John Ermine of the Yellowstone Part 6

As the sun westered, the two adventurers blinded their trail in the manner most convenient at the time; a thing not so difficult to do in the well-watered northwest as in the dry deserts of the south; besides which the buffalo-hunting, horse-using Indians were not the equals of the mountain foot brethren in following trails. After doing this they doubled and twisted back on their track. While the sun was yet bright they broiled their evening meat on a tiny fire of dry sticks. Blowing the tobacco smoke to the four corners of the earth, Wolf-Voice said: "We will be rich, brother, if the Sioux do not get a chance to dry our hair; the soldiers always make their scouts rich; there is plenty to eat in their wagons, and cartridges cost nothing. The soldiers always fight; they are like the gray bears,--they do not know any better,--and then is the time when we must watch close to get away before the Sioux have an advantage of them. They are fools and cannot run. They are tied to the ground. If you get a chance to carry the talking papers from one white chief to another, they pour the money into your blanket. I have never had a paper to carry, but I think they will give you one. If they do, brother, we will take the silver and get one of the white soldiers to buy us a bottle of whiskey from the sutler." And Wolf-Voice's malignant features relaxed into a peaceful state which made Ermine laugh outright.

A bottle of whiskey and ten thousand dead men--quite a difference, thought Ermine. "That is it--that is it," continued the musing white man to himself; "he goes to war for a bottle of whiskey, and I go for ten thousand men." His unframed thoughts wrestled and twisted, lined and rounded, the idea of ten thousand men; yet the idea never took a form which satisfied him. Ten thousand buffalo--yes, he had calculated their ma.s.s; he had seen them. Ten thousand trees--that, too, he could arrange; he had blocked them out on the mountain-side. But there were many times ten thousand men who had not been killed; that he gave up altogether.

Nothing had saved him but blind faith in his old comrade.

Leaving the mountains again, they stalked over the moon-lit land more like ghosts than men, and by day they lay so low that the crawling ants were their companions. By the Elk[8] River Wolf-Voice pointed to a long, light streak which pa.s.sed through the sage-brush: "Brother, that is the sign of the white men. The buffalo, when they pa.s.s once, do not make a deeper path than that, and, brother, what is that in the road which shows so bright?"

[8] Indian for Yellowstone.

Appropriating the gleaming thing, the Indian reached from his pony and picked it up, holding it close to his eyes for a moment before pa.s.sing it to his companion. "What is that, brother?"

Ermine examined it closely, turning it in the moonlight. "I do not know; it is a paper; I will keep it until daylight."

A few steps ahead was found another glistening article, dropped by the pa.s.sing soldiers. They knew what that was; it was the canteen, lost on the march, by a pony soldier. Wolf-Voice appropriated it.

"We must not stay here; the trail is old, but the Sioux will be near the soldiers. They are between us and the white men; you may be sure of that, brother," said one; and the four ponies stumbled off through the sage-brush, melting into the night.

They stopped for the day at the head of a rocky coulee, eating dried meat for fear of making a smoke. Ermine drew the paper from his pocket, laid it on the ground before him, and regarded it for a few moments; then he turned it round, seeing it was upside down by the writing on the bottom. "Bogardus," he read on the left-hand corner. The image on the card spread, opened, and flowered in Ermine's mind; it was a picture--that was plain now; it was a photograph such as he had heard Crooked-Bear tell about--an image from the sun. He had never seen one before. Wolf-Voice bent his beady eyes on the black and white thing, but it suggested nothing to him. Nature had not been black and white to his scarlet vision. The rude conventionalized lines painted on the buffalo-robes differentiated buffalo, ponies, and men, but this thing--"Humph!"--he lighted his pipe.

Before the persistent gaze of Ermine the face of a young woman unravelled itself from a wonderful headgear and an unknown frock. The eyes looked into his with a long, steady, and hypnotic gaze. The gentle face of the image fascinated the lad; it stirred his imagination and added "a beautiful white woman" to his "ten-thousand-dead-men" quest.

Wolf-Voice had to call him twice to take his watch, saying as he lay down, "Put the paper away, brother; it takes your eyes from the Sioux."

The travellers could not make long journeys in the short summer nights through the open country, and exercise a proper vigilance at the same time. The moon rose later every night, thus cutting their time. Neither did they see any signs of human beings or know where to find the white men; but recourse to the trail along the river, from time to time, a.s.sured them that the wagons had continued down the stream. The trail was very old, and was full of Indian pony-tracks which had followed it.

One day as they lay in a washout, Wolf-Voice pointed to columns of dust far to the south. Was it buffalo, Indians, or soldiers? The dust stayed all day in one place; it might be a buffalo-surround or big herds about camps, but this they were not able to determine.

"We will go to the dust this sleep and we will ride the war-horses; the others which we have been riding are stiff and sore; we will leave them here and come after them if we can," spoke Ermine as he braided the tail of his favorite pony. When Wolf-Voice's attention was directed elsewhere, he took his medicine, the dried hoof of the white stallion, and rubbed it gently on his pony's heels. The prophet would not approve of this, he felt, but it could do no harm, since he also prayed G.o.d to make his pony run fast and not stumble, to blind the Sioux, stop their ears, and otherwise to cherish appropriately the poor life of John Ermine who believed in Him and now wanted His help.

Slowly they made their way south through the gloom, trusting their range-bred ponies to pick out the footing. Hour after hour they stepped along, stopping at intervals to listen.

Late at night as they made their way down a long ridge, they heard a horse whinny somewhere far down in one of the breaks of the land.

