GORDON ORME, MAGICIAN
We lay in our hot camp on the sandy valley for some days, and buried two
more of our men who finally succumbed to their wounds. Gloom sat on us
all, for fever now raged among our wounded. Pests of flies by day and
mosquitoes by night became almost unbearable. The sun blistered us, the
night froze us. Still not a sign of any white-topped wagon from the
east, nor any dust-cloud of troopers from the west served to break the
monotony of the shimmering waste that lay about us on every hand. We
were growing gaunt now and haggard; but still we lay, waiting for our
men to grow strong enough to travel, or to lose all strength and so be
laid away.
We had no touch with the civilization of the outer world. At that time
the first threads of the white man's occupancy were just beginning to
cross the midway deserts. Near by our camp ran the recently erected line
of telegraph, its shining cedar poles, stripped of their bark, offering
wonder for savage and civilized man alike, for hundreds of miles across
an uninhabited country. We could see the poles rubbed smooth at their
base by the shoulders of the buffalo. Here and there a little tuft of
hair clung to some untrimmed knot. High up in some of the naked poles we
could see still sticking, the iron shod arrows of contemptuous
tribesmen, who had thus sought to assail the "great medicine" of the
white man. We heard the wires above us humming mysteriously in the wind,
but if they bore messages east or west, we might not read them, nor
might we send any message of our own.
At times old Auberry growled at this new feature of the landscape. "That
was not here when I first came West," he said, "and I don't like its
looks. The old ways were good enough. Now they are even talkin' of
runnin' a railroad up the valley--as though horses couldn't carry in
everything the West needs or bring out everything the East may want. No,
the old ways were good enough for me."
Orme smiled at the old man.
"None the less," said he, "you will see the day before long, when not
one railroad, but many, will cross these plains. As for the telegraph,
if only we had a way of tapping these wires, we might find it extremely
useful to us all right now."
"The old ways were good enough," insisted Auberry. "As fur telegraphin',
it ain't new on these plains. The Injuns could always telegraph, and
they didn't need no poles nor wires. The Sioux may be at both ends of
this bend, for all we know. They may have cleaned up all the wagons
coming west. They have planned for a general wipin' out of the whites,
and you can be plumb certain that what has happened here is knowed all
acrost this country to-day, clean to the big bend of the Missouri, and
on the Yellowstone, and west to the Rockies."
"How could that be?" asked Orme, suddenly, with interest. "You talk as
if there were something in this country like the old 'secret mail' of
East India, where I once lived."
"I don't know what you mean by that," said Auberry, "but I do know that
the Injuns in this country have ways of talkin' at long range. Why,
onct a bunch of us had five men killed up on the Powder River by the
Crows. That was ten o'clock in the morning. By two in the afternoon
everyone in the Crow village, two hundred miles away, knowed all about
the fight--how many whites was killed, how many Injuns--the whole
shootin'-match. How they done it, I don't know, but they shore done it.
Any Western man knows that much about Injun ways."
"That is rather extraordinary," commented Orme.
"Nothin' extraordinary about it," said Auberry, "it's just common. Maybe
they done it by lookin'-glasses and smokes--fact is, I know that's one
way they use a heap. But they've got other ways of talkin'. Looks like a
Injun could set right down on a hill, and think good and hard, and some
other Injun a hundred miles away'd know what he was thinkin' about. You
talk about a prairie fire runnin' fast--it ain't nothin' to the way news
travels amongst the tribes."
Belknap expressed his contempt for all this sort of thing, but the old
man assured him he would know more of this sort of thing when he had
been longer in the West. "I know they do telegraph," reiterated the
plainsman.
"I can well believe that," remarked Orme, quietly.
"Whether you do or not," said Auberry, "Injuns is strange critters. A
few of us has married among Injuns and lived among them, and we have
seen things you wouldn't believe if I told you."
"Tell some of them," said Orme. "I, for one, might believe them."
"Well, now," said the plainsman, "I will tell you some things I have
seen their medicine men do, and ye can believe me or not, the way ye
feel about it."
"I have seen 'em hold a pow-wow for two or three days at a time, some of
'em settin' 'round, dreamin', as they call it all of 'em starvin', whole
camp howlin', everybody eatin' medicine herbs. Then after while, they
all come and set down just like it was right out here in the open.
