The Watchers of the Plains: A Tale of the Western Prairies

Nevil nodded, and chose his reply carefully.

“So,” he said, “it is a life of ease. You choose your life. And naturally you choose a life where you have all you want, and do not have to trouble. After all, what is the old life? A life of much danger, and little ease. You fight, you kill, or you are killed. You risk much and gain little. But you are men, brave men, great warriors, I grant you. And the squaws like brave men – even white squaws. But I say it is wise, though not brave, to live in the tepee. It is so easy. Your braves have their squaws always with them. They grow fat till their sides shake. They no longer care to hunt. Why should they? Many papooses come, and they grow up like their fathers. There are no Sun-Dances to make braves, because none want to be braves. There are no Ghost-Dances, because the white men keep the Evil Spirits away, and there is no need. So. The Indian lies upon his blankets, and he lives with the squaw always. They all become squaw-men. Never was there such peace for the Indian.”

Nevil had drawn his peaceful picture with care; also the tail of his eye told him that his companion was listening. And his movements, every now and then, had in them something of the spasmodic movements of a chained wild beast. This lithe youth had certain resemblance to the puma. He seemed to burn with a restless craving spirit. The puma never ceases to seek his prey. This man would be the same were he once to begin.

“Yes. You say well,” he observed moodily, “we are all squaw-men. The white squaws love braves, you say. I know all squaws love braves. The squaws of our people will soon spit in our faces.”

“You have no squaw to do that,” observed Nevil, bending over and pushing the fire together.

“No.”

“You are chief. You should have many.”

“Yes.”

“Then give the word to your people and you can have them.”

“I do not want them – yet.”

Nevil looked round. The chief turned to the fire uncertainly. His fierce eyes were half veiled.

“This Rosebud, she was for me,” he went on. “She is fair as the summer sky. Her eyes are like the stars, and her laugh is like the ripple of the waters when the sun and the wind make play with them. She is so fair that no squaw can compare with her. Even Wanaha is as night to day.”

“You cannot have her. She is for the man who killed your father.”

The young chief leapt to his feet with a cry that told of a spirit which could no longer be restrained. And he towered threateningly over the undisturbed wood-cutter.

“But I will!” he cried vehemently, while his eyes flashed in the dying light of the fire. “You are my white brother, and to you I can say what is in my thoughts. This squaw, I love her. I burn for her! She is with me night and day. I will have her, I tell you! There shall be no peace till my father is avenged. Ha, ha!” And the ferocity of that laugh brought a smile to the hidden lips of the listening man.

He looked up now, and his words came thoughtfully.

“You are a great chief, Little Black Fox,” he said. “But, see, there is no need to go on the war-path. Sit, like those wise councilors of yours. It is good to pow-wow.”

The headstrong youth sat down again, and the pow-wow went forward. It was daylight again when Nevil returned to Wanaha. For Indian pow-wows are slow moving, ponderous things, and Little Black Fox was no better than the rest of his race when deliberations of grave import were on.

CHAPTER VIII

SETH WASHES A HANDKERCHIEF

Seth was not in the habit of making very frequent visits to Beacon Crossing. For one thing there was always plenty to do at the farm. For another the attractions of the fledgling city were peculiarly suited to idle folk, or folk who had money to spend. And this man was neither the one nor the other.

White River Farm was a prosperous farm, but it was still in that condition when its possibilities were not fully developed, and, like the thrifty, foresighted farmers Rube and his adopted son were, they were content to invest every available cent of profit in improvements. Consequently, when the latter did find his way to Roiheim’s hotel it was always with a definite purpose; a purpose as necessary as any of his duties in his day’s labor.

Riding into the township one evening he made straight for the hotel, and, refusing the stablehand’s offer of care for his horse, sat down quietly on the verandah and lit his pipe. Beyond the loungers in the saloon and old Louis Roiheim no one worth any remark approached him. He sat watching the passers-by, but went on smoking idly. There were some children playing a sort of “King-of-the-Castle” game on a heap of ballast lying beside the track, and these seemed to interest him most. The sheriff stopped and spoke to him, but beyond a monosyllabic reply and a nod Seth gave him no encouragement to stop. An Indian on a big, raw-boned broncho came leisurely down the road and passed the hotel, leaving the township by the southern trail.

Seth waited until the sun had set. Then he stepped off the verandah and tightened the cinches of his saddle, and readjusted the neatly rolled blanket tied at the cantle. The proprietor of the hotel was lounging against one of the posts which supported the verandah.

