hitherto
denied now smilingly honored. They came back lords of the soil, monarchs
of all they surveyed, scornful of all who were not with them in the
warfare of the summer gone by, and of these was the household of Spotted
Tail. Long time chief of the Brulés, he had kept faith with the whites,
his kith and kin were loyal to their obligations, and in so far as
example and influence could go they had held their tribe, all but the
more turbulent young men, out of the fight. There was a band that for
years had never "drawn a bead" on white man,--settler or soldier,--a
band that had furnished scouts and runners and trailers and had done
yeoman's work upon the reservations. These were now, as was to be
expected, of no more consequence in council lodge or tribal dance.
Snubbed by the war chiefs, sneered at by the young men, slighted by the
maidens, it was bad enough that they should have lost caste among their
own people, it was worse, and what made it infinitely worse that it was
so utterly characteristic, that these faithful allies and servants
should now find themselves neglected by the very government which they
had so earnestly supported. Back from the war-path, day after day, came
dozens of grinning, hand-shaking warriors lately in rebellion, and to
them, their squaws and children, with lavish hand the agency dealt out
blankets and calicoes, bacon and beef, coffee, flour, and sugar. Such
redoubtables as Red Dog, Little Big Man, Prowling Wolf, and Kills Asleep
were swaggering about, as were their young men, in plethora of savage
adornment and "store clothes." Their squaws and children were warm and
fat and garbed in attractive motley. Even their dogs were in better
fettle than the social exiles of the Spotted Tail school, now in rags
and dependent for their daily bread on what the agent would give them.
Three times it happened on ration days that Red Dog and Kills Asleep,
swaggering about the corral, told their followers to pick out and drive
away such cattle as were passably fat and presumably tender, leaving to
the silent loyals only a miserable batch of beeves which Lieutenant
Boynton described as "dried on the hoof." The agent said he couldn't
help it, "Red Dog and the likes of him are now high in favor at
Washington. They and their fellows could have me removed in a minute if
I interfered, and they know it. There is no lie at my expense their
interpreters wouldn't tell the inspectors, and against so many witnesses
what could I do?"
"Do!" said Boynton, indignantly. "Do your duty, and I'll back you up.
I'll testify to the truth."
And then the agent smiled sadly, but scornfully, and said another
truism. "What good would that do? From Sheridan down, what army
officer's statement has any weight whatever with the Indian
Bureau,--when it isn't what it wants?"
"Well," said Boynton, "it's a damned shame, and I mean to make a formal
report to department headquarters at once."
And the agent said he wished he would, and Boynton did, but before that
document could reach Omaha there were other and more serious troubles.
Two Lance was the name given the chief of the little band that had stood
fast with Spotted Tail, and Two Lance had begged that he and his people
might be allowed to go back to where most of the Brulés lived, at the
old home on the White River. "This is no place for us," said he. "We are
poor, hungry, ragged, almost naked. We are jeered at. Even our maidens
are insulted by these our own people because we were taught to remain
true to the Great Father and take no part in the war. Now, behold, they
who killed his soldiers, murdered his settlers, and ravished his women
are fat and strong and rich. Their ponies are as the herds of buffalo in
our fathers' day, and we who served the great White Chief and protected
his children, we are a shame and a scorn. Let us go to him who never
broke a promise or told a lie and he will right us. Let us go back to
Sintogaliska--to Spotted Tail." But the agent said he had no authority.
