There was some reason for haste, for the fine weather did not promise to last long; heavy clouds rose in the west, which soon obscured the whole sky, and it became impossible, with neither sun nor stars to guide them, to keep anything near to a direct westward course, which they thought would take them to Fort McPherson.
Nor could they tell in which direction they varied from it; but shoreward they were sure they were going, though they no longer hoped to effect a landing very near the fort they were seeking.
Vainly they had looked for land during the seemingly long night, and when daylight at length revealed it a few miles distant they coasted it for several hours in the hope of discovering some traces of others of their comrades who might have escaped from the wreck of the missing boat.
Not succeeding in this, they landed about nine o’clock in the morning, to rest, and to make their breakfast with the scant remains of the food which they had taken with them; and of which there was enough left only to sharpen their appetites, not to satisfy them.
The shore was low and marshy, and, although it was thickly wooded, they had no means of procuring game; and they soon departed in search of a more hospitable region.
Nearly the whole day was spent in this quest, and late in the afternoon they again debarked on a bolder shore in a prairielike region, with little timber in view, yet with some elevated land in the background.
Here they hoped to find some human habitation, and an hour’s search by the scattered party resulted in the discovery of a cluster of Indian wigwams, nearly a hundred and fifty in number, on the edge of a strip of woodland not far from the lake shore.
This was a doubtful advantage, for it was of course uncertain whether the savages—who were probably a branch of the Sioux nation—would prove friendly or hostile; but it was argued that from their position the Indians must have seen the boats coasting their territory, and that if they were evil-disposed they would already have attacked the white men while they were separated from each other.
They drew together for consultation, and being impelled by extreme hunger—and, indeed, by fear of starvation—they decided to apply to the red men for food.
They would not go in a body, but would send one or two of their number, in order that their own pacific intentions might be understood; for they thought it not improbable that the warriors of the little village, at least equal in number to their wigwams, were in the wood watching their movements.
“Let Joe go,” said Buffalo Bill. “The Indians are very partial to colored men, and——”
“Is dey?” said Congo, who, when sober, had a penchant for big words, and sometimes got hold of a larger one than he could manage. “Den dare sentiments isn’t ’ciprocated, sah—they’se not at all mutoo-toot-tual, sah!”
“And, besides, if the worst comes to worst, you owe me a life.”
“Yes—dat ar is fact, Massa Cody, but nobody pays debts nowadays, sah. De gemmen are all failin’, sah, an’ goin’ into solvency, and I don’t t’ink I can pay more’n twenty cents on de dollar on dat debt, sah.”
“Very good, Joe,” said the captain, “but suppose we should raise a purse for you of a hundred dollars. How then?”
“Well, sah, dat is anudder p’int of view. I’ll ’volve it a little. Maybe dar is nobody dar. Den you’ll gib it to me all de same?”
“Certainly.”
“And some day I’ll git up airly and run away. But maybe dey kill me?”
“I don’t believe they would, Joe.”
“Nor I, too—not ef I go polite, sah. But ef dey should, den my wife——”
“She shall have the money—oh, yes.”
“I’ll do it, sah. Jiminy, but I will! A hull hundred dollars earned in half an hour! It’s more’n I could save in t’ree years. Golly! I never saved anyt’ing yet. I ain’t afraid. I’ve seen Injuns afore now. I’ll go.”
The money was at once raised and put into the captain’s hands, and the negro, having inspected it to make sure that it was all right, prepared for immediate departure.
He received some instructions as to how he was to act, what he was to say if he could make the red men understand his language, and what gestures he was to make if they did not.
No weapon was allowed him, lest he should make indiscreet use of it and precipitate ruin upon the whole party.
In fact, there were no weapons in the company except one clumsy five-barreled revolver and three small pistols. In the wreck it had been all they could do to escape with their lives.
“Be sure to tell them that we are well armed,” said the captain, smiling, “but that we are good men, and do not want to harm them. Tell them we want nothing but food and we will pay for that, and then we’ll go right away.”
They gave him some money in silver, and told him to give that to the Indians and to promise them as much more as soon as the provisions were sent.
“Be discreet, Joe, now, for everything depends on that,” said Cody. “Remember the ladies must not be endangered.”
“I will, sah; I’ll be bery ’screet.”
“And whatever happens don’t get angry. When you get near them stop and lay your hand on your heart—so—and point to the sky.”
Joe, in attempting to imitate the gesture of his instructor, put his hand on a region a great deal lower than his heart and one that might be considered the more immediate seat of suffering from his prolonged fasting.
This error being corrected, he was permitted to depart, and he set out with perfect confidence and with no small sense of the dignity of his mission.
The huts were about a mile distant, and he walked rapidly at first, but with more deliberation when he got within ordinary rifle shot of the settlement.
From this point he proceeded warily and with great vigilance, soliloquizing some; but, fearing that he might be overheard, he was very chary of his language.
“If de red debbils—gemmen, I mean—is gwine to fire I wish to gracious dey’d do it now,” he said, “before I git any closer and w’ile dare’s time to run. I can’t see nuffin’ movin’ ober dare.”
At a quarter of a mile from the village he stopped and bowed very low, cap in hand, and he repeated his performance every few rods as he proceeded, varying it at times by smiting his heart and pointing upward.
Still he saw nobody, and, although he believed the Indians were in hiding, near to or in their lodges, he went forward, though with much trepidation, repeating in the intervals between his obeisances the only prayer he could recall to memory—beginning, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”
At the edge of the wood and not a dozen yards from the nearest wigwam, he stopped. After peering carefully around in all directions he called out:
“Is any of the gemmen or ladies to hum?”
Receiving no answer to this polite inquiry, he advanced near enough to one of the huts to look through an opening which served for a window and to obtain a view of the interior.
A glance showed him that no one was within, and he ventured to push aside the door or curtain of skin which hung before the entrance and walk in.
The building, if such it may be called, was conical or tentlike in shape, entirely made of saplings, and boughs, and bushes carelessly intertwined, and partly covered with skins.
A bed of the same material was in one corner of the lodge, on the bare earth, and a large log, hewn smooth on one side, served the purpose of a bench or settee.
A few cooking utensils of stone and iron completed the furniture, but that there was nothing edible in the room the hungry negro quickly ascertained.
He went out and entered another wigwam, with a similar result; but here everything bore the marks of a hasty evacuation.
A fire was burning outside the hut, within a little circular wall of stones: an iron kettle and a large gourd of water stood beside it, and near the door a few ears of dried corn had been dropped, evidently in the haste of departure.
These Joe pocketed, and then he continued his explorations, gaining courage as he proceeded, and scarcely fearing any longer that he should encounter a foe.
“Dey’re all run away,” he said, “and took dere victuals with ’em. Let’s try dis ’ere next one.”
To his surprise the next lodge which he entered had an inmate—a very old and decrepit Indian, who seemed neither able to work nor to stand, and whom his alarmed companions had evidently abandoned to his fate.
He was tall and gaunt, was dressed in a sort of tunic of dirty deerskin, with bead-embroidered leggings and moccasins of the same material; had heavy gold rings in his ears, a wampum belt about his waist, and an eagle feather fastened in his scalp lock.
He was seated on a pile of skins, chanting in a low voice, and he had probably decorated himself for the “happy dispatch” which he anticipated receiving at the hand of his visitor.