Somebody pulls a naked Injun boy right out in the middle of them. Old
Mr. Medicine Man, he stands up in the plain daylight, and he draws his
bow and shoots a arrer plum through that boy. Boy squirms a heap and Mr.
Medicine Man socks another arrer through him, cool as you please--I have
seen that done. Then the medicine man steps up, cuts off the boy's head
with his knife--holds it up plain, so everybody can see it. That looked
pretty hard to me first time I ever seen it. But now the old medicine
man takes a blanket and throws it over this dead boy. He lifts up a
corner of the blanket, chucks the boy's head under it, and pulls down
the edges of the blanket and puts rocks on them. Then he begins to sing,
and the whole bunch gets up and dances 'round the blanket. After while,
say a few minutes, medicine man pulls off the blanket--and thar gets up
the boy, good as new, his head growed on good and tight as ever, and not
a sign of an arrer on him 'cept the scars where the wounds has plumb
healed up!"
Belknap laughed long and hard at this old trapper's yarn, and weak as I
was myself, I was disposed to join him. Orme was the only one who did
not ridicule the story. Auberry himself was disgusted at the merriment.
"I knowed you wouldn't believe it," he said. "There is no use tellin' a
passel of tenderfeet anything they hain't seed for theirselves. But I
could tell you a heap more things. Why, I have seen their buffalo
callers call a thousand buffalo right in from the plains, and over the
edge of a cut bank, where they'd pitch down and bust theirselves to
pieces. I can show you bones Of a hundred such places. Buffalo don't do
that when they are alone--thay have got to be _called_, I tell you.
"Injuns can talk with other animals--they can call them others, too. I
have seed an old medicine man, right out on the plain ground in the
middle of the village, go to dancin', and I have seed him call three
full-sized beavers right up out'n the ground--seed them with my own
_eyes_, I tell you! Yes, and I have seed them three old beavers standin'
right there, turn into full-growed old men, gray haired. I have seed 'em
sit down at a fire and smoke, too, and finally get up when they got
through, and clean out--just disappear back into the ground. Now, how
you all explain them there things, I don't pretend to say; but there
can't no man call me a liar, fur I seed 'em and seed 'em unmistakable."
Belknap and the others only smiled, but Orme turned soberly toward
Auberry. "I don't call you a liar, my man," said he. "On the contrary,
what you say is very interesting. I quite believe it, although I never
knew before that your natives in this country were possessed of these
powers."
"It ain't all of 'em can do it," said Auberry, "only a few men of a few
tribes can do them things; but them that can shore can, and that's all I
know about it."
"Quite so," said Orme. "Now, as it chances, I have traveled a bit in my
time in the old countries of the East. I have seen some wonderful things
done there."
"I have read about the East Indian jugglers," said Belknap, interested.
"Tell me, have you seen those feats? are they feats, or simply lies?"
"They are actual occurrences," said Orme. "I have seen them with my own
eyes, just as Auberry has seen the things he describes; and it is no
more right to accuse the one than the other of us of untruthfulness.
"For instance, I have seen an Indian juggler take a plain bowl, such as
they use for rice, and hold it out in his hand in the open sunlight; and
then I have seen a little bamboo tree start in it and grow two feet
high, right in the middle of the bowl, within the space of a minute or
so.
"You talk about the old story of 'Jack and the Bean Stalk'; I have seen
an old fakir take a bamboo stick, no thicker than his finger, and thrust
it down in the ground and start and climb up it, as if it were a tree,
and keep on climbing till he was out of sight; and then there would come
falling down out of the sky, legs and arms, his head, pieces of his
body. When these struck the ground, they would reassemble and make the
man all over again--just like Auberry's dead boy, you know.
"These tricks are so common in Asia that they do not excite any wonder.
As to tribal telegraph, they have got it there. Time and again, when our
forces were marching against the hill tribes of northwestern India, we
found they knew all of our plans a hundred miles ahead of us--how, none
of us could tell--only the fact was there, plain and unmistakable."