Without a word they turned away from the noise. Later Wolf-Voice whispered: "Indians; the white men never let their horses loose in the night. That pony was alone, or we should have heard more sounds. He was calling his brothers. Now we must blind our trail; their scouts will find it in the morning."

Accordingly they allowed their horses to feed slowly along, not attempting to guide them, and after a mile felt that any one who should follow those tracks would think that they were loose horses grazing. By the light of the late moon they made their way more quickly, but always stopping to separate the sounds of the night--the good sounds from the bad. They could see that they were coming to the river, and as they rose on a wave of the land, they saw a few faint sparks glitter far down the valley.

"It is the white soldiers--the big fires of the white men, brother. We will go in when the sun comes up. If we should go near them now, they would fire at us. The white men shoot at anything which moves in the dark; a wolf is not safe near their camps when the sun has gone."

Before the gray of morning they were safely ensconced under a bluff, waiting for the daylight and within a mile of the long line of Sibley tents. They heard the hungry mule chorus, the clank of chains, the monotonous calls of the sentries; and the camp slowly developed before their eyes like a photographic negative in a bath of chemicals; then John Ermine began to understand ten thousand men.

Softly the metallic reveille drifted to their ears; it spread from one group of tents to another until the whole air danced with the delightful sound. The watchers on the sage-brush hillside were preoccupied with the movements of the soldiers. They listened to the trumpets and saw the men answer them by forming long lines. In a moment the lines broke into hurrying individuals, the fires began to send up the quiet morning smoke, while the mule chorus ceased.

As though shot out of the ground by some hidden force, Wolf-Voice bounded up. "G---- d----! Mit-wit![9] Coo-ley!"[10] he yelled, and as responsive as a swallow which follows the swift flight of another in play, Ermine bounded on to his horse. One look behind told the story.

The Sioux were coming. He saw the lightning play of the ponies' legs, heard the whips crack on their quarters, and was away like a flash, bearing hard on the soldier camp. Before many bounds he recovered from his surprise; it was not far, and his horse was answering the medicine.

He had never run like this before. The Sioux had found and followed their trail and had nearly caught them napping. After their long journey they had almost been cut off during the last mile of it. Seeing that their prey had escaped, the Sioux swerved like hawks, pulling up on the hill.

[9] Get up!

[10] Run!

Turning, Wolf-Voice and Ermine shouted back taunts at them, fired their guns at the group, and then leisurely loped toward the camps. While yet quite a way out, three white soldiers rose suddenly from a dry wash with their rifles: "Halt! Who goes there?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'HALT! WHO GOES THERE?'"]

The riders drew down to a walk, Wolf-Voice raising his hand in the peace sign, and saying, "We are your frens, we aire two Crow Enjun; don'

shoot!" and continued to advance.

The soldiers stood with their guns in readiness, while one answered: "Get off them ponies; lay your guns on the ground. I guess you are all right." And then, looking at Ermine with a laugh: "Is that blonde there a Crow? Guess them Sioux scared him white. I've often heard tell of a man's hair turning white in a single night."

"Ach sure, Bill, and it don't tourn a mon's face red to be schared sthiff," observed another picket.

The faintest suggestion of a smile stole over John Ermine as he comprehended.

"No, soldiers, we are not afraid. Why can't you let two men go into the big camp; are all those soldiers afraid of two men?" And the pickets laughed at the quaint conjecture. Shortly an officer rode up on a horse and questioned Ermine.

"Who are you?"

"We are friends of the white people. Did you see that we are not friends of the Sioux?"

"Yes; I saw those Indians chase you. Were they Sioux?"

"We took that for granted." And again the corner of John Ermine's mouth relaxed.

"Yes, of course, I admire your judgment; come with me," replied the officer, as he turned to ride back. The three ambled along together.

"Who are you?"

"I am a white man, and my comrade is an Indian."

"What is your name?"

"My name is John Ermine, and I want to be a scout. Will you take me?"

"That is not my business; but I have no doubt the proper authority will be glad to put you on the pay-roll. You don't seem any more popular with the Sioux than we are."

CHAPTER IX

[Ill.u.s.tration]

IN CAMP

The three hors.e.m.e.n jogged into camp, and it can hardly be stated who was the more impressed by the sight--John Ermine as he pa.s.sed through the crowds of soldiers, or the soldiers as they looked at the bare-backed rider with the yellow braids and the glaring handkerchief. They had left their impedimenta with the worn-out ponies back in the hills with little hope of recovering them. The gathering men who had seen the chase gave tokens of their approval by yelling _Ki-yis_ in imitation of the Indians. "Say, Yellow, you're no brevet"--"You wa'n't crazy to wait for them Sioux"--"The general will feed you on mince-pie"--"You'll be a sergeant in the rag-bag troop," and other expressions numerous and 'uncooked' fell on their ears. Ermine felt embarra.s.sed with the attention of so many people centred on him, but his face was cut to stand such shocks. His swift glances about the thronging camp began to illumine the "ten-thousand-men" proposition; he saw lines of tents, wagons without end, but no women; he would have to postpone that feast.

The officer leading stopped in front of a tent around which many officers and men were standing or coming and going. He spoke to one who wore a big hat and a split blond beard, a man less pretentious in his garb than any about him, but whose eye arrested Ermine by the commanding keenness. Dismounting, the officer, saluting, said: "General Crook, these two men were just chased into camp by Indians. They say they are Crows, or at least from the Crows, and they want to be made scouts."

"What Indians chased you?" asked the general.