“Good mornin’, sah—sarvant, sah!” said Congo, bowing and scraping, as he caught sight of this strange individual. “Hope you’re quite well!”
The Indian bent his head a little lower, as if for the expected blow, and continued to sing.
“Neber mind de music now,” said the negro; “I’se in a hurry. Where’s all your folks?”
The old warrior looked up, and, seeing that his visitor was unarmed and was making pacific demonstrations, he gazed at and listened to him for some seconds in silence and amazement.
“Do you talky Englishy?” continued Joe, who seemed to think he would make himself more easily understood by this mode of speech.
The chief, for such he was, or had been in his better days, nodded emphatically, as if he would have said: “Yes, you have come to the right shop for English, my boy.”
What he did say was:
“Ess, me spokes him. Me Sioux, uh! Wise chief!”
“Glad you mentioned it, sah! Happy to make your acquaintance. Whare is your folks?”
The Indian shook his head.
“Don’t you understandy?” asked Joe.
Again the chief made a negative gesture.
“Whare’s all de Injins, and de squaws, and de papooses?” continued the negro, looking around the room.
“My braves hunt. Squaws and papooses much scare and run.”
“In de woods?” asked Joe, pointing that way.
The chief seemed disposed to be noncommital on this point, and his visitor repeated his question.
“Um, sink in the ground,” replied the Sioux, gravely pointing downward.
“Debbil dey did!” said Joe, with a wondering stare; and then, after a pause, he continued:
“Tell you wot, old chap, I’se very hungry.”
He opened his huge mouth and pointed into it by way of explaining this remark.
“Dare’s ten men back here, all berry hungry; good men, understandy?”
“Good!” said the chief, echoing the word used by his guest.
“Yes—goody men—all armed wid rifles and ’volvers and knives, understandy?”
“Rifles, knives, ugh!” repeated the Indian.
“Sackly! You understand. Now hab you got any victuals to sell?”
The chief looked steadily at him a while, and then said:
“Spoke him again.”
“Hab you any victuals to sell?”
The sachem shook his head in evident bewilderment, and Joe, taking a handful of silver coin—half and quarter dollars—laid it down beside him and asked him if he knew what it was.
“Ess,” was the reply. “Me Sioux—wise chief. Know ’em.”
And without more ado he took up the money and slipped it, piece by piece, inside his belt.
“All righty,” said Joe. “Now, whare’s de victuals?”
“Ah! No understan’ English.”
“De victuals!” screamed the negro again, pointing down his widely opened mouth.
“No understan’.”
“Corn—venison—bear’s meat—anything to eat,” continued the pertinacious Joe, pantomiming mastication by snapping his great white teeth together like a hungry mastiff.
“Ah! ah! phuff! ess! Buckle, tuckle, gon so ripta, honorable much tosh-a-long! Uh! uh!” said the chief, smiling with a sudden gleam of intelligence and trying to rise.
“Dat’s it!” replied Joe. “You’ve got it now, I guess, dough I can’t say I quite understand you.”
“Listen, my son!” said the chief, sinking back upon the skins from which he had partly risen. “Me great chief.”
“Sartain. You tole me dat afore.”
“Me much old.”
“I s’spected dat ar, too.”
“Me seen t’ousand moons.”
“Thunder!” exclaimed Congo. “Dat must hab made it berry light!”
“Now great chief going to happy hunting grounds.”
“Is you, dough? Golly! Ef you’d lend me a rifle, I’d go along.”
“Listen! My son wants meat?”
“Yessy—very muchy.”
The Sioux took out one of the silver pieces from his belt, and held it up in one hand, while he extended the other toward his visitor.
“More!” he said.
“Oh, dat’s your game, is it, you avaricious old cormudgeon?—t’anks to goodness, he can’t understand dat!” said the negro, laughing and taking out another handful of silver.
“No, you don’t!” he continued, as the sachem offered to take it. “Not ef dis child know hisself!”
“Dollars,” said the Indian, still reaching out his hand.
“Corn and meat,” replied Joe.
“Money.”
“De victuals fust.”
The Indian smiled now, and, rising with difficulty, stood shaking a moment, and then pointed to the skins on which he had been sitting.
“I see,” said Joe, “but we can’t eat dem.”
The chief motioned to the negro to push them aside, and when he had done so, an opening was discovered in the ground about three feet by two, and apparently of considerable depth.
In this little cellar was the unskinned carcass of a deer, which had evidently been recently killed, and which had probably been thrown in there in haste when the alarm of invasion had been given.
Joe’s mouth watered at the sight, and he took hold of a leg of the venison to lift it out, but the old man shook his head and growled a refusal.
He had only shown his wares with a view of eliciting a larger offer of pay.
“I will hab it, Mr. Chiefy,” said the negro, jerking the carcass out, “or, at least, half ob it. How muchy for de halfy?”
The Indian showed a silver quarter of a dollar, and then held up ten fingers.
“All righty,” replied Joe, counting down three half dollars and four quarters; but the chief could not be made to comprehend that he had got his price. There were but seven pieces, and he held up three fingers more.
All attempts at explanation were useless, and the ludicrous efforts of the negro to convince the Indian that one “halfy” was equal to two quarters were only responded to by a puzzled look and by renewed shakings of the head.
“But I habn’t got any more,” said the black man.
“Ess—more—more. Me wise chief.”
“It’s my private opinion dat you is an old rip,” replied Joe, smiling and turning his pockets wrong side out, by which means he succeeded in finding one more quarter, which he put into the extended hand of his companion. “See—all goney!”
Pending this controversy the old man tottered to the window and looked out, but his visitor supposed it was only in apprehension of the approach of the white men, and continued his negotiations.
“Dey shan’t hurty you,” he said. “Don’t be fraidy. All good men. Jest gib me hatchet, ef you please, cap’n, to cut dis in two.”
“No un’stan’.”
“Little axy—papoose axy—eh? Understan’?” continued the black man, making strange signs by way of elucidation.
A shake of the head followed.
“You drefful dumb! Habn’t you got leetle tommyhawky?”
A distant shout was heard at this moment, and the negro, looking out of the door, saw about thirty armed Indians and half a dozen large dogs, scarcely a quarter of a mile distant, approaching the settlement.
The red men were sauntering lazily, and several bore heavy backloads of game, while others were singing and cutting antics like merry men after a successful chase.
Not a little alarmed, but guessing that it would be useless—nay, most dangerous—to run before so many weapons and dogs, Congo retreated into the cabin.
“Is dem your folks?” he asked, holding the skin curtain aside that the old man might see out.
“Ess. My young man. Me great chief.”
“Yes, sah—dat you is! You next to de President ob United States! You good man, too! You no let ’em hurty me, eh?”
Joe shook hands with the chief and smote his breast and made all manner of pacific demonstrations while he said this.
“No un’stand.”
“Oh—debble you don’t! You grow dumb jes’ w’en it suits you, I t’ink. And dey looks like mighty ugly customers.”
So saying, he tumbled the dead deer back into the hole and drew the pile of skins over it, fearing that he might otherwise be suspected of being a robber, and be slain before any explanations could be made.
Partly by urging, and partly by force, he induced the “wise chief” to resume his seat, and then again tried to make him understand that he wanted his protection from the coming warriors.
“Do dey speak English?” he asked anxiously.