It would be another moon before he could get it, and it might not come
then. If they pulled up stakes and went anyhow he would have to send the
white chief Boynton with his soldiers to fetch them back; and when Red
Dog and Kills Asleep heard of this they rode to the village of Two Lance
and jeered him anew and called him "White Heart" and "No Lance," and
some of Red Dog's young men said worse things to some of the Brulé girls
who stood shrouded in their ragged blankets, bidding them follow and be
the mothers of men and braves and warriors and not remain in the lodges
of faint hearted curs. There were Brulés there, young braves who longed
for battle then and there, and who leaped to their gaunt ponies and
shouted challenge and defiance, but Two Lance interposed. There must be
no fratricidal warring, said he. They would lay the matter before the
council fire of Sintogaliska,--he who had ruled the Brulés since first
the white tents of the soldiers gleamed along the Platte--Sintogaliska
who never lied. And this too was jeered and flouted. Sintogaliska,
indeed! Sintogaliska was a traitor, an old woman whom the white father
had bought with beads and candy. The warriors of the Sioux, the only men
fit to lead, were such as Red Dog and Kills Asleep. But still Two Lance
kept his temper and the public peace, and again he rode to the agent and
told his story, and Boynton fired up and said in common decency the
agent must do something to put a stop to Red Dog's insolence, and the
agent sent for Red Dog and bade him report himself at the agency
forthwith, and Red Dog replied that he would when he got ready, and if
the agent wanted him sooner, why, to come and get him, and Elk-at-Bay,
who brought his defiance, lunged in and laughed when he gave the
message, and helped himself to the cigars remaining in the agent's box
and swaggered out with them.
That evening in sudden brawl and in plain view of Mr. McPhail, the
agent, one of Red Dog's braves stabbed to the heart the lover of a
Brulé girl whom he had affronted.
"Arrest him!" ordered McPhail, who then turned and ran in-doors,--after
his pistol, as he said, possibly forgetting that it was already on his
hip. Boynton and his men were at the picket-line grooming horses, three
hundred yards away at the moment, and the young brave mounted his pony
and dared any one to take him, and rode singing defiantly down the
snow-covered valley. Only the previous day the mail rider had gone on
his weekly trip, and now a special messenger was needed to convey the
agent's despatch to the railway, for the flimsy single wire to the
reservation was down and useless. The Indian who attempted to carry the
letter was pulled off his pony by frolicsome friends of the murderer and
treated to a cold bath in the Niobrara. Not until Sunday night did he
get back, half frozen, and tell his story. Meantime there was more
defiance, so another attempt was made. Sergeant Lutz said he'd
take it this time, and he rode through to Braska on a single
horse,--seventy-three miles in thirty hours. The Interior Department
asked immediate assistance of the War Department to make arrests, and
the general commanding at Omaha was instructed by wire to place a
sufficient force with the agent to enable him to overpower two or three
turbulent Indians. This sent Davies and twenty troopers to reinforce
Boynton, and the very day they started ushered in the coldest wave of
the winter and further tragedy at Ogallalla.
Drunk and defiant, the exulting murderer with two or three reckless
friends had ridden up to the agency, renewed their boasts and jeers and
yells, while Boynton and his men, as instructed by the agent, were over
at the village of Two Lance, a long mile away, rounding up their pony
herd to prevent the warriors making an assault on Red Dog's more distant
township. A shot rang out from somewhere among the agency buildings, and
the days of the boaster were numbered. Back, bearing the body, scurried
the trio of friends, and in less than an hour, in fury and transport and
grief and rage, the women were tearing their hair and prodding
themselves with knives, while the warriors, singing the death-song, were
painting themselves for battle. In vain the agent despatched messengers
to say he and his men were innocent of blood and would bring the
murderer of the murderer, some prowling Brulé, to vengeance. Swift
return couriers bade him beware,--Red Dog and all his band were coming
to avenge the deed. Boynton was summoned in hot haste. He and his party
came sweeping in on the foremost wave of the wind, and between the two a
vengeful band of two hundred seasoned warriors, veterans of many a
foray, were held at bay from Wednesday night. It was too cold even for
fighting.
And Friday morning, after hardship and suffering there was no time to
tell, Lieutenant Davies with his party reached the threatened agency,
and was greeted with ringing cheers. That evening the grasp of the Ice
King was loosened by the soft touch of the south wind, and Red Dog rode
in state to the adjoining camp to claim the alliance of his brother
chiefs in his attempt to wrest from the agent the perpetrator of the
murder of his tribesman. That the dead Indian was himself a murderer
had no bearing on the matter, said Red Dog. He had simply knifed in
self-defence a beggarly Brulé who quarrelled with him over a girl. The
blood of Lone Wolf cried aloud for vengeance, and the agent should not
be permitted to harbor or conceal his slayer. "You've got no time to
lose," said Boynton, who had kept his scouts on the alert. "You should
arrest that old villain at once or he'll stir the whole reservation into
mutiny." The agent thought he could accomplish more by seeing him and
having a talk. "Indians are always ready for a talk," said he. "I'll
take Mr. Davies and a couple of men just for appearance's sake and ride
right over to the village. He's at Kills Asleep's now."