“Goin’?” he asked indifferently. Seth was not a profitable customer.

“Yes.”

“Home?”

“No. So long.”

Seth swung into the saddle and rode off. And he, too, passed out of the town over the southern trail.

Later he overhauled the Indian. It was Jim Crow, the chief of the Indian police.

“Where do we sleep to-night?” he asked, after greeting the man.

Jim Crow, like all his race who worked for the government, never spoke his own language except when necessary. But he still retained his inclination to signs. Now he made a movement suggestive of three rises of land, and finished up with the word “Tepee.”

“I must get back the day after to-morrow,” Seth said. “Guess I’ll hit back through the Reservations. I want to see Parker.”

“Good,” said the Indian, and relapsed into that companionable silence which all prairie men, whether Indian or white, so well understand.

That night the two men sheltered in the tepee belonging to Jim Crow. It was well off the Reservation, and was never pitched in the same place two nights running. Jim Crow’s squaw looked after that. She moved about, acting under her man’s orders, while the scout went about his business.

After supper a long talk proceeded. Seth became expansive, but it was the Indian who gave information.

“Yes,” he said, in answer to a question the white man had put. “I find it after much time. Sa-sa-mai, my squaw. She find it from old brave. See you. Big Wolf and all the braves who come out this way, you make much shoot. So. They all kill. ’Cep’ this one ol’ brave. He live quiet an’ say nothing. Why? I not say. Some one tell him say nothing. See? This Big Wolf. Before you kill him maybe. So he not say. Bimeby Sa-sa-mai, she much ’cute. She talk ol’ brave. Him very ol’. So she learn, an’ I go. I show you. You give me fi’ dollar, then I, too, say nothing.”

“Ah.” Seth pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the scout, and went on smoking. Presently he asked, “Have you been there?”

“No.” Jim Crow smiled blandly. He had the truly Indian ambiguity of expression.

“Then you don’t know if there’s any traces, I guess.”

“See. I go dis place. Little Black Fox hear. He hear all. So. There are devils on the Reservation. Jim Crow much watched. So. They know. These red devils.”

Seth noted the man’s air of pride. He was keenly alive to his own importance and exaggerated it, which is the way of his class. Jim Crow was a treacherous rascal, but it paid him to work for the white folk. He would work for the other side just as readily if it paid him better.

“That’s so,” observed Seth, seriously; but it was his pipe that absorbed his attention. “Wal, to-morrow, I guess,” he added after a while. And, knocking his pipe out, he rolled over on his blanket and slept.

On the morrow the journey was continued, and at sundown they neared the great valley of the Missouri. Their route lay over a trail which headed southeast, in the direction of Sioux City. The sun had just dropped below the horizon when Jim Crow suddenly drew rein. Whatever character he might bear as a man he was a master scout. He had a knowledge and instinct far greater than that of a bloodhound on a hot scent. He glanced around him, taking in the lay of the land at every point of the compass. Then he finally pointed at a brush growing a few hundred yards from the trail.

“The bluff,” he said. “It may be what we look for. Sa-sa-mai, she tell me. Ow.”

The last was a grunt which expressed assurance.

The horses left the trail for the prairie. The eyes of both men were turned upon the ground, which is the habit of such men when out on the trail. It is the soil over which the prairie man passes which is the book. The general scene is only the illustration.

At the bluff the men dismounted. Seth now took the lead. He did not plunge haphazard into his search. He still studied the brush and the ground. But it was the scout whose trained instincts were the first to discover the signs they sought. And he found it in the dead, broken twigs which marked the course of a wagon.

The two followed the lead; followed it unerringly. With every foot of the way the task became easier. Once they had turned the cover the book had become the simplest reading. In a few minutes they came to a clearing well screened from the road. Now they parted company. The scout went on toward the water further on, but the white man turned to the clearing. Herein was displayed the difference in the men. Seth had come to the point where imagination served him. The other was only a craftsman.

The grass was tall in the clearing. There was a low scrub too, but it was a scrub that might be trodden under foot. In two minutes Seth was stooping examining a tent-peg, discolored by weather, but intact, and still holding in the earth where it had been driven. It was but four yards from this to a place where two distinct piles of human bones were lying hidden in the rank grass.