“Ess—Running Water, he spokes ’em—great much.”
“Running Water, eh? Dat’s cur’ous name. Is he a chief?”
“Young chief. Me older. Wise man.”
“I see. You’ve been laid on de shelf a good w’ile, and ain’t of near as much consequence as you makes yourself out. Is Running Water a good man?”
“Ess—good! Got much scalps!”
“Golly! I hope he’s got enough! Dare dey come now close by; I hear ’em. I wish I wus back on de boat or anywhere else but here.”
Peeping out, he saw that the hunters had been joined by a rabble of squaws and children, who had rushed out of their hiding places in the woods to meet them, and that the whole party, babbling loudly, were within a few rods of the lodges.
“Now for it!” said Joe, with great trepidation. “Stand by me, old gemmen, or I’m a goner. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’ Oh, Jiminy! what a fool I was to come here and git in sich a scrape as dis! Dey look fierce as wild wolves and dem old squaws are tellin’ ’em all manner of lies about me. I know dat dey are. Dey’ll sartain make mincemeat of me jes’ as soon as dey find me.”
The red men were certainly in considerable excitement.
Some had stopped and were looking earnestly at the distant party of whites who had been pointed out to them by the women, and others were advancing warily toward the wigwam of the old chief, for vigilant eyes from the brakes and bushes in the wood had watched the negro’s arrival in the village.
His entrance into the several lodges, and the fact that he had not departed from that one, were both well known to them.
The negro stationed himself a little behind the old chief, where, with the greatest trepidation, but with many smiles and genuflexions, he greeted the band of astonished savages who came crowding into the little hut.
They were as wild and uncouth-looking as well could be. All were more or less painted; and only Running Water, their seeming leader, was fully clad in a hunting suit of undressed deerskin; the soiled and frayed condition of which fully entitled him to the sobriquet which the negro had so innocently bestowed upon him.
He might have been called an old man but for the contrast between him and the decrepit chief; certainly, he was not less than sixty, though he was seemingly in the full vigor of manhood.
There was a heavy scowl on his forehead when he entered the hut, and his tomahawk was upraised in his hand. But, after a brief glance at the propitiatory motions of the negro, and at the unharmed veteran, the scowl subsided and he returned his hatchet to its place in his belt.
Not so others—for several of his followers had already presented their guns at Joe; and one, who was doubtless emulous of the glory of being the first to bring the strange enemy down, rushed furiously upon him, and aimed a blow at him, which the negro avoided only by leaping backward and crouching to the ground.
He begged piteously for mercy, but his words were lost in the clamor of voices which ensued, and as many of the squaws had by this time crowded in and others were looking in at the door and window, and were adding their shrill chorus to the general outcry, the tumult became very great.
Running Water’s voice could not be distinguished in the uproar, and Joe’s minutes would have been few had not the Indian leader rushed forward and forcibly held back the foremost of the assailants.
His wishes, being thus made known, were at once acquiesced in, and something like order was restored while he addressed his companions, angrily enough at first, but with a voice which subsided into gentle and more persuasive tones as he proceeded.
There was nothing savage in this man’s appearance except the inevitable scalp lock, and the few dashes of paint with which his cheeks were besmeared; yet this was not the terrifying war paint, but the rouge of the red man’s toilet, intended for a beautifying effect, and answering its purpose in the main quite as well as the cosmetics of civilized life.
In one respect it had a marked advantage over them, for there was no false pretense about it. It did not claim to be nature’s pure bloom. It was paint—open, honest, undisguised paint.
Running Water was a tall man, with a high, smooth forehead, and, as he now motioned to the negro to rise, and addressed him in broken English, his manner was anything but threatening.
“Sarvant, sah!” said Joe, coming slowly forward and bowing repeatedly, yet keeping a watchful eye upon the bystanders. “Hope you’s well, sah—you and Mrs. Running Water, sah, and de chillen——”
“Who you be?” asked the Indian.
“I’m Joe, sah. Joe Congo, one ob de stewards, sah, to de Enterprise, wot was lost, sah. You must hab seen it in de newspapers, sah”—and Joe was rattling off a long story when the red man interrupted him.
“Speakum slow,” he said, “and don’t chatter-chatter.”
“Yes, sah—sartain! Den—dat’s all! Dat’s who I am.”
Joe became conscious now, for the first time, that he was an object of the greatest curiosity to the whole crowd. Their alarm having subsided, they were pressing closely to him on all sides, looking narrowly at him, and some reaching out their fingers gently to touch his hands and his face, until, being rebuked by their leader, they drew back, and contented themselves with staring.
“Are you great medicine man?” asked Running Water, after a pause for reflection.
“Not very,” replied Congo. “I don’t often take medicine. I berry well—t’ank you.”
“Ware you git your paint?”
“Paint?”
“Uh! Ware you git um?” repeated the savage, rubbing his fingers over the negro’s hands, and then looking at them to see if the color came off.
“Jingo! Dat ain’t paint, cap’n! Dat’s my nat’ral color, sah. Didn’t you nebber see culled gemmen before?”
The chief did not reply, but gave some direction in his own tongue to one of his people, who disappeared, and presently appeared with a gourd of water, which he put down before Congo.
Running Water pointed first to the water and then to the left hand of the negro, and said:
“Wash! Make um white!”
“Golly! But I wish I could, sah! I can’t!”
“Make um white!” repeated the other severely.
Joe laughed, and, dipping the hand into the water, scrubbed away at it with the other for some minutes, and then held it up, black as before, saying:
“Dare, sah—you see, I can’t and dat water is jes’ as clean as it was afore; not quite, dough—but dat is only de dirt.”
“More water!” said the chief, looking at the discolored fluid.
“I tell you it’s no use, sah! It won’t come off. I only wish it would.”
Another experiment failing to make the hand any whiter, and leaving the liquid scarcely discolored. Running Water seemed satisfied, and said:
“Good paint! Stick fast. Have you got um?”
Puzzled for a reply, Joe hesitated for a moment, and then, pointing to the sky, said:
“Up dar. I was borned so.”
The Indian bowed profoundly.
“From the Great Spirit?” he said.
“Yes, sah.”
More convinced now than before that Joe was a great medicine man, endowed with power to heal the sick, to give success in war and the chase, or to harm them with an evil eye, Running Water and his followers treated him with the respect which was due to his supposed character.
They set food before him, but Joe, though very hungry, stopped only to swallow a few large mouthfuls before resuming his negotiations in behalf of his friends, from whom he had been absent so long that he feared they might return to their boats without him.
He informed Running Water of the nature of his errand, told him of the money which he had given to the old chief, which, by the way, that old man was keeping very close and showed no disposition to disgorge.
Running Water listened with evident surprise to this story, and then addressed a few sharp words to the aged chief, who nodded his head quickly in reply—as if he had only just remembered it—and handed out about half the coin, after which he seemed to relapse into a comatose state.
“Is this all?” the younger leader asked, at the same time handing the money back to Joe and compelling him to take it.
“Yes, sah; near enough,” responded the negro, fearful of giving offense in any quarter. “Let de old gemman keep de rest and welcome.”
But Running Water fumbled in the belt of the seemingly sleeping patriarch until he had recovered most of the silver and returned it to Congo.
Then he addressed the negro in a sort of chant, the burden of which was the duties of hospitality.