Boynton argued, but the agent was afraid to adopt the only course an
Indian respects,--prompt and forceful measures. "Talk" means to him
delay, compromise, confession of weakness. "Well, if you must palaver,"
said Boynton, finally, "take me along. I've had more to do with those
beggars than Davies, and," he added to himself, "I'll make it possible
to nab that fellow."
A most impressive scene was that which met the eyes of the little party
as they rode to the village across the frozen stream. The moon was
shining almost at full in a clear and cloudless sky. The neighboring
slopes, the distant ridge, the broad level of the valley, all blanketed
in glistening snow. Half a mile away down-stream in one dark cluster of
jagged-topped cones lay the village of Red Dog's people. Away up-stream
a long mile, black against the westward slope, the corral and
storehouses, the school and office and quarters of the agency, the
watch-lights twinkling like the stars above. Close at hand, loosely
huddled along the bank, the grimy, smoke-stained lodges of Kills
Asleep's sullen band, and in their midst, surrounded at respectful
distance by a squatted semicircle of old men and braves, all muffled in
their blankets, and by an outer rim of hags and crones and young squaws
and children and snarling dogs and shaggy ponies, there with trailing
war-bonnet and decked with paint and barbaric finery, his robe cast
aside,--there like an orator of old stood the Indian chief in the heat
of his impassioned appeal. All eyes were upon him, all ears drinking in
his words. Guttural grunts of approval rewarded each resounding period.
"You're too late," muttered Boynton. "He's been getting in his work to
good effect. You should have arrested him an hour ago."
The agent reined in his panting horse and looked and listened. "He won't
talk to me now, I suppose. It would be an affront to his dignity to
interrupt. Best let him finish what he's begun. What shall we do
meantime?"
"What you'd best do is to give me orders to nab the old sinner in my own
way and go back to the agency as quick as you can. Your life won't be
worth a pin in that crowd when he's done speaking. Go while there's yet
time and tell Mr. Davies to send me Sergeant Lutz and six men mounted.
Keep the rest under arms in the corral. I'll land Red Dog inside the
walls within an hour if you'll only say the word. Damn it, man! you've
_got_ to, or your influence is gone."
"He's got more influence now than I ever had, and the whole Indiana
delegation backed me for the place," wailed McPhail. "What in heaven I
thought to gain by coming out here and taking such a job is more than I
can guess now. Every one said there was money in it; no one thought of
the danger. If my wife and kids were only safe at home I wouldn't care
so much. It's that that I'm thinking of. Can't we do this somehow
without bringing on a row?"
"The row's here now and growing worse every minute. His own bucks are
ready for battle. He'll have every son of a squaw in this camp painting
himself chrome-yellow inside an hour, and he'll never rest till he's
harangued every village in the valley twixt this and morning. Our one
chance is to nab him midway when he rides from here to Little Big Man's
roost up-stream. Tell Lutz to meet me at the willows, and for God's sake
go!"
And still the agent hesitated. Barely six months had he served in his
new and unaccustomed sphere. Old-world nations, either monarchies that
take no thought for the morrow's vote of the masses, or republics that
have outlived their illusions, suit their servants to the work in hand.
Uncle Sam, having hosts of importunate sons demanding recognition
irrespective of merit, and being as yet barely a centenarian, is at the
mercy of his clamorous and inconsiderate millions. Each salaried office
in his gift calls with each new administration for a new incumbent,
whose demanded qualifications are not "what can he do to improve the
service?" but "what has he done to benefit the party?" In this way do we
manufacture consuls who know next to nothing of the manners, customs,
language, and business abroad, and agents who know even less of the
Indians at home.
But the problem in hand was settled for the sorely troubled official in
a most unlooked-for way. Sharp-eyed squaws spied the little squad of
horsemen at the outskirts of the village, the agent in his wolf-skin
overcoat, the troopers in the army blue, with the collars of their
overcoats up about their ears, and some one ran to Red Dog with the
news. With all "the majesty of buried Denmark" he paused in his speech,
faced the intruders, then came striding slowly towards them, warriors,
women, squaws, and children opening out and making a lane for his royal
progress.