Seth was on his knees pulling the grass aside, but he did not touch the bones. The skeletons were far from complete. Fortunately the skulls were there, and he saw that they were those of a man and a woman. While he contemplated the ghastly remains his thoughts conjured up many scenes. He saw the bullet hole through the woman’s skull, and the horrid rift in the man’s. The absence of many of the bones of the extremities made him think of the coyotes, those prairie scavengers who are never far off when death stalks the plains.

After a few moments he was searching the long grass in every direction. He looked for remnants of clothing; for anything to give him a sign. In his search he was joined by the scout who had returned from the water, where he had discovered further traces of an encampment.

At last the examination was completed. There was nothing left to indicate the identity of the bones.

The two men now stood by the bones of the unfortunate man and woman. Seth was staring out at the surrounding brush.

“I guess the Injuns cleaned things up pretty well,” he said, while his eyes settled on one little bush apart from the rest.

The scout shook his head.

“That’s not Injuns’ work,” he said.

“No?” Seth queried casually.

“No. Everything gone. So. That not like Injun.”

Seth made no response, but walked over to the bush he had been looking at. The scout saw him thrust a hand in amongst the branches and withdraw it holding something.

“What you find?” he asked, when Seth came back.

“Only a rag.”

Then, a moment later, Seth asked suddenly: “How far from here to – Jason’s old place?”

“Six – eight – nine hour,” Jim Crow said, with his broad smile that meant nothing.

Seth looked long and thoughtfully at the split skull on the ground. Then his eyes sought the bullet hole in the woman’s skull. But he said nothing.

A little later the two men went back to the horses and mounted.

“Guess I’ll git on to see the Agent,” Seth observed, while the horses moved away from the bluff.

“You go by Reservation?”

“Yes.”

Jim Crow surveyed the prospect in silence. They reached the trail, and their horses stood preparatory to parting company.

“S’long,” said Seth.

The Indian turned and looked away to the north. It was the direction in which lay the great Reservations. Then he turned back, and his black, slit-like eyes shot a sidelong glance at his companion.

“You go – alone?” he asked.

The other nodded indifferently.

“Then I say sleep little and watch much – I, Jim Crow.”

The two men parted. The scout moved off and his hand went to the pocket of his trousers where his fingers crumpled the crisp five-dollar bill he had received for his services. Nothing else really mattered to him. Seth rode away humming a tune without melody.

All the way to the Agent’s house he carried out the scout’s advice of watchfulness; but for a different reason. Seth had no personal fear of these stormy Indians. His watchfulness was the observation of a man who learns from all he sees. He slept some hours on the prairie while his horse rested, and arrived at the Agency the next day at noon.

Jimmy Parker, as he was familiarly called, greeted him cordially in his abrupt fashion.

“Ah, howdy,” he said. “Prowling, Seth?” His words were accompanied by a quick look that asked a dozen questions, all of which he knew would remain unanswered. Seth and he were old friends and understood one another.

“Takin’ a spell off,” replied the farmer.

“Ah. And putting it in on the Reservation.”

The Agent smiled briefly. His face seemed to have worn itself into a serious caste which required effort to change.

“Many huntin’ ’passes’ these times?” Seth inquired presently.

“None. Only Little Black Fox says he’s going hunting soon.” The Agent’s eyes were fixed on the other’s face.

“See you’ve got Jim Crow workin’ around – south.” Seth waved an arm in the direction whence he had come.

“Yes.” Again came the Agent’s swiftly passing smile. “We’re a good distance from the southern boundary. Jim Crow’s smart enough. How did you know?”

“Saw his tepee.”

“Ah. You’ve been south?”

“Yes. There’s a fine open country that aways.”

They passed into the Agency, and Parker’s sister and housekeeper brought the visitor coffee. The house was very plain, roomy, and comfortable. The two men were sitting in the office.

“Seen anything of Steyne around?” asked Seth, after a noisy sip of his hot coffee.

“Too much. And he’s very shy.”

Seth nodded. He quite understood.

“Guess suthin’s movin’,” he said, while he poured his coffee into his saucer and blew it.

“I’ve thought so, too, and written to the colonel at the fort. What makes you think so?”

“Can’t say. Guess it’s jest a notion.” Seth paused. Then he went on before the other could put in a word. “Won’t be just yet. Guess I’ll git on.”

The two men passed out of the house, and Seth remounted.

“Guess you might let me know if Black Fox gits his ‘pass,’” he said, as he turned his horse away.

“I will.”