The strangers, he said, must not pay for food or rest in their tents, but were welcome to come and partake of their corn and venison, and the coldest water from their springs.
Their young men should wait upon them, and their maidens should watch their sleep, and drive off the lizard and the spotted toad from their couch.
His song being ended, he added a more prosaic but seemingly cordial invitation to Joe to go and bring his friends to the wigwams, and he pointed to the pile of game outside the hut as the source from which their bountiful feast should be supplied.
But they must come unarmed, he said, for otherwise their women would be frightened, and their little children would run and hide.
But Joe well knew that his white companions would not trust themselves so unreservedly in the power of the savages.
“T’ank you berry much,” he said, “but dey ’fraid to leave all deir rifles and ’volvers, ’cause some bad Injuns from ’nudder tribe might come along and stole ’em. Dey ’fraid to go out of sight o’ deir boats, too, ’cause dere is two little cannon in each of dem dat might get pitched into de lake.”
The Indians looked at each other in alarm at this intelligence, and even their leader seemed disconcerted; for savage men, it is well known, have a most exaggerated opinion of the power of artillery.
“What! Have my white brothers brought thunder guns here?” asked Running Water.
“Yes, sah! Thunder an’ lightnin’, sah, and brimstone! Dey could blow all your wigwams right up to de sky, sah; but dey goody men, and dey won’t do it—not at all. Dey only want victuals, and dey is quite willin’ to pay for dem. I t’ink you’d better send two or t’ree quarters of deers, Cap’n Running Water, and take de money, and dat will be de end ob it.”
The chief consulted with a few of the braves, and in a few moments, to the great joy of Congo, he announced their decision to send the largest deer and some sweet corn dried on the ear; but said that they would take no money from their white brothers.
“It is a gift,” said Running Water. “Speak no more of it. Four of my young men shall carry it.”
But here arose another difficulty. The bearers of the provisions would discover, and report, that the strangers were unarmed, and if the Indians were evil-disposed they might pursue them and attack them before they could get in their boats, or at least before they could obtain a safe offering.
Doubtless, also, they had canoes moored somewhere on the shore, with which they could give chase upon the water.
These thoughts occurred to the sagacious negro, and he tried hard to avert the danger by proposing to take a single quarter of the venison to his friends, and then return to get another, which, he said, would be enough to last them several days until they came to where food was plenty.
He would not trouble “de gemmen” to carry it for him—not at all.
But Running Water was equally polite, and would hear of no such arrangement. His young men were idle. Three at least of them should go with his guest, each carrying one quarter of the venison, while Congo might, if he chose, shoulder the fourth himself. He seemed very amiable—his eyes gleamed with a soft, genial light, and it was easy to doubt that he was acting in perfect good faith.
Finding it useless further to protest, Joe acquiesced in his plan, trusting to his white friends to foresee and in some way to avoid the danger—if danger there were.
The quarters of a large buck—which had been skinned and cut up where it fell—were quickly selected, and the three porters, being designated by the chief, at once took their stations near their respective loads, prepared to shoulder them, and to follow Congo as soon as he was ready to start.
“Good-by, den, cap’n,” said the negro, extending his hand to Running Water. “Ef you come my way, gib me a call, sah, and I’ll be glad to see you.”
“Wait!” said the savage, who was not yet ready to let his visitor depart, for he had given orders to have a patient brought in, to obtain the benefit of his healing powers.
In a few minutes, a tall, olive-colored lad was led in, and was conducted up to Joe, evidently in a state of considerable apprehension.
“Him sick,” said the chief. “Burn, burn now, by an’ by shaky—shaky with cold—un’stan’?”
“Goodness gracious—yes! He’s got the fever an’ agur, I s’pose.”
“Cure him!” said Running Water.
“Wot! I cure him!”
“Yes—you wise man—medicine man,” repeated the other persuasively.
Joe laughed and reflected. It could do no harm to encourage this notion, and might do some good. He happened to have in his pocket a corkscrew, and he was pretty sure that the Indian had never seen such a utensil.
He took it out gravely, opened it, and all crowded nearer to see. It was a large one of shining steel.
“Did you ebber see anyt’ing like dis afore?” he asked of Running Water.
The chief shook his head solemnly, and gazed with awe at the mysterious implement.
“It’s a screwemcorkibus!”
“Ugh! Good!”
“It draws out de sickness, sah. Make de boy sot down, an’ you all keep berry still, an’ I show you.”
Joe said this very gravely, and his orders being promptly obeyed, he approached the alarmed lad and slowly introduced the end of the corkscrew into one of his ears, and turned it around several times, being careful to inflict no wound.
Then removing it, he affected to examine the spiral part very carefully—wiped it—pronounced it all right, and repeated the operation on the other ear, the savages manifesting the profoundest interest, and fairly holding their breath in order to preserve the strict silence which had been enjoined.
“Dat ’ar is all,” said Congo solemnly. “I hab drawn de feber out ob one ear, and de agur out ob de oder. In two days de boy will be well, sah. He won’t nebber shake ag’in after dat.”
Running Water asked permission to examine the wonderful implement with which this cure had been wrought, and he handled it a minute or so with the greatest respect, while others of the warriors pressed forward and barely touched it with their fingers, perhaps thinking that they thus secured to themselves immunity from the dreaded disease.
The chief returned it to Congo with a regretful look at parting with such a treasure, and the negro was about magnanimously presenting it to him, when it occurred to him that such a course would have a tendency to lower their estimation of its powers and his own.
He, therefore, wiped it carefully, closed it, and returned it to his pocket, after which he again essayed to depart, but the red men had not yet done with him.
They brought forward their guns, their fishing tackle, and their bows and arrows, and begged that the medicine man would pass them through his hands, which process they believed would impart some of his mysterious power to them.
Joe complied, repeating the chorus of an old song in a croaking, ravenlike voice, as he manipulated the weapons, and thus giving the most unbounded satisfaction to the savages.
“Ef dem guns and bows don’t shoot straight arter dis, gemmen, it will be your own fault,” he said, “and ef you put good bait on dem hooks and go where de fish is, you’ll ketch ’em. Mind, I tell you! How you feel?”
This question was addressed to the lad, who did not understand it until it was repeated by the chief in the Indian tongue. According to that linguist’s report, the boy replied that he felt “much gooder.”
“All right,” said Joe, “you jes’ wait a day or two and you won’t know yourself. Good-by, Running Water; good-by, gemmen and ladies! Do ole grandfer is asleep, I see, so I won’t shake hands with him.”
So Congo and his followers at last set out, each bearing his backload of venison.
It was near sunset when the little company of half-famished men and women, after long and anxious waiting, saw the welcome procession approaching, and their joy and relief were so great that they no longer thought of the necessity of any precaution, nor doubted the pacific disposition of the red men who had sent them so bounteous a supply of food.
This conviction was confirmed when Congo came and returned the money to its owners, and briefly told the story, but it was not fully shared by the negro himself.
“Day may be all right,” he said, “but dey t’ink you’ve got rifles and cannons, and dat makes a difference. Dese boys are using dere eyes, you see, and will tell ’em what a whopper I told ’em about de guns. So I t’ink we’d better be off.”
