The Great Sioux Trail Part 27

The wind rose all the time, as if it were determined to blow away the side of the mountain, and it howled and shrieked over their heads in all the keys of terror. None of them could sleep for a long time.

"It's real skeery," said the Little Giant. "Mebbe n.o.body hez ever been up here so high before, an' this old giant of a mountain don't like our settin' here on his neck. I've seen a lot o' the big peaks in the Rockies, w'arin' thar white hats o' snow, an' they allers 'pear to me to be alive, lookin' down so solemn an' sometimes so threatenin'. Hark to that, will you! I know it wuz jest the screamin' o' the wind, but it sounded to me like the howlin' o' a thousand demons. Are you sh.o.r.e, young William, that thar ain't imps an' critters o' that kind on the tops o' high mountings, waitin' fur innocent fellers like us?"

Will slept at last, but the mind that can remain troubled and uneasy through sleep awoke him several times in the course of the night, and always he heard the fierce, threatening blasts shrieking and howling over the mountain. His eyes yet heavy with sleep, it seemed to him in spite of himself that there must be something in the Little Giant's suggestion that imps and demons on the great peaks resented their presence. He knew that it could not be true, but he felt as if it were, and once he rose all swathed in many garments and stroked the noses of the horses and mules, which were moving uneasily and showing other signs of alarm.

Dawn came, clear, with the wind not so high, but icily cold. They fed the last of the little store of hay to the animals, ate cold food themselves, and then crept out of the canyon, leading their horses and mules with the most extreme care, a care that nevertheless would have been in vain had not all the beasts been trained to mountain climbing.

It was a most perilous day, but the next night found them so far down on the western slope of the White Dome that they had reached the timber line again.

The trees were dwarfed and scraggly, but they were trees just the same, affording shelter from wind and cold, and fuel for a fire, which the travelers built, providing themselves once more with warm food and coffee as sizzling hot as they could stand it. The animals found a little solace for their hunger by chewing on the tenderest parts of the bushes.

After the meal they built the fire higher, deciding that they would watch by turns and keep it going through the night. As the wind was not so threatening and the glow of the coals was cheerful they slept well, in their turns, and all felt fresh and vigorous when they renewed the journey the next morning. They descended rapidly now among the lower ranges of the mountains and came into heavy forests and gra.s.sy openings where the animals ate their fill. Game also was abundant, and they treated themselves to fresh deer meat, the product this time of Brady's rifle. They were all enveloped by a great sense of luxury and rest, and still having the feeling that time was their most abundant commodity, they lingered among the hills and in the timber, where there were clear, cold lakelets and brooks and creeks that later lost themselves on the plains.

It gave Will a great mental stimulus after so many dangers and such tremendous hards.h.i.+ps, the survival of which without a wound seemed incredible. He looked back at the vast peak of the White Dome, solemn and majestic, piercing the sky, and it seemed to him at times that it had been a living thing and that it had watched over them in their gigantic flight.

Despite the increased danger there from Indian raids they lingered longer than they had intended among the pleasant hills. The animals, which had been much worn in the pa.s.sage of the great mountains, and two that became lame in the descent recovered entirely. The Little Giant and the hunter scouted in wide circles, and, seeing no sign of Indian bands, most of their apprehension on that score disappeared, leaving to them a certain sense of luxury as they delayed among the trees, and in the pleasant hills. Will caught some fine trout in one of the larger brooks, and Brady cooked them with extraordinary culinary skill. The lad had never tasted anything finer.

"Come here, young William," said the Little Giant, "an' stand up by the side o' me. No, you haven't grown a foot in height, since I met you, so many days since, but you've grown jest the same. Your chest is bigger, too, an' you eat twice ez much ez you did. I hope that what's inside your head hez done growed too."

"Thomas Bent," said Brady, "you should not talk in such a manner about what's inside his head to the one who is the real leader of this expedition, as the mine is his. He might be insulted, cast you off, and let you go eat corn husks with the prodigal son."

"No, he won't," replied the Little Giant, confidently. "Will, hevin'

done tuk me in ez pardner, would never want to put me out ag'in, nor thar ain't no corn husks nor no prodigal son. Besides, he likes fur me to compliment him on his growth. You're older than I am, Steve Brady, but I want to tell you that the man or woman wuz never born who didn't like a little well-placed flattery now an' then, though what I've been sayin' to young William ain't flattery."

"In that matter I'm agreeing with you, Thomas Bent. You're dipping from a well of truth, when you're saying all men are accessible to flattery--and all women too, though perhaps more so."

"Mebbe women are more so an' mebbe men are more so. I reckon it depends on whether a man or woman is tellin' it."

"Which is as near as we'll ever come to a decision," said Brady, "but of one thing I'm sure."

"What's that, Steve?"

"We've dallied long enough with the flesh pots of Egypt. If William will take his gla.s.ses he can see the land of Canaan outspread far below us.

It is there that we must go."

"An' that thar land o' Canaan," said the Little Giant, "is rid over by Sioux warriors, ready to shoot us with rifles or stick us through with lances. I'd hate to die hangin' on a Sioux lance. Sech a death makes me s.h.i.+ver. Ef I've got to die a violent death, give me a good, honest bullet ev'ry time. You hevn't seen the Sioux at work with lances, hev you, young William?"

"No, Tom."