Parker watched the horseman till he disappeared amongst the bushes. A moment later he was talking to his sister.

“Wish I’d telegraphed to the fort now,” he said regretfully. “I can’t do it after writing, they’d think – I believe Seth came especially to convey warning, and to hear about Black Fox’s pass. It’s a remarkable thing, but he seems to smell what these Indians are doing.”

“Yes,” said his sister. But she felt that when two such capable men discussed the Indians there was no need for her to worry, so she took out Seth’s cup and retired to her kitchen.

In the meantime Seth had reached the river. Here he again dismounted, but this time for no more significant reason than to wash out the rag he had rescued from the bush south of the Reservations. He washed and rewashed the cotton, till it began to regain something of its original color. Then he examined it carefully round the hem.

It was a small, woman’s handkerchief, and, in one corner, a name was neatly written in marking ink. The name was “Raynor.”

CHAPTER IX

THE ADVENTURES OF RED RIDING HOOD

It is Sunday. The plaintive tinkle of the schoolroom bell at the Mission has rung the Christianized Indians to the short service which is held there.

“Indian Mission.” The name conveys a sense of peace. Yet the mission histories of the Indian Reservations would make bloody reading. From the first the Christian teacher has been the pitiable prey of the warlike savage. He bears the brunt of every rising. It is only in recent years that his work has attained the smallest semblance of safety. The soldier fights an open foe. The man in charge of an Indian mission does not fight at all. He stands ever in the slaughter-yard, living only at the pleasure of the reigning chief. He is a brave man.

The service is over. It is perforce brief. The grown men and women come out of the building. The spacious interior is cleared of all but the children and a few grown-up folk who remain to hold a sort of Sunday-school.

There are Wanaha and Seth. Rosebud, too, helps, and Charlie Rankin and his young wife, who have a farm some two miles east of White River Farm. Then there is the missionary, Mr. Hargreaves, a large man with gray hair and rugged, bearded face, whose blue eyes look straight at those he is addressing with a mild, invincible bravery. And the Agent, James Parker, a short, abrupt man, with a bulldog chest and neck, and a sharp, alert manner.

These are the workers in this most important branch of the civilizing process. They are striking at the root of their object. The children can be molded where the parents prove impossible. Once these black-eyed little ones have mastered the English language the rest is not so difficult. They have to be weaned from their own tongue if their Christian teachers would make headway. A small, harmless bribery works wonders in this direction. And all these children have learned to speak and understand the English language.

Seth attempts no Bible instruction, and his is a class much in favor. His pockets always contain the most home-made taffy. He has a method purely his own; and it is a secular method. Only to the brightest and most advanced children is the honor of promotion to his class awarded.

He is holding his class outside the building. His children sit round him in a semicircle. He is sitting on an upturned box with his back against the lateral logs of the building. There is a pleasant shade here, also the pungent odor from the bright green bluff which faces him. The Indian children are very quiet, but they are agog with interest. They have noted the bulging pockets of Seth’s Sunday jacket, and are more than ready to give him their best attention in consequence. Besides they like his teaching.

Seth’s method is quite simple. Last Sunday he told them a little, old-fashioned children’s fairy story with a moral. Now he takes each child in turn, and questions him or her on the teaching he then conveyed. But in this direction they are not very apt, these little heathens.

The singing inside the Mission had died out, and the last chords on the small organ had wheezed themselves into silence. Seth, having finished his preliminaries, began serious business.

He deposited a large packet of treacle taffy upon the ground at his feet, cut the string of it with his sheath-knife, opened it, and examined the contents with a finely critical air. Having satisfied himself he set it down again and smiled on his twelve pupils, all ranging from ten to twelve years of age, sitting round him. He produced a well-thumbed volume from his pocket, and, opening it, laid it upon his knee. It was there in case he should stumble, for Seth was not a natural born teacher. He did it for the sake of the little ones themselves.

Next he handed each child a piece of taffy, and waited while it was adjusted in the cheek.

“Guess you’ve all located your dollops o’ candy?” he said, after a while. “I allow you ken get right at it and fix it in. This camp ain’t goin’ to be struck till the sweet food’s done. Guess you’ll mostly need physic ’fore you’re through, sure. Howsum, your mam’s ’ll see to it.”

The last remarks were said more to himself than to the children, who sat staring up into his dark, earnest face with eyes as solemn as those of the moose calf, and their little cheeks bulging dangerously. Seth cleared his throat.