Captain Meinhold considered this to be prudent counsel, on the whole, and, although disposed to judge the Indians leniently, he advised an immediate return to the boats, which were in full view, and which the three red men seemed to be eying very narrowly.
They expressed no surprise, however, at the absence of the “thunder guns,” nor at the unarmed condition of the white men, which could not have escaped their observation. Having accepted some presents of pocket-knives and jewelry, they departed, and the white men started for their boats.
They were much enfeebled, however, by fasting and toil; the way was rough, and they had the venison to carry, so they made but slow progress, and some alarm was excited by seeing that the Indians, who had started moderately enough, were all soon on a rapid run.
It does not take an Indian long to run a mile, but there was plenty of time to embark and obtain a safe offing, unless they were to be followed by the savages in boats, and if such a pursuit should be made with hostile intent, fight or resistance would be equally vain.
Thus Buffalo Bill argued, and, keeping very calm himself, advised the others to do so.
“I believe they are all right,” he said. “Pray let’s have a little faith in human nature, my friends, and not believe men to be fiends when they have shown us nothing but kindness.”
“Gosh! Dey tried pretty hard to cut me to pieces at fust!” said the negro.
“Because they thought you were an enemy, and had come to harm them. That’s all, Joe.”
“Yes—de squaws was at de bottom of it. Dey fust got frightened for nothin’, an’ den told awful lies about me, an’ sot de men on.”
“Don’t reflect on the gentle sex, Joe,” said the captain, laughing.
“Gentle! Dey’se she catamounts, sah, dem squaws! Some of ’em. I wish you could ’a’ seed one dat tried to git at me with a club. I should like to cure her of de feber’n agur. De corkscrew shouldn’t come out ob de same ear it went in at. Not at all, sah—it should go clear through.”
“Yet probably she was a good wife and mother, and thought she was defending her children from a robber and murderer. Probably she had a woman’s nature, and under other circumstances she would have fed and protected you,” said Buffalo Bill.
“Oh—would she dough? You’se a good man, Massa Cody; you t’ink well ob everybody—even ob de grizzly bears an’ de sharks, I s’pose.”
“Yes, they are what God made them. They eat men, indeed, as we eat mutton, not out of malice, but because they are hungry and like that kind of food.”
“Wouldn’t you kill dem?”
“Yes, if they came in my way and endangered my life, or that of others, or if I needed them—not otherwise.”
While they talked they reached the boats and embarked safely without further sight of the red men, and they began to anticipate with delight the substantial supper they should make an hour or so later in some secure spot on the coast.
“We made one great mistake in not inquiring of the Indians something about the country, and whether we are near any white settlement,” said Captain Meinhold. “They might have saved us several days’ journey by heading us the right way.”
“Yes—that was a mistake,” replied Buffalo Bill; “but I think we are going to have an opportunity of correcting it. Look at the canoes coming around yonder point.”
True enough. The red men were coming. There was no escaping that conclusion, nor avoiding them, if they had any evil design.
“Here they are!” exclaimed Hare, in great alarm, for he had from the first refused to believe anything good of the savages. According to his views they were all treacherous, crafty, cruel, and, in short, utterly depraved. “We are all lost, I say, unless we can frighten them off, but I suppose Cody would like to try a little ‘moral suasion’ upon them.”
The village which Congo had visited was north of the spot where the white party had landed, but not very near the coast, having been built in the shelter of a piece of woodland which did not extend to the shore.
In resuming their voyage northward—for in this direction they were almost certain they should find their friends—they were compelled to pass the Indian settlement, but they had designed to do so out of gunshot of the shore, and were making their way outward for this purpose when the pursuit was discovered.
Four long canoes, containing seven or eight men apiece, were coming around a little jutting cape, about due east of the wigwams; and as they were headed directly toward a point at which they must intercept the two boats, no doubt could be entertained that a meeting, either hostile or friendly, was intended.
“We are in their power, and they know it,” replied Cody to Hare, as the canoes swiftly advanced, going at twice the utmost speed which could have been made by the heavier boats of the whites. “There is not much credit in pacific measures on our part now. We have no other resource.”
“Haven’t we?” replied Hare, who was wild with excitement and alarm, drawing the only revolver in the party’s possession.
“Put it up!” shouted Buffalo Bill.
“Put it up!” repeated Captain Meinhold, “or, at least, do nothing more than show it, or you’ll draw down death upon all of us.”
“Death is coming fast enough, in my opinion,” replied Hare. “I have a right to defend myself, and shall, and, perhaps, save all the rest of you.”
There was great danger that the imprudent man would precipitate fatal results, and the captain and Buffalo Bill, who were not in the same boat with him, made signs to some of those who were, to disarm him. But, in the confusion, these gestures were misunderstood or disregarded.
The canoes were already close at hand, and as the foremost drew near to the boat in which Hare sat, although the red men were bowing and smiling, and talking unintelligently, the frantic young man presented his revolver, shouting:
“Keep off! Keep off! or I’ll fire!”
The Indians could not have instantly stopped the headway of their canoe if they had wished. It still darted forward, and, amid cries of, “Don’t, Hare! Don’t! For Heaven’s sake, stop him!” two quick reports were heard, and one of the red men fell backward, paddle in hand, and lay stretched upon the bottom of the canoe.
It was a terrible moment. A dozen guns came into sight and half of them were already presented and the click of the locks was heard on every side, when the still outstretched revolver was knocked from Hare’s hand into the lake by one of his companions, and the loud voice of Running Water arrested the leaden storm which in another instant would have dealt destruction upon the dismayed white men.
But, although the guns were lowered at the chief’s command, they were not put down, and for some minutes there was a jargon of loud and angry words among the Indians, with fierce gestures and scowls, and it was evidently all that their leader could do to restrain them from taking instant vengeance for the outrage which had been inflicted upon them.
Some raised and succored the man who had been shot, but his wound was evidently mortal, and as they tried to stanch the blood which flowed profusely from his breast, their wrath and grief broke out afresh and threatened to set the authority of their leader at defiance.
Running Water, in fact, did not look much less indignant than his comrades, when, their clamor having abated, he turned toward Congo, and asked, in a mournful voice:
“Why have my brothers done this?”
Captain Meinhold was about replying, when Buffalo Bill laid his hand upon his arm and said:
“Wait! Let Joe be our spokesman, since he has already done so well. Tell him the truth, Joe, and see that the whole blame falls where it belongs.”
The chief repeated his question, and Joe, getting as near to him as he could, replied, rubbing his eyes:
“I tell you wot, cap’n—it’s all a mistake.”
“No un’stan’.”
“You see dis man?” pointing to Captain Meinhold.
The Indian nodded.
“He is our chief. He good man; we all goody men, except him,” pointing to Hare.
“What do you mean, you black rascal?” said the excited man.
“Keep still, Hare,” replied Cody authoritatively, “or you will be compelled to. This matter has got to be explained. You would not take our advice, and you must now bear the blame of your own actions.”
“I did what I thought was right.”
“Very well! And now we shall do what we think is right. You just keep still, that’s all you’ve got to do.”
“He bad man,” continued Congo. “He shooty-shooty. We try to stop him berry much. We all berry sorry. Cap’n Running Water—berry,” and again the negro knuckled his eyes and almost brought tears.
All this had to be repeated several times before it was understood, and when the chief had explained it to his people their concentrated gaze of hatred fell upon the rash offender, who evidently quailed before it.