"Well, I hev. They fight with 'em, o' course, an' they hev a whole code o' signals with 'em, too. In battle everybody must obey the head chief, who gives the orders to the sub-chiefs, who then direct their men accordin'. Often thar ain't a chance to tell by words an' then they use the lances fur signallin'. In a Sioux army, an', fur the matter o' that, in any Indian army, the hoss Indians is divided into two columns, the right an' the left. When the battle comes on, the head war chief rides to the top o' a ridge or hill, gen'ally 'bout half a mile 'way from the sc.r.a.p. The columns on the right an' the left are led by the under chiefs.

"Then the big chief begins to tell 'em things with his lance. He ain't goin' to fight with that lance, an' fur other purposes he hez fastened on it near the blade a big piece o' dressed skin a yard squar' an'

painted black. Now he stretches the lance straight out in front o' him an' waves it, which means fur both columns to attack all at once an'

right away, lickety-split. Ef he stretches the lance out to his right and waves it forward it means fur the right column alone to jump inter the middle o' things, the same movement on the left applyin' to the left column, an' thar's a lot more which I could tell you 'bout lance signallin' which I hope you won't hev to see."

"We will not disguise from ourselves," said Brady, in his usual grave tone, "that we must confront peril when we descend into the plains, yet descend we must, because these mountains and hills won't go on with us.

It will be a long time before we strike another high range. On the plains we've got to think of Indians, and then we've got to look out for water, too."

"Our march often makes me think of Xenophon, whom I studied in the high school," said Will.

"What's Xenophon?" asked the Little Giant suspiciously. "I ain't heard o' no sich country."

"Xenophon is not a country. Xenophon was a man, and a good deal of a man. He led a lot of Greeks, along with a lot of Persians, to help a Persian overthrow his brother and seize the throne of the Persian empire. In the battle the Greeks were victorious wherever they were fighting, but the Persian whom they were supporting was killed, and having no more business there they concluded to go away."

"Lost their paymaster, eh?"

"Well, I suppose you could put it that way. Anyway they resolved to go back to their homes in Greece, across mountains, rivers and deserts.

Xenophon, who led them, wrote the account of it."

"Then I'll bet that Xenophon looms up pretty big in the tellin' o' it."

"No, he was a modest man, Tom. But what I remember best about the story, they were always marching so many parasangs, so many days' journey to a well of water. It gets to be a sort of fascination with you. You are always wondering how many parasangs they'll march before they come to water. And sometimes you've a kind of horrible fear that there won't be any water to come to, and it keeps you keyed up."

"Same ez ef you wuz in that sort o' condition yourself."

"Something like it."

"Well, mebbe we will be, an' jest you remember, young William, since them Greeks allers come to water, else Xenophon who led them never would hev lived fur the tellin' o' it, that we'll allers come to water, too, even of we do hev to wait a week or two fur it. Cur'us how long you kin live after your tongue hez baked, your throat hez turned to an oven, an'

your lips hev curled up with the heat."

"I imagine, Tom," said Boyd, "we're not going to suffer like that."

"I jest wanted to let young William know the worst fust an' he kin fortify himself accordin'."

"I'm prepared to suffer what the rest of you suffer," said the lad.

"The right spirit," said Brady, heartily. "We'll be Davids and Jonathans, cleaving the one unto the other, and now, as we're about to emerge from the last bit of forest I suggest that we fill all our water bottles from this brook among the trees. Thomas has talked so feelingly about thirst that I want to provide against it. We will not strike here the deserts that are to be found in the far south, but we may well have long periods without water free from alkali."

They had many leather water bottles, their packs having been prepared with all the skill of experience and sound judgment, and they filled all of them at the brook, which was pure and cold, flowing down from the mountains. At one of the deeper pools which had a fine bottom of gravel they bathed thoroughly, and afterward let the horses and mules wade into the water and take plunges they seemed to enjoy greatly.

"An' now," said the Little Giant, taking off his hat and looking back, "good-bye trees, good-bye hills, good-bye, high mountains, good-bye all clear, cold streams like this, an' good-bye, you grand White Dome. Say them words after me, young William, 'cause when we git out on the great plains we're likely to miss these friends o' ourn."

He spoke with evident feeling, and Will, taking off his hat, said the words after him, though with more regard to grammar.

"And now, after leading them most of the way," said Boyd, "we'll ride on the backs of our horses."

The four mounted, and, while they regretted the woods and the running water they were about to leave behind them, they were glad to ride once more, and they felt the freedom and exhilaration that would come with the swift, easy motion of their horses. The pack animals, knowing the hands that fed and protected them, would follow with certainty close behind them, and Will, in particular, could lead them as if he had been training them for years.

The vast sweep of the plains into which they now emerged showed great natural beauty, that is, to those who loved freedom and s.p.a.ce, and the winds came untarnished a thousand miles. Before them stretched the country, not flat, but in swell on swell, tinted a delicate green, and with wild flowers growing in the tufts of gra.s.s.

"I've roamed over 'em for years," said Brady, "and after a while they take a mighty grip on you. It may be all the stronger for me, because I'm somewhat solitary by nature."

"You're sh.o.r.ely not troubled by neighbors out here," said the Little Giant. "I've pa.s.sed three or four months at a time in the mountings without a soul to speak to but myself. The great West suits a man, who don't want to talk, clean down to the groun'."

Will, the reins lying upon the pommel of his saddle, was surveying the horizon with the powerful gla.s.ses which he was so proud to possess, and far in the southeast he noticed a dim blur which did not seem to be a natural part of the plain. It grew as he watched it, a.s.suming the shape of a cloud that moved westward along one side of a triangle, while the four were riding along the other side. If they did not veer from their course they would meet, in time, and the cloud, seemingly of dust, was, therefore, a matter of living interest.

"What are you looking at so long?" asked Boyd.

"A cloud of dust that grows and grows and grows."