"They never do tell," broke in Auberry. "You couldn't get a red to
explain any of this to you--not even a squaw you have lived with for
years. They certainly do stand pat for keeps."
"Yet once in a while," smiled Orme, in his easy way, "a white man does
pick up some of these tricks. I believe I could do a few of them myself,
if I liked--in fact, I have sometimes learned some of the simpler ones
for my own amusement."
General exclamations of surprise and doubt greeted him from our little
circle, and this seemed to nettle him somewhat. "By Jove!" he went on,
"if you doubt it, I don't mind trying a hand at it right now. Perhaps I
have forgotten something of my old skill, but we'll see. Come, hen."
All arose now and gathered about him on the ground there in the full
sunlight. He evinced no uneasiness or surprise, and he employed no
mechanism or deception which we could detect.
"My good man," said he to Auberry, "let me take your knife." Auberry
loosed the long hunting-knife at his belt and handed it to him. Taking
it, Orme seated himself cross-legged on a white blanket, which he spread
out on the sandy soil.
All at once Orme looked up with an expression of surprise on his face.
"This was not the knife I wanted," he said. "I asked for a plain
American hunting-knife, not this one. See, you have given me a Malay
kris! I have not the slightest idea where you got it."
We all looked intently at him. There, held up in his hand, was full
proof of what he had said--a long blade of wavy steel, with a little
crooked, carved handle. From what I had read, I saw this to be a kris, a
wavy bladed knife of the Malays. It did not shine or gleam in the sun,
but threw back a dull reflection from its gray steel, as though lead and
silver mingled in its make. The blade was about thirty inches long,
whereas that of Auberry's knife could not have exceeded eight inches at
the most.
"We did not know you had that thing around you!" exclaimed Belknap.
"That is only sleight of hand."
"Is it, indeed?" said Orme, smiling. "I tell you, I did not have it with
me. After all, you see it is the same knife."
We all gaped curiously, and there, as I am a living man, we saw that
wavy kris, extended in his hand, turn back into the form of the
plainsman's hunting-knife! A gasp of wonder and half terror came from
the circle. Some of the men drew back. I heard an Irish private swear
and saw him cross himself. I do not explain these things, I only say I
saw them.
"I was mistaken," said Orme, politely, "in offering so simple a test as
this; but now, if you still think I had the kris in my clothing--how
that could be, I don't know, I'm sure--and if you still wish to call my
little performance sleight of hand, then I'll do something to prove what
I have said, and make it quite plain that all my friend here has said is
true and more than true. Watch now, and you will see blood drip from the
point of this blade--every drop of blood it ever drew, of man or animal.
Look, now--watch it closely."
We looked, and again, as I am a living man, and an honest one, I hope, I
saw, as the others did, running from the point of the steel blade, a
little trickling stream of red blood! It dropped in a stream, I say, and
fell on the white blanket upon which Orme was sitting. It stained the
blanket entirely red. At this sight the entire group broke apart, only a
few remaining to witness the rest of the scene.
I do not attempt to explain this illusion, or whatever it was. I do not
know how long it lasted; but presently, as I may testify, I saw Orme
rise and kick at the wetted, bloodstained blanket. He lifted it, heavy
with dripping blood. I saw the blood fall from its corners upon the
ground.
"Ah," he remarked, calmly, "it's getting dry now. Here is your knife, my
good fellow."
I looked about me, almost disposed to rub my eyes, as were, perhaps, the
others of our party. The same great plains were there, the same wide
shimmering stream, rippling in the sunlight, the same groups of animals
grazing on the bluff, the same sentinels outlined against the sky. Over
all shone the blinding light of the Western mid-day sun. Yet, as Orme
straightened out this blanket, it was white as it had been before!
Auberry looked at his knife blade as though he would have preferred to
throw it away, but he sheathed it and it fitted the sheath as before.
Orme smiled at us all pleasantly. "Do you believe in the Indian
telegraph now?" he inquired.
I have told you many things of this strange man, Gordon Orme, and I
shall need to tell yet others. Sometimes my friends smile at me even yet
over these things. But since that day, I have not doubted the tales old
Auberry told me of our own Indians. Since then, too, I have better
understood Gordon Orme and his strange personality, the like of which I
never knew in any land.