“We came in peace,” said Running Water. “We brought presents to our white brothers. See!”
He pointed, as he spoke, to a very large salmon trout and a string of black bass which lay in one of the boats, together with a bundle of dried corn and a gourd full of wild strawberries, red and luscious.
The offerings left no doubt of the pacific—nay, friendly—nature of the visit, and the blush of shame succeeded the ashen hue of fear on the cheek of the guilty man as he gazed upon them.
Captain Meinhold now addressed the chief, expressing the deepest sorrow for what had happened, and begging that they might be forgiven and be permitted to proceed on their voyage, as they were a party of shipwrecked men in great distress, being separated from their friends, and some of them from wives and children at their homes, besides the women in their charge.
Having seemingly made himself understood by words and signs, he next collected and offered to the chief all the silver coin in possession of the company, and Hare, taking the hint from these proceedings, hastily drew out his watch and handed it to the captain to be added to the presents.
But Running Water turned scornfully away from these gifts, and refused to receive or to look at them.
“We must not sell our brother’s blood,” he said, and, turning to his men, he conferred with them for a few minutes, and then announced, as the general voice of his party, that the white men were all at liberty to proceed on their voyage, except the offender, who must be given up to them to be dealt with after their customs.
Hare turned pale and trembled very much when this decision was announced, but no argument or entreaties of his own or of his friends could produce any change or sign of wavering in the minds of the red men.
They listened attentively to all that was said, but still Running Water replied to it all in the same words, and almost in the same tone.
“Life for life,” was their law. He was very sorry for the young man, he said, but he could not protect him, if he would, from those who had a right to demand his blood—the relations of the slain man.
“Pray don’t give me up, gentlemen,” exclaimed Hare. “They will burn me at the stake. They will torture me for a whole day.”
“We can’t possibly save you, Hare,” replied the captain. “We have no weapons excepting three small pistols, and here are twenty-six armed men.”
“Don’t give me up!”
“We certainly shall not give you up,” said Buffalo Bill; “but we can’t prevent them from taking you. The best that I can advise you to do, is to meet your fate like a man. As to their torturing you, I don’t believe they will do it.
“Even as it is, we might fight for you if it were not for the women. If we make a fight, they will be killed—or, worse still, made prisoners and forced to live all their lives as the squaws of brutal savages.
“I will speak to the Indians about the torturing, and beg them to let you off it; or, rather, if our friends agree, we will all return with you to their village, and see if anything further can be done for you.”
“Thank you a thousand times, Cody. Yes, stay by me to the last.”
“I will do that,” replied Cody, “and try to save you even at the eleventh hour.”
“It will be something to have my friends near me, and not be left quite alone with these demons,” moaned Hare. “Oh, my father—my poor father! It will break his heart when he hears of this, and it will break my wife’s heart, too.”
Several of the white party protested earnestly against returning with the Indians, saying that it would mean running into terrible and unnecessary danger.
There was no telling what might happen when the savages were incited to wrath by their women and by their orators, who would harangue them over the dead body of the murdered man and demand a tenfold retribution.
Buffalo Bill, however, with the aid of Captain Meinhold, persuaded the men to stay by their comrade.
It was at first proposed by the whites that Hare should remain with them on the way back to the village, but when this was attempted Running Water directed that he be put at once into one of the canoes, which movement better suited the Indians, who seemed anxious to get hold of their prisoner at once.
He was taken into the very boat which held his unfortunate victim, who was already quite dead.
Hare was made to sit down in the bottom of the craft, alongside of the corpse. The horror of his position was indescribable, and was fully expressed in his countenance, although he strove hard to maintain some degree of fortitude and manliness.
“Promise that you will shoot me, Cody, if it comes to the worst,” he said eagerly, “and not let me be tortured. For Heaven’s sake, promise me that.”
“We will do all that we can for you,” was the evasive reply; “but remember that we are all in the power of these men, and that we have to be careful not to give them further offense, for the sake of the women, if not for our own.”
The wretched man sighed, and looked over into the blue waters of the lake, as if he were tempted to throw himself into their calm depths and thus end his woes. But watchful eyes were upon him and active hands would have defeated any such attempt.
Running Water made no objection to Buffalo Bill and his companions returning with them to the village.
He said, indeed, that they would be quite welcome, and would be at liberty to depart whenever they chose; but he warned them that they must not attempt to interfere in any way with the course of justice, or he would not be answerable for the consequences.
Of course the chief did not use exactly this language, but he contrived by words and signs to express himself in that way.
Running Water, who had waited with perfect composure and patience while the white men were discussing among themselves, now began the signal for starting to his own men.
The little fleet of canoes began to glide swiftly forward in the direction of the Indian village, followed more leisurely by the heavier boats of the white party, which was soon left far behind, and to which the prisoner continued to look eagerly back. He feared, indeed, that his friends, finding themselves so entirely at liberty, might change their minds and desert him, after all.
This fear of his, indeed, was not by any means unreasonable or without justification.
When the Indian canoes had got some distance ahead, one of the men in the white party stopped rowing at his oar, and said:
“What’s the use of going on? We can’t save that poor fellow, and we shall only run ourselves into danger, and the women, too.”
“We can’t abandon him now,” replied Cody. “We gave him our promise and we can’t go back on it. We should be disgraced for life if we did.”
“It’s no use for us to indulge in any hope, or to promise what we cannot do—and shall not attempt,” was the blunt retort.
“We certainly shall attempt it,” said Cody, with a dangerous gleam in his eye, as he drew out of his belt one of the few pistols possessed by the party, which had been confided to his care.
He did not level it at the man, but the latter read his meaning plainly enough, and quailed visibly.
“We must stand by our own comrade to the last,” Buffalo Bill went on quietly. “Pick up that oar and go on rowing.”
The man obeyed without a word.
It was after sunset when the white party reached the Indian village, where the red men had preceded them with their prisoner, and the former had not the opportunity of witnessing the first reception of the mournful news by the women and children of the tribe.
But the commotion was very great when they arrived. The squaws were screaming and chattering, and one, the widow of the deceased warrior, was sitting beside his corpse on the grass, her head entirely enveloped in her blanket, rocking herself to and fro, and now and then emitting a wail of grief which seemed quite as genuine and intense as those which bereavement everywhere elicits in the world of civilization.
There was a lad of apparently eighteen or nineteen years, and two olive-skinned girls of about twelve and fourteen, children of the slain man, who hovered about the mother, and who, although they gave way now and then to passionate cries of grief, seemed chiefly bent on comforting her.
The son, indeed, mingled his words of consolation to his remaining parent with the promise that on the morrow she should herself see her husband’s murderer immolated beneath the clubs of their people, or burned at the glowing pile.
But in this he was doubtless influenced more by his education than by the promptings of his nature, for he was mild and placid in demeanor, and as yet no baleful look of hatred or revenge gleamed in his dark eyes.
Buffalo Bill and Captain Meinhold gathered some encouragement from these appearances, but they soon learned from Running Water that there was no ground for hope.
Even if the wife and children of the slain man should prove lenient, he had a brother and father, who would both be implacable, and indeed most of the small band could claim some affinity to the deceased, and had a right to insist on their revenge.
The council sat in the evening. It was short, and its decision was unanimous, not even Running Water raising his voice in behalf of the man who had so grossly wronged his people.
