The Great Sioux Trail Part 33

"Wayaka may have a star," he said, "but it will be of no avail, because the stars of the Sioux, being so much the stronger, will overcome it."

"We shall see," replied the lad. Yet, despite all his brave bearing, his heart was faint within him. Heraka did not speak to him again, and by the same sort of mental telepathy he felt, after a while, that the chief had dropped away from his side, and had been replaced by the original warrior.

Although eyes were denied to him, for the present, all his other faculties became heightened as a consequence, and he began to use them.

He was sure that they were still traveling on the plains, so much dust rose, and now and then he coughed to clear it from his throat. But they were not advancing into the deeps of the great plains, because twice they crossed shallow streams, and on each occasion all the ponies were allowed to stop and drink.

Will knew that his own pony at the second stream drank eagerly, in fact, gulped down the water. Such zest in drinking showed that the creek was not alkaline, and hence he inferred that they could not be very far from hills, and perhaps from forest. He surmised that they were going either west or north. A growing coolness, by and by, indicated to him that twilight was coming. Upon the vast western plateau the nights were nearly always cold, whatever the day may have been.

Yet they went on another hour, and then he heard the voice of Heraka, raised in a tone of command, followed by a halt. An Indian unbound his feet and said something to him in Sioux, which he did not understand, but he knew what the action signified, and he swung off the pony. He was so stiff from the long ride that he fell to the ground, but he sprang up instantly when he heard a sneering laugh from one of the Indians.

"Bear in mind, Heraka," he said, "that I cannot see and so it was not so easy for me to balance myself. Even you, O chief, might have fallen."

"It is true," said Heraka. "Inmutanka, take the bandage from his eyes."

They were welcome words to Will, who had endured all the tortures of blindness without being blind. He felt the hands of the elderly Indian plucking at the bandage, and then it was drawn aside.

"Thank you, Dr. Inmutanka," he said, but for a few moments a dark veil was before his eyes. Then it drifted aside, and he saw that it was night, a night in which the figures around him appeared dimly. Heraka stood a few feet away, gazing at him maliciously, but during that long and terrible ride, the prisoner had taken several resolutions, and first of them was to appear always bold and hardy among the Indians. He stretched his arms and legs to restore the circulation, and also took a few steps back and forth.

He saw that they were in a small open s.p.a.ce, surrounded by low bushes and he surmised that there was a pool just beyond the bushes as he heard the ponies drinking and gurgling their satisfaction.

"The ride has been long and hard," he said to Heraka, "and I am now ready to eat and drink. Bid some warrior bring me food and water."

Then he sat down and rejoiced in the use of his eyes. Had they been faced by a dazzling light when the bandage was taken off he might not have been able to see for a little while, but the darkness was tender and soothing. Gradually he was able to see all the warriors at work making a camp, and Heraka, as if the captive's command had appealed to his sense of humor, had one man bring him an abundance of water in a gourd, and then, when a fire was lighted and deer and buffalo meat were broiled, he ate with the rest as much as he liked.

After supper Inmutanka replaced with a fresh one the bandage upon his head, from which the pain had now departed. Will was really grateful.

"I want to tell you, Dr. Inmutanka," he said, "that there are worse physicians than you, where I come from."

The old Sioux understood his tone and smiled. Then all the Indians, most of them reclining on the earth, relapsed into silence. Will felt a curious kind of peace. A prisoner with an unknown and perhaps a terrible fate close at hand, the present alone, nevertheless, concerned him.

After so much hards.h.i.+p his body was comfortable. They had not rebound him, and they had even allowed him to walk once to the bushes, from which he could see beyond the clear pool at which the Indians had filled their gourds and from which the ponies drank.

One of these ponies, Heraka's own, was standing near, and Will with a pang saw bound to it his own fine repeating rifle, belt of cartridges and the leather case containing his field gla.s.ses. Heraka's look followed his and in the light of the fire the smile of the chief was so malicious that the great pulse in Will's throat beat hard with anger.

"They were yours once," said Heraka, "the great rifle that fires many times without reloading, the cartridges to fit, and the strong gla.s.ses that bring the far near. Now they are mine."

"They are yours for the present. I admit that," said the lad, "but I shall get them back again. Meanwhile, if you're willing, I'll go to sleep."

He thought it best to a.s.sume a perfect coolness, even if he did not feel it, and Heraka said that he might sleep, although they bound his arms and ankles again, loosely, however, so that he suffered no pain and but little inconvenience. He fell asleep almost at once, and did not awake until old Inmutanka aroused him at dawn.

After breakfast he was put on the pony again, blindfolded, and they rode all day long in a direction of which he was ignorant, but, as he believed, over low hills, and, as he knew, among bushes, because they often reached out and pulled at his legs. Nevertheless his sense of an infinite distance being created between him and his own world increased.

All this traveling through the dark was like widening a gulf. It had not distance only, but depth, and the weight it pressed upon him was c.u.mulative, making him feel that he had been riding in invisible regions for weeks, instead of two days.

Being deprived of his eyes for the time being, the other four primal senses again became more acute. He heard a wind blowing but it was not the free wind of the plains that meets no obstacle. Instead, it brought back to him a song that was made by the moving air playing softly upon leaf and bough. Hence, he inferred that they were still ascending, and had come into better watered regions where the bushes had grown to the height of trees now in full leaf.

Once they crossed a rather deep creek, and deliberately letting his foot drop down into it, he found the water quite cold, which was proof to him that they were going back toward the ridges, and that this current was chill, because it flowed from great heights, perhaps from a glacier.

They made no stop at noon, merely eating a little pemmican, Will's share being handed to him by Inmutanka. He ate it as he rode along still blindfolded.

The ponies, wiry and strong though they were, soon began to go much more slowly, and the captive was sure that the ascent was growing steeper. He was confirmed in this by the fact that the wind, although it was mid-afternoon, the hottest part of the day, had quite a touch of coolness. They must have been ascending steadily ever since they began the march.

He soon noticed another fact. The ears that had grown uncommonly acute discerned fewer hoofbeats about him. He was firm in the belief that the band had divided and to determine whether the chief was still with them, he said:

"Heraka, we're climbing the mountains. I know it by the wind among the leaves and the cool air."

"Wayaka is learning to see even though his eyes are shut," said the voice of the chief on his right.

"And a part of your force has left us. I count the hoofbeats, and they're not as many as they were before."

"You are right, the mind of Wayaka grows. Some day--if you live--you will know enough to be a warrior."

Will pondered these words and their bearing on his fate, and, being able to make nothing of them, he abandoned the subjective for the objective, seeking again with the four unsuppressed senses to observe the country through which they were pa.s.sing.

The next night was much like the one that had gone before. They did not stop until after twilight, and the darkness was heavier than usual. The camp was made in a forest, and the wind, now quite chill, rustled among the trees. Although the bandage was removed, Will could not see far in the darkness, but he was confident that high mountains were straight ahead.

A small brook furnished water for men and ponies, and the Indians built a big fire. They were now but eight in number. Inmutanka removed the last bandage from Will's head, which could now take care of itself, and as the Sioux permitted him to share on equal terms with themselves, he ate with a great appet.i.te. Heraka regarded him intently.

"Do you know where you are, Wayaka?" he asked.

"No," replied Will, carelessly, "I don't. Neither am I disturbed about it. You say that I shall never see my own people, but that is more than you or I or anyone else can possibly know."

A flicker of admiration appeared in the eyes of Heraka, but his voice was even and cold as he said:

"It is well that you have a light heart, because to-morrow will be as to-day to you, and the next day will be the same, and the next and many more."

The Sioux chief spoke the truth. They rode on for days, Will blindfolded in the day, his eyes free at night. He thought of himself as the Man in the Deerskin Mask, but much of the apprehension that must overtake the boldest at such a moment began to disappear, being replaced by an intense curiosity, all the greater because everything was shut from his eyes save in the dusk.

But he knew they were in high mountains, because the cold was great, and now and then he felt flurries of snow on his face, and at night he saw the loom of lofty peaks. But they did not treat him unkindly. Old Inmutanka threw a heavy fur robe over his shoulders, and when they camped they always built big fires, before which he slept, wrapped in blankets like the others.

Heraka said but little. Will heard him now and then giving a brief order to the warriors, but he scarcely ever spoke to the lad directly. Once in their mountain camp when the night was clear Will saw a vast panorama of ridges and peaks white with snow, and he realized with a sudden and overwhelming sinking of the heart that he was in very truth and fact lost to his world, and as the Sioux chief had threatened, he might never again look upon a white face save his own. It was a terrifying thought.

Sometimes when he awoke in the night the cold chill that he felt was not from the air. His arms were always bound when he lay down between the blankets and, once or twice, he tried to pull them free, but he knew while he was making it that the effort was vain and, even were it successful and the thongs were loosened, he could not escape.

At the end of about a week they descended rapidly. The air grew warmer, the snow flurries no longer struck him in the face and the odors of forest, heavy and green, came to his nostrils. One morning they did not put the bandage upon his face and he looked forth upon a wild world of hills and woods and knew it not, nor did he know what barrier of time and s.p.a.ce shut him from his own people.

CHAPTER XII

THE CAPTIVE'S RISE

Will did not know just how long they had been traveling, having lost count of the days, but he knew they had come an immense distance, perhaps a thousand miles, maybe more, because the hardy Indian ponies always went at a good pace, and he felt that the distance between him and every white settlement must be vast.

The sun at first hurt the eyes that had been bandaged so long in daylight, but as the optic nerves grew less sensitive and they could take in all the splendor of the world, he had never before seen it so beautiful. He was like one really and truly blind for years who had suddenly recovered his sight. Everything was magnified, made more vivid, more intense, and his joy, captive though he was, was so keen that he could not keep from showing it.

"You find it pleasant to live," said Heraka.

"Yes," replied the lad frankly, "I don't mind admitting to you that I like living. And I like seeing, too, in the bright suns.h.i.+ne, when I've been so long without it. You warned me, Heraka, that I would not know my fate, nor whence nor when it might come, but instinct tells me that it's not coming yet, and as one who can see again I mean to enjoy the bright days."

"Wayaka is but a youth. If he were older he would fear more."