“Guess you ain’t heard tell o’ that Injun gal that used to go around in a red blanket same as any of you might. I’m jest going to tell you about her. Ah, more candy?” as a small hand was held out appealingly toward him. “Guess we’ll have another round before I get going right.” He doled out more of the sticky stuff, and then propped his face upon his hands and proceeded.

“Wal, as I was goin’ to say, that little squaw lived away there by the hills in a snug tepee with her gran’ma. They were jest two squaws by themselves, an old one, and a young one. And they hadn’t no brave to help ’em, nor nothin’. The young squaw was jest like any of you. Jest a neat, spry little gal, pretty as a picture and real good.

“She kind o’ looked after her gran’ma who was sick. Sick as a mule with the botts. Did the chores around that tepee, bucked a lot of cord-wood, fixed up moccasins, an’ did the cookin’, same as you gals ’ll mebbe do later on. She was a slick young squaw, she was. Knew a caribou from a jack-rabbit, an’ could sit a bucking broncho to beat the band. Guess it was doin’ all these things so easy she kind o’ got feelin’ independent – sort o’ wanted to do everything herself. And she just used to go right down to the store for food an’ things by herself.

“Now I don’t know how it rightly come about, but somewheres around that tepee a wolf got busy. A timber wolf, most as big as – as – the Mission house. An’ he was savage. Gee, but he was real savage! Guess he was one o’ them fellers always ready to scare squaws an’ papooses an’ things. Ther’s lots o’ that sort around.”

Wanaha, quite unobserved by Seth, had come round the corner of the building, and stood watching the earnest face of the man who was so deliberately propounding his somewhat garbled version of Little Red Riding Hood. While she listened to his words she smiled pensively.

“Yes, they git themselves up fancy an’ come sneakin’ around, an’ they’re jest that fierce there ain’t no chance for you. Say, them things would eat you right up, same as you’ve eaten that taffy. Wal, this young squaw was goin’ off on her broncho when this timber wolf comes up smilin’, an’ he says, ’Good-day.’ An’ he shakes hands with her same as grown folks do. All them timber wolves are like that, ’cause they think you won’t see they’re going to eat you then. You see he was hungry. He’d been out on the war-path – which is real bad – an’ he’d been fightin’, and the folks had beaten him off, and he couldn’t get food, ’cause he’d left the Reservation where there’s always plenty to eat an’ drink, and there was none anywhere else.

“Wal, he sizes up that squaw, and sees her blanket’s good an’ thick, and her moccasins is made of moose hide, and her beads is pretty, and he thinks she’ll make a good meal, but he thinks, thinks he, he’ll eat the squaw’s sick gran’ma first. So he says ’Good-bye,’ an’ waits till she’s well away on the trail, and then hurries back to the tepee an’ eats up the old squaw. Say wolves is ter’ble – ’specially timber wolves.

“Now, when that squaw gits home – ” Seth paused and doled out more taffy. The children were wonderfully intent on the story, but the sweets helped their attention. For there was much of what he said that was hard on their understandings. The drama of the story was plain enough, but the moral appealed to them less.

“When that squaw gits home she lifts the flap of the tepee, and she sees what she thinks is her gran’ma lying covered up on the skins on the ground. The fire is still burnin’, and everything is jest as she left it. She feels good an’ chirpy, and sits right down by her gran’ma’s side. And then she sees what she thinks looks kind o’ queer. Says she, ‘Gee, gran’ma, what a pesky long nose you’ve got!’ You see that wolf had come along an’ eaten her gran’ma, and fixed himself up in her clothes an’ things, and was lying right there ready to eat her, too, when she come along. So master timber wolf, he says, ‘That’s so I ken smell out things when I’m hunting.’ Then that squaw, bein’ curious-like, which is the way with wimminfolk, says, ‘Shucks, gran’ma, but your tongue’s that long you ain’t room for it in your mouth.’ That wolf gits riled then. Says he, ‘That’s so I ken taste the good things I eat.’ Guess the squaw was plumb scared at that. She’d never heard her gran’ma say things like that. But she goes on, says she, ‘Your teeth’s fine an’ long an’ white, maybe you’ve cleaned ’em some.’ Then says the wolf, ‘That’s so I ken eat folks like you right up.’ With that he springs out of the blankets an’ pounces sheer on that poor little squaw and swallows her up at one gulp, same as you ken swaller this taffy.”