Hare was condemned to death, with the privilege of running the gantlet if he chose and taking the slight chance of escape which it offered him.
In other words, he was to be burned at the stake in the first place, or he was to run for his life between two files of men and women—composing all the tribe—armed with clubs, who were to stand facing each other, and were to strike at him as he went past.
No firearms or knives were to be used upon him, and if he passed unharmed through the files, he was to have his liberty; but if he were knocked down or disabled, he was to be taken at once to the stake and burned.
“How much chance of escape did this process offer?” Cody inquired of the chief, though he knew well how little it offered.
When made to comprehend the question, Running Water replied in substance that a strong, active warrior, who was accustomed to ruses and feints, who could dodge, and dive, and leap like a fox, and who could stand up under heavy blows, might possibly get through safely. There would be one chance in ten for him.
“But how would it be with the present prisoner?” the border king inquired, again. “What was his chance?”
“Much little,” replied the chief, smiling faintly; “’bout half of nothing at all. He no get past six squaws. He much too scare!”
Poor Hare had been tightly bound with bearskin thongs, and thrown down at the foot of a tree, where a single guard kept watch over him, but he had been provided with food, and his friends were permitted to communicate freely with him. From them he received the tidings of his doom.
He listened at first with some gleam of hope, but this soon vanished when he learned the full program of the scene to be enacted.
The women and large boys were to be placed first in the line—the oldest and least skillful of the men next, while the far end of this valley of death was to be composed of the best braves of the tribe, to whom it would be a lasting disgrace to allow the panting fugitive to get past them.
“I’ve a mind to refuse it,” said Hare, with a groan. “It’s only for their sport, as a cat plays with a mouse, which it is sure to destroy at last. But they may kill me with a blow, and that will be better than burning. No, I’ll run! At what time is it to be?”
“Soon after breakfast, and we are to have breakfast at sunrise,” Cody told him. “Try to get a good night’s sleep, and that will strengthen you for the task.”
“Yes, I shall probably sleep well and have pleasant dreams,” said the prisoner bitterly.
“You may. Such things have been. And then in the morning I will see that you have a good breakfast; and, if you wish, some brandy to give you courage, for I have some still left in my flask. Come, cheer up, and make an effort for your life!”
“Thank you, Cody. You would make a man hope under the descending guillotine, I believe. Well, I will try. But I cannot sleep yet. I want to write to my poor wife and father first. I have a pencil and some old letters which I can cross, and you, perhaps, can obtain for me the freedom of my right hand for an hour. At least, I know you will try.”
Buffalo Bill obtained this favor and others for the prisoner. His bands were all so far loosened that they might not give him pain, and he was removed into one of the huts for the night and was furnished with a bed of boughs.
Still, he was watched all night long, closely and ceaselessly, not by one man now, but by two, who stood motionless at the two ends of his couch.
His eyes closed at last, and, after long waiting, he sank into a troubled sleep, but he still saw the motionless sentries in dreams, and he woke many times ere morning to behold them, still and statuesque—but always facing each other, and always facing him.
But he could have done nothing toward escape if they had been less vigilant, for his ankles were bound together and his arms were pinioned to his sides.
Buffalo Bill’s sympathy for the young man was extreme. He could not bear to give him up, but he had to consider the women first. Yet he spent a considerable portion of the night in talking with the patient chief, and trying to induce a change of action; but as Running Water was evidently acting on principle, and not from passion, the chance of winning him over to the side of mercy was very slight.
Nor would it do any good, he said, for him to urge the prisoner’s release, while by such a course he would only render himself unpopular and aid the pretensions of a rival claimant to his station without effecting the end in view.
He had no right to command them contrary to their well-established customs, which would seem to be equivalent to the common law of civilized lands.
“But will you let me talk to them all together in the morning, and try to persuade them?” Buffalo Bill urged.
“Yes,” Running Water promised. He would at least do that.
“And will you say to them in your own tongue the words that I speak to them in English, so that they will understand me?”
Buffalo Bill did not understand the dialect spoken by the chief.
Running Water agreed that he would do that, so far as he could. It was very hard for him to understand his white friend, or to make himself understood by him. It was “slow talk,” he said, and “much fog.”
“Let me tell you then, now, part of what I want said to them.”
The chief nodded.
“A man has a right to kill his enemy in order to save his own life, has he not?”
With some difficulty, the Sioux was made to understand this proposition, but when he did he heartily assented to it.
“This white man whom you have made prisoner thought that you had come to kill us.”
“Uh! No—no! No business t’ink dat.”
“No matter. He did think it. He was foolish, I admit; but——”
“Much fool!”
“Yes—but not much bad. He’s a good man at heart. He’s very sorry. It was a mistake. You will tell them this?”
“Yes—me tell um. But no good. The brave, Strong Arm, is dead. See?”
The chief pointed to the corpse, which still lay unsheltered and watched by the faithful widow.
“Was that his name?”
“Yes. But he no strong now. A-a-a-a-h!”
Something like a wail escaped from the chieftain’s lips, and he shook his head angrily.
“But you will tell them?”
“Yes.”
“Tell them that the white man thought he was defending his life?”
“Yes—him fool!”
“You need not say that. You will speak for me. You will use my tongue. Do you understand?”
“Yes. My white brother is right.”
“Tell them that the white man’s God is the same as the red man’s Great Spirit—that He is up there looking down on all of us now.”
Running Water looked up to the sky, and bowed his head reverently.
“Yes,” he said. “Manitou there. Running Water hear Him thunder—Running Water see His fire in the sky many times. But he not think Manitou was the white man’s God.”
“There is but one God,” replied Cody. “He has ‘made of one blood all the nations of men.’”
“It may be so.”
“Will you tell them all this for me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell them also that many thousands of moons ago He sent His Son down out of the sky to teach all the people of the earth His will. Do you understand?”
The chief nodded his head. He had heard the story before, he said, when he visited a village of the Pawnees and listened to the words of a “white medicine man.” He did not know whether it was true or not, but some of the Pawnees had believed it.
“It is certainly true,” replied the border king. “We white men believe it. He healed the sick. He brought dead men to life. He walked on the great lake. He stilled the tempest. He made the winds and waves obey Him. Our fathers saw it long ago, and they have told us.”
“Good! He was a great man.”
“He was the son of the Great Spirit.”
Running Water bowed his head in reverence.
“He told us what was His will, and what we must do to be happy after death, when we go to the land of spirits. He said we must forgive our enemies and do good to them, and then the Great Spirit would forgive us and make us happy in His hunting grounds. Do you understand all this?”
Running Water seemed greatly interested, although a look of indignation and scorn crossed his features when his companion spoke of forgiving his enemies. That was utterly opposed to all he had been taught, from his youth up, though not to his natural disposition. But the look passed, and to the last question he replied quickly:
“We un’stand little. Not too much. My white brother may speak um again.”
Buffalo Bill did so, telling the story over and over again.
Running Water listened very attentively, and promised to report this strange tale to his people in the morning.
“Are you sure, my brother,” he asked, “that the son of the Great Spirit walked on the top of the water?”
“Yes.”
“And made the wind go back and the waves fall down flat?”
“Yes.”
“And made dead men live again?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Me tell my people. Let my brother sleep now. It is late.”