"Whatever you do, no words with him here," whispered Boynton to the
agent, now trembling with excitement and nervous apprehension. "Stand to
your terms. He can talk with you only at your office,--the agency."
With the stately war-bonnet of eagle feathers trailing down his back and
dragging along the ground, the chief came stalking on, never hastening,
never slackening his stride, and after him flocked the warriors and
women of the tribe, the men eager and defiant, the women trembling in
fearsome dread.
"Shall we turn and ride away?" asked the agent, his blue lips twitching.
"No. Face him now,--cool as you can. Look him straight in the eye. Make
no answer,--I'll do that. Ride slowly away when I say '_now_' and not
before. Advance carbine there, men! Fetch 'em up slowly."
Ten feet away from them Red Dog halted and stood erect, drawn up to his
full height. Slowly he folded his arms, and sternly he bent his gaze
upon the four white men. Silently his followers ranged up in big circle,
almost enveloping the stolid troopers. For a moment nothing was heard
but the shuffling of moccasined feet, the quick breathing or murmured
words of the squaws, the feeble wail of some Indian baby left to its own
devices in the parental lodge. Sniffing the tainted air the horses
shrank a bit, rallying under the prompt touch of the spur and standing
with erect, quivering ear and starting eyeball, staring at the coming
throng and uttering low snorts of fear. And then at last in the Dakota
tongue Red Dog hailed his visitors just as down the valley the
monotonous throb of the Indian drum began.
"Why are these soldiers here?"
To the agent it was, of course, unintelligible: he had been among the
tribe too short a time. Boynton understood, and in low tone muttered,
"Pay no attention to him whatever. Look around as though you were in
search of somebody you knew and wanted to see." Then aloud he called,
authoritively, "Come, step out there, some one of you who can speak
soldier English. Where's Elk? He'll do if you want to ask questions."
And presently Elk-at-Bay, he who bore the chieftain's message and
confiscated the agent's cigars, edged his way to the front, but with far
less truculence of mien than when the agent stood unsupported by
soldiers.
"Red Dog asks why soldiers here," said he.
"Tell him we're here to enjoy the scenery, if you know how to do it, and
minding our own business," was Boynton's reply.
"Red Dog not speak to soldiers. He asks the man the Great Father sends
him."
"Well, you tell him the agent of the Great Father will talk with him
there, at his office, and nowhere else," said Boynton, "and that
to-night's his last chance to hear what the Great Father has to say to
him."
Unfolding his arms, the chief took a splendid stride forward. He
understood Boynton, as Boynton well knew, and now was preparing for an
outburst of oratory. The instant he opened his mouth to speak Boynton
turned to the agent and whispered, "Now," and coolly and indifferently
as he knew how, that official reined his broncho around and headed him
for the twinkling lights of the distant buildings. Red Dog began in
sonorous Dakota, with magnificent sweep of his bare, silver-banded arm,
and Boynton touched up his charger impatiently and rode a length closer,
his two troopers sitting like statues with the butts of their carbines
resting on the thigh, the muzzles well forward.
"Red Dog wastes time and wind talking here. If he wants to be heard let
him go there," said Boynton, pointing to the distant agency. "Unless,"
he added, with sarcastic emphasis,--"unless Red Dog's afraid." And then
he, too, reined deliberately about and signalled to his men to follow.
For a moment there was silence as Elk stumblingly put into Sioux the
lieutenant's ultimatum. Then came an outburst of wrath and invective.
Red Dog afraid, indeed! Loudly he called for his horse, and the crowd
gave way as a boy came running leading the chief's pet piebald. In an
instant, Indian fashion, he had thrust his heavily-beaded moccasin far
into the off-side stirrup and thrown his leggined left leg over the high
silver-tipped cantle, and the trained war pony began to bound and
curvet. Swinging over his head his beautiful new Winchester, Red Dog
rode furiously to and fro, haranguing the excited tribesmen, and
speedily more Indians were sitting hunched up in saddle, but darting
skilfully hither and yon, yelping shrill alarm. Others dashed away to
the distant village to rouse Red Dog's own people and summon the
warriors that remained. In fifteen minutes, at the head of three hundred
mounted braves, Red Dog was riding straight for the agency, his escort
gaining numbers with every rod. Red Dog afraid, indeed!
