The shadows lengthened steadily, but nobody brought us food. Now and then a man lounged over to test our bindings or look at us. Women and children who sought to stare at us further were importantly warned off by the adolescents of the herd-guard. The light was failing, too—so much so that I was surprised at feeling a cold muzzle thrust against my cheek. A delighted whinny greeted me.
I twisted my head around, and looked up into the quivering nostrils of a mottled stallion. He nuzzled me again, whinnying with every appearance of recognition, his white mane ruffling in pleasure. I spoke to him softly, and he buried his muzzle in my neck, pawing with his forehoof as though inviting me to rise and mount him. Yes, there was no doubt of it. He was Sunkawakan-kedeshka, the spotted horse, that I had tamed at Nadoweiswe's Teton village in the North before we first crossed the Sky Mountains.
"What is this, brother?" whispered Tawannears beside me.
I explained, and Kachina and Peter rolled closer to listen.
"Wah!" gasped the girl, when I had finished. "This god Hawenneyu is a great god! He has sent the horse to aid us to escape."
"How can that be?" I answered her peevishly. "We lie here bound and helpless. If the whole herd came and waited next the stallion we could not use them."
"Nevertheless, it is good medicine," insisted Tawannears. "My heart grows strong again."
"Ja," agreed Peter with more interest than he usually exhibited. "We hafe der middle of an egscape. If we get der first part——"
Sunkawakan-kedeshka's silken ears shot forward across my face. I heard the padding of moccasined feet.
"The herd-guard!" I exclaimed. "Remember, I am crying out in fear. The stallion is biting me."
And straightway I gave vent to a series of fearsome shrieks, at which the spotted stallion drew back in amazement, unable to understand the antics of the man he considered his friend. The youthful herdsman broke into a run, and Tawannears hailed him in a mixture of Dakota and Comanche phrases:
"Come quickly! Is this the way to treat captives? The horse is biting my white brother!"
The Comanche laughed, peering through the starlit darkness, and I noted with interest that as soon as he identified the horse he approached with marked caution.
"The spotted horse will give him an easier death than our warriors at the torture-stake," he exulted. "What are teeth and hoofs to the knife and fire? If I leave the horse he will soon make an end of the Taivo.* But to-morrow will tell another story. The Taivo will linger for hours, begging for the hatchet."
* White man.
"They say your father would dress you in women's garb and beat you with switches if any harm came to the Taivo before the Council decided his fate," said Tawannears sternly. "Mount the horse and ride him away."
"Mount the spotted horse!" returned the boy with derision. "Never! Not one of our warriors has been able to back him since we raided him from the Teton."
"No, for they are Comanches," sneered Tawannears.
The boy dealt him a lusty kick in the ribs, and drove off the stallion with thrusts of the light lance he carried. Hoofs sawing and teeth flashing, Sunkawakan-kedeshka gave me one look of regret, emitted a whinny of hurt inquiry and faded into the darkness.
"What do you mean, Peter, by the middle of an escape?" I whispered curiously as soon as the herd-guard was out of hearing.
"Der first part," answered the Dutchman, "is getting off der thongs. Dot we hafe to do. Der middle part is finding a way to leafe der village. Dot we hafe in der horse——"
"How?" demanded Tawannears.
"He is a king of horses," returned Peter placidly. "Hafe you forgot der lidtle band of mares he ledt at Nadoweiswe's village? What he does, der herd will do."
"'Tis true," I assented eagerly. "With him to aid us we could stampede the herd."
"But why talk of such things when we are helpless?" was Tawannears' gloomy comment.
"We are not helpless," interrupted Kachina.
She rolled herself over and over until she lay on her stomach close to Tawannears.
"The warrior who bound my wrists did not tie them so tight as yours," she explained. "I smiled at him, and I think he means to ask the Comanche chief to let him take me into his teepee—the ant! If he did I would kill him with his own knife. If your teeth are sharp as mine you can gnaw the knots loose. Then I will free the rest of you."
And as Tawannears hesitated in bewilderment at her suggestion, she continued:
"Hurry! The eagles are singing of victory in the sky. They say we shall defy the Comanche."
"Yes, yes," I pleaded. "Make haste, brother. The herd-guards may come again."
So Tawannears rolled himself into a position where he could bring his strong teeth—the teeth of a barbarian, exempt from white man's ills—to bear upon the girl's knotted wrists, triced in the small of her back just above the hips. And whilst he labored at the tough hide thongs, Peter and I kept watch for the return of the adolescent. Had he come we planned to give warning, and Kachina and Tawannears would have resumed their customary attitudes but we saw no more of him. I think he and his friends were taking turns sneaking into the village to listen outside the Council teepee to the debate of the warriors on our fate, and this meant more work for those watching the grazing horses. For twice I heard the distant whinny of Sunkawakan-kedeshka, evidently challenging my attention, and I suspect it required one boy's vigilance to restrict his wanderings, alone.
Time dragged slowly, and the Seneca's lips became slippery with blood from his torn gums. I took his place, and when I was worn out, Peter's heavy jaws assumed the burden. 'Twas he wrenched the last knot loose; but several moments passed before Kachina was able to restore the circulation in her hands. Then she unbound her ankles, and without waiting to rub her feet back to life, fell to upon our lashings. In ten minutes we were all four free, crawling—we could not have walked had we tried—toward the herd.
Our plan was simple. It had to be. We advanced until we could descry the figures of two of the herd-guards against the faint starlight, unkempt, naked striplings, lances wandlike in their right hands. On this, the village side, the task was easier, and so most of the guards were on the flanks and opposite to our position. Beyond the two guards was the restless mass of horses, some hundreds of them, grazing, fighting, rolling, sleeping.
Tawannears and I stripped off our shirts and breeches, and so assumed the general aspect of Comanche warriors, crawled back a short distance and then ran forward openly, as though we were carrying a message from the village. The two guards heard the patter of our moccasins and rode in to meet us, quite guileless, probably taking us for certain of their comrades. When they called to us, we answered with grunts, puffing mightily. They never suspected us. I was beside my man, had one hand on his thigh, before he guessed aught was wrong, and as he opened his mouth to cry a warning I had him by the throat and throttled the life out of him. His cry was no more than a gurgle in the night. Tawannears was even more expeditious.
To our left we heard another pair of guards talking together. They may have detected the choked cry of the one I killed. At any rate, we could not afford to pause to establish a plan for meeting them. Tawannears softly called up Kachina and Peter, and I rode into the herd, whistling for Sunkawakan-kedeshka. He answered me at once. A long-drawn-out whinny of delight, and he battered his way to my side with flying hoofs. I swung from the herd-guard's horse to his back, and trotted over to my friends.
"Quick, brother!" hissed Tawannears.
He pointed at two mounted figures that loomed perilously close. One of them hailed at that moment, mistaking me for a brother guard. I growled something indistinct in my throat, and heaved Kachina up in front of me, holding her in my arms and twisting my fingers in the stallion's mane in place of reins. He did not tremble under the extra weight, only tossed his head and wickered—much to my gratitude, for I was by no means sure how he would regard a double load, and I could not leave the girl by herself, considering she had never ridden before, nor to one of the others who were scarcely less ignorