The Watchers of the Plains Part 10

"Hah!" Then the Indian said slowly with an a.s.sumed indifference, "She will be his squaw. This white brave."

"That is how they say." It might have puzzled Nevil to apply names to those represented by "they." "He is a great brave, truly. He fought for her. He killed your father. That is how these things go. She is for him surely."

A frown had settled on the fierce young chief's face.

"My father was old," he said.

Nevil glanced at the speaker out of the corner of his eyes, and then continued his watch on the flame still struggling so ardently to devour the half-green wood. He knew when to hold his tongue.

"Yes," the young man went on. "My father was a wise chief, but he was old--too old. Why did he keep the white girl alive?"

"He took her for you. You only had fifteen summers. The white girl had eleven or thereabouts. He was wise. It was good med'cine."

Then the chief stirred himself. And Nevil, who lost no movement on the other's part, detected the restless action of one who chafes under his thought. Little Black Fox prefixed his next remark with another short laugh.

"My people love peace now. It is good. So good that your people come and teach us. They show our squaws how to make things like the white squaws make. And the papooses forget our tongue, and they make words out of strange drawings which the white med'cine man makes on a board. Tchah! We forget our fathers. We feed when your people give us food, and our young men are made to plough. We only hunt when we are told to hunt. Our life is easy, but it is not a brave's life."

Nevil nodded, and chose his reply carefully.

"So," he said, "it is a life of ease. You choose your life. And naturally you choose a life where you have all you want, and do not have to trouble.

After all, what is the old life? A life of much danger, and little ease.

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

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

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

"You have no squaw to do that," observed Nevil, bending over and pus.h.i.+ng the fire together.

"No."

"You are chief. You should have many."

"Yes."

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

"I do not want them--yet."

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

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

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

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

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

He looked up now, and his words came thoughtfully.

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

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

CHAPTER VIII

SETH WASHES A HANDKERCHIEF

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

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

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

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

"Goin'?" he asked indifferently. Seth was not a profitable customer.

"Yes."

"Home?"

"No. So long."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes," he said, in answer to a question the white man had put. "I find it after much time. Sa-sa-mai, my squaw. She find it from old brave. See you.

Big Wolf and all the braves who come out this way, you make much shoot.

So. They all kill. 'Cep' this one ol' brave. He live quiet an' say nothing. Why? I not say. Some one tell him say nothing. See? This Big Wolf. Before you kill him maybe. So he not say. Bimeby Sa-sa-mai, she much 'cute. She talk ol' brave. Him very ol'. So she learn, an' I go. I show you. You give me fi' dollar, then I, too, say nothing."