The prisoner was awakened early, and had the bonds removed from his arms and ankles, so that his limbs might recover their natural vigor before the hour of the dreadful ordeal appointed for him.
His friends found him utterly despondent, and Buffalo Bill, who was first at his side, said nothing of his last interview with Running Water, or of the promised conference of the morning. He did not wish to arouse hopes which might be doomed to disappointment.
“I know it will be useless for me to run,” the captive said, “and I am resolved not to attempt it, save on one condition.”
“What is that?”
“Let me have that loaded revolver,” the man whispered. “Smuggle it to me somehow, so that none of these guards will see it.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Use it on myself in case of failure in the lines. It will save me from the stake. Otherwise, they may as well burn me first as last, and I will at least escape the additional torture of running the gantlet.”
The unfortunate man had begged repeatedly for the weapon before, when his friends visited him, and they had refused to give it to him.
But, as he now seemed resolute in his present determination, Captain Meinhold promised to give it to him, on his word of honor that he would not make use of it except in the last extremity—not until the fagots around him were fired, or some equivalent torture was begun.
Buffalo Bill, Meinhold, and the other men had debated long and earnestly together as to the course they should take if things came to the worst with Hare; and they had found it very hard to arrive at a decision.
Their natural impulse, being all brave men, was to die in his defense, ineffectual as a fight would undoubtedly be.
But they had to think first of the women in the party. If necessary, Hare must be sacrificed for their sake. In the event of a fight, the chances were a hundred to one that they would spend their lives as the squaws of Indian braves.
Captain Meinhold exhorted Hare to do his best in running the gantlet, reminding him that there was a chance of escape if he was vigilant and active.
“Well, captain, I will try,” the doomed man replied. “I will do my best, if I have this pistol as a last resort.”
“You shall have it.”
“How am I to get it?”
“It is in my pocket. I will find an opportunity, in a few minutes, to give it to you when these men are not looking. Then you can take it up and secrete it about you. As you have already been searched, they will probably not trouble to look you over again.”
Hare was supplied with an early and good breakfast—a repast which he would have enjoyed but for the doom which awaited him, and which was now so close at hand.
As it was, he ate pretty heartily, and while he was doing so the captain succeeded in giving him the pistol unobserved.
The rest of the white men and Congo breakfasted, as they had supped, unobserved.
The women of the party were served, by the orders of Running Water, by the women of the tribe.
Breakfast was over in the chief’s tepee about sunrise, and still earlier in the other lodges, so that when Running Water and his guests went forth, the bustle of preparations for the great event of the day was everywhere to be seen.
The women were running in and out of each other’s lodges, clamorous and merry. The children were playing heartily, with whoop and shout, for they were anticipating a gala day as inspiriting to them as the Fourth of July to our own boys. Here and there, a brave, with his war paint on, might be seen hurrying about the village with all the important air of a militia officer on training day.
Outside of the village, on the edge of the timber, two rows of larger boys and girls were playing a mimic game of running the gantlet.
They rehearsed it with great accuracy, excepting that they were very careful not to hit the seemingly frightened fugitive at whom their blows were aimed with apparent fury.
Had not a loud laugh pealed out now and then from the two ranks, and been echoed by the runner himself, the scene might have seemed as real as the terrible one shortly to be enacted by the braves.
Running Water did not require to be reminded of his promise to the king of the scouts. He called a hasty and informal council of his warriors in front of his own lodge. They came to it rather wonderingly, and some of them were a bit surly, for they did not wish their sport to be deferred by talking.
He told them that their white brethren had something to say to them, but he was interrupted by derisive cries, and by inquiries whether the palefaces could not talk as well to them later on, when the great business of the day was over.
A tall, sinewy brave strode forward. His face bore an expression of courage and daring, but was savage and cruel even beyond that of any of his fellows.
Over his head and shoulders he wore the skin of a large black panther, with the head and its grinning teeth still preserved. He had slain the animal in a hand-to-hand fight with a knife. This deed had won him the respect of his comrades, more than all his other achievements in war and hunting; for the black panther is a foe which some hunters regard as even more terrible than the grizzly bear.
He had been named Black Panther in honor of the deed. Besides being such a distinguished warrior, he was the orator of the tribe. He aspired to the chieftainship of that band of the Sioux nation over which Running Water ruled, but as he had not been able to get it he had left the band and gone to dwell with another. He had returned on a brief visit to his brother shortly before Congo came to the village.
Standing right in front of the chief, with his right arm upraised impressively, Black Panther said:
“Do the palefaces wish to pay for the blood of Strong Arm? How much will they give? The big fire canoe, that makes white the waters of the lake when it passes by, could not carry enough silver to pay for this great crime! The great lake itself could not wash out the sin of our brother’s blood from our hands, if we should accept money for it and let the paleface who slew him go free. Tell that to the palefaces.”
Running Water made no response. He recognized the force of the argument, and knew how it must appeal to the savage warriors, who were listening with intense eagerness to Black Panther’s words.
Black Panther went on, his voice becoming more and more passionate with every sentence:
“What do we want of their shining silver? We cannot use it. We are already rich in the things that we need. The forests, the lake, and the prairies are ours. We draw from them all that we want, and more—for we had abundance to give to the hungry palefaces who came begging to us, and then repaid our kindness by killing one of our best warriors.
“They ought all to die, and, if Black Panther had his way, they should. The ghost of Strong Arm is unappeased, and his widow and children weep over his body and cry out for vengeance. They look reproachfully upon us.
“They ask, ‘Why tarries the avenger? Why are the brethren and friends of the murderer protected—nay, more, even feasted in our lodges?’ It is not the part of a good chief, who should be the father of his people, to do this. Black Panther has spoken.”
Running Water looked angry at the last reference to himself, but kept his temper. He had been thoroughly won over by Buffalo Bill, and was determined to save Hare’s life, if he could do so. He knew very well that a quarrel would not help matters, but would probably destroy the last chance.
The speech of Black Panther was applauded by many of the warriors and by all the women. The chief, who looked much disturbed, translated it to the whites in English.
Buffalo Bill, who had been warned against making any offer of money for Hare’s life, spoke earnestly with the chief, and told him that he must impress on the warriors, as strongly as he could, that no such offer had been made by any of the palefaces—that they appealed for the release of the captive upon higher grounds.
Then he repeated what he had said on the previous night, and Running Water translated it, as well as he could, sentence by sentence, to the assembled ring of braves.
At first some of the men were inclined to jeer, but they were soon all listening attentively, although it was plain that many of them strongly disagreed with what was being said.
A long consultation ensued between the Indians, ten or twelve of them speaking in turn, slowly and seemingly without passion. Only by an occasional gleam in their eyes could the white men guess how powerfully they were moved.
The chief remained silent until all who wished to speak had finished. Doubtless he wanted to allow time for the effect of Black Panther’s vigorous speech to abate.
At last he arose, with much dignity, and spoke for about five minutes in a slow but earnest way, with not a little emphasis and many gestures.
There were some nods of approval at his remarks, but no other manifestations of applause or agreement were made.
When he had finished, he turned toward Buffalo Bill and shook his head dubiously.
“What will they do?” asked the border king and Meinhold, in the same breath.
“Bad—bad!” replied the chief. “They must go with Black Panther. So it look. But we see soon. They count how many one side—how many other.”