Over the moonlit sweep of snow the watchers at the corral saw the coming
throng, a moving mass, black and ominous as the storm-cloud. Within the
buildings all hands were hastily barricading doors and windows and
bustling a few women and children, trembling and terrified, into the
cellars. Out in the corral in disciplined silence the troopers were
promptly mustering and forming line. Six or eight of the party that
arrived with Davies that morning having badly frozen fingers and toes
were told off to act as horse-holders. "We've simply to fight on the
defensive," said Boynton to his silent second in command, "and we'll
fight afoot. Thirty men can defend the corral and out-houses and the
front of the agency. The rest we'll put in the building. That's all
we've got."
Away from the excited group at the office door a horseman turned and
spurred full speed for the hills far to the southwest. "Tell 'em we're
attacked by overpowering numbers," said McPhail, "and want instant
help,--all they can send us." There was no time to write despatches; the
shouts and taunts and shrill defiance of the coming troop already rang
in their ears.
"Now then, McPhail," said Boynton, lunging up through the snow-drifts,
carbine in hand, "I've got my men at every loop and knot-hole, and those
beggars can't take this shop to-night. What I want is authority to
arrest that head devil the moment he gets here."
"It will only infuriate them and make matters worse," pleaded the
representative of the Indian bureau.
"Well, it's the only way to put an end to the row," said the soldier.
"The only thing in God's world those fellows respect is force and pluck.
You've temporized too long. Arrest him and tell his fellows to disperse
to their tepees in two minutes or we open fire."
"How can you arrest him in front of all that array?" was the tremulous
question. "Do you suppose they'll permit it?"
"That's my business," was Boynton's answer. "I don't mean to let that
gang come within three hundred yards, and you're a worse fool than I
thought if you overrule me. I'm going to ride out there now to halt them
at the creek. Then you order Red Dog forward with his interpreter and
bring him in here a prisoner. You've not an instant to lose," he
finished as a trooper came up at the run, Boynton's big bay trotting at
his heels. The lieutenant was in saddle in a second. "Are you agreed?"
he asked.
"Why, they'll say we began it, lieutenant. They'll swear they were only
coming to talk. They've always been accustomed to come here whenever
they wanted to. We have only a handful of men; they've got a thousand
fighting braves within a day's call. My God! I can't risk my family!"
"You've done that already with your confounded temporizing. Look there,
man. It's too late now. There's where I would have held them, along the
creek bank. Now they're swarming across."
Singing, shouting, brandishing lance and rifle, their barbaric ornaments
gleaming in the frosty moonlight, some of the younger men darting to and
fro on their swift ponies, mad with excitement, on came the surging
crowd, led by the majestic figure of the big chief, jogging straight on
at the slow, characteristic amble of the Indian pony, his war-bonnet
trailing to the ground. From far and near, up and down the valley, dim,
ghostly, shadowy horsemen came darting to join the array. Close behind
Red Dog some rabid warrior began a wild war chant, and others took it
up. Somewhere along the throng a tom-tom began its rapid, monotonous
thump, and here, there, and everywhere the rattles played their weird,
stirring accompaniment.
"Well, by God, McPhail! you may let them ride over you and yours, but
they can't ride over me and mine without a fight," said Boynton, now
wild with wrath. "That whole force will be swarming through the premises
in five minutes. Quick, Davies!" he cried. "Forward as skirmishers!
Cover that front! Ten men will do." And without further command,
scorning prescribed order of formation, but with the quick intuition of
the American soldier,--the finest skirmisher in the world,--a little
party of troopers watching at the corral gate, sprang forth into the
moonlight and, opening out like a fan, carbines at trail or on the
shoulder, forward at full run they dashed, spreading as rapidly as they
possibly could to irregular intervals of something like ten yards from
man to man, and presently there interposed between the coming host and
the black group of buildings at their back this thin line of dismounted
men, halted in silence to await the orders of the tall, slender
subaltern officer, who, afoot like themselves, now stood some thirty
paces in rear of their centre, calmly confronting the advancing Indians.
Up to Davies's side rode Boynton, bent and whispered a word, then
spurred forward to the line, and there, reining in, raised to the full
length of his arm a gauntleted hand, palm to the front, and gave the
universal signal known by every Indian and frontiersman from Hudson's
Bay to the Gulf of California,--"Halt!"
"Red Dog comes to talk with the Great Father's agent, not with you,"
shouted Elk, lashing forward for a parley.
"All right. Come on, you and Red Dog, but order your gang to stay where
they are. The agent will talk with Red Dog, but no one else."
Without audible orders of any kind, the Indians had suddenly ceased
their clamor, and now, apparently, were quickly ranging up into long,
irregular line in rear of their chief. Presently, as Red Dog and Elk
conferred, there stretched across the snow-streaked prairie some three
hundred motley braves, mounted on their war ponies, the flanks of the
line receiving constant additions from the direction of the distant
lodges. Then Elk again came forward, Red Dog sitting in statuesque
dignity in front of his tribesmen.
"The white chief has his soldiers. The agent of the Great Father has his
men. Red Dog demands the right to bring an equal retinue," was doubtless
what the Indian wished to say and what in the homely metaphor of the
plains he made at once understood. "You got soldiers. Agent got heap.
Red Dog he say he bring heap same," was the way Elk put it, and Boynton
expected it.
"Tell Red Dog the soldiers will fall back and the agent come half-way
out afoot. Red Dog and you dismount and come forward half-way. If your
people advance a step we fire. That's all."
Another low-toned parley between the chief and his henchmen. Two minutes
of silent fidgeting along the line of mounted Indians. Like so many blue
statues the skirmishers stood or knelt, carbines advanced, every hammer
at full cock. Back in the shadows of the agency hearts were thumping
hard and all eyes were strained upon the scene at the east. The moon,
riding higher every moment, looked coldly down upon the valley. Elk came
forward again, and Red Dog's war-bonnet wagged first to right and then
to left. He was saying something in low tone to the braves at his back
and they were passing it along to the outer flanks of the line.
"Red Dog says soldiers go back and agent come out and talk," said he.
"All right so far, but does Red Dog agree to dismount? Does he agree to
hold his people where they are? Does he understand that if they advance
we fire? Here, Red Dog," said Boynton, riding forward half a dozen
yards, "you understand me well enough. If your crowd moves a pony length
forward we fire, and, mark you, any trick or treachery and down you go,
first man."
To this Red Dog deigned no other response than a scowl.
"Back up slowly, men, face to the front," said Boynton to his silent
line. "Hold 'em, Davies. I'll go back to McPhail."
But when the agent was told the terms of the parley he refused. "Why,
he'd knife or pistol me just as the Modocs did the Peace Commissioners,"
said he. "I won't step off the agency porch. We've got seven armed men
here. Let him bring seven, and you have your soldiers ready inside the
corral. Then if he wants to talk business he can see me here."
By this time, slowly retiring and gradually closing toward the centre,
Davies and his skirmishers had come back within twenty yards of the
building. Boynton swore a round oath. "There's no help for it, Parson,
we've got to do as this chump decides. There's one chance yet. Get your
men back to their loop-holes and join me here. No man to fire, remember,
except as ordered."
Quickly the troopers scurried back to their positions along the
stockade. Originally it had been intended to enclose all the buildings
within this defensive work, but the returning tourists were prompt to
express their disapprobation. Having just shaken hands with the Great
Father at Washington, they were suspicious of such an exhibition of
lack of confidence on the part of his agent. That the store-rooms should
have iron-barred windows was another ground for remark and remonstrance.
The red children refused to enter a stockade whose gates might be closed
behind them, or a room whose windows were barred. An inspector came out
and held a powwow and shook hands with everybody, and told the agent the
red children were lambs who would never harm him and he mustn't show
distrust. It hurt their sensitive natures. So the stockade only enclosed
the shed and stables, but it abutted, luckily, upon the agent's house
and office. Re-entering the house from the rear, after a few words of
instruction to Sergeant Lutz and his men, Davies pushed through
hurriedly to the front piazza. Red Dog in grand state, with an
interpreter at his left rear and seven stalwart braves aligned like a
general's staff six yards behind him, came riding with majestic dignity,
straight to the dark portico. Red Dog afraid, indeed! Turning his horse
over to an orderly and sending him within the stockade, Boynton ordered
the gate closed.
"We'll have a breeze here in a minute," he whispered to Davies. "That
sinner means mischief. You watch him and the agent. I'll keep my eye on
the main body."
Fifteen yards away, Red Dog halted and silently studied the shadowy
group on the agency porch. There stood the bureau's "ablegate," the
official interpreter by his side. In the door-way, dimly outlined, were
two of his assistants, men who had known the Sioux for years, but knew
not influential relatives in the East. Boynton ranged up close alongside
in hopes of prompting the official. "He's beginning to look knee-sprung
already," whispered he to Davies, "but I'll brace him if I can." Just
behind the agent stood one of his police, and this was before the days
of an Indian police that, properly handled, proved valuable as
auxiliaries. Then Red Dog in slow, sonorous speech began to declaim.
"Choke him off! Make him dismount and report at your office. He'll only
insult you where he is," whispered Boynton.
"Red Dog says, as the agent didn't dare come and get him, he concluded
to come in and see whether the agent would dare take him," began the
interpreter, in trembling tones, the moment the Indian paused.
"Too late, by God!" hissed Boynton between his set teeth. "He means to
blackguard the whole party right here and then ride off rejoicing."
And Red Dog reined closer and began anew. Throwing back his
quill-embroidered robe, he lifted a muscular arm to heaven, and with
clinching fist and flashing eyes seemed to hurl invective straight in
the agent's face.
"You dare demand the arrest of Red Dog, do you?" he thundered in his
native tongue, leaving hardly an instant for the interpreter. "Now hear
Red Dog's reply. The blood of one of our young men calls aloud for
vengeance. His slayer is here and you know him. Red Dog, backed by the
braves of every tribe at the reservation, comes to demand his surrender.
Give him up to us and your lives are safe. Refuse, and you, your wives
and children, are at the mercy of my young men. Red Dog dares and defies
the soldiers of the Great Father."
Consciously or unconsciously, in the magnificence of his wrath, the
chief had ridden almost to the very edge of the porch and there shook
his clinched fist in the ghastly face of McPhail. The agent started back
amazed, terrified, for as though to emphasize his defiance Red Dog's
gleaming revolver was whipped suddenly from its sheath and flashed aloft
over his feathered head.
And then there came sudden fury of excitement. A bound from the edge of
the porch, a fierce yell, an outburst of Indian war-cries, a surging
forward of the escort at the chieftain's back, a rush and scurry in the
offices, the slamming of doors, the flash and report of a dozen
revolvers, a distant roar and thunder of a thousand hoofs and chorus of
thrilling yells, a scream from the women and children in the cellars
below, a ringing cheer from the stockade, followed by the resonant bang,
bang of the cavalry carbine, and all in an instant a mad, whirling
maelstrom of struggle right at the steps, braves and ponies, soldiers
and scouts, all crashing together in a rage of battle, and then, bending
low to avoid the storm of well-aimed bullets from practised hands at the
stockade, some few warriors managed to dash, bleeding, away, just as a
determined little band of blue-coats, half a dozen in number, leaped
through the door-way and down the steps, blazing into the ruck as they
charged, and within another minute were coolly kneeling and firing at
the swarming, yelling, veering warriors, already checked in their wild
clash to the rescue, and within the little semicircle two furiously
straining forms, locked in each other's arms, were rolling over and over
on the trampled snow,--Red Dog, panting, raging, biting, cursing, but
firmly, desperately held in the clasp of an athletic soldier, for
without a word Percy Davies had leaped from the porch and borne the
Sioux chieftain struggling to the ground. Red Dog,--redder than ever
before, even on the bloody day of the Little Horn,--bound hand and feet
with cavalry lariats, spent that long winter's night a prisoner in the
hands of Boynton's men, while the prairie without was dotted with braves
and ponies, dropped by their cool, relentless aim. Red Dog at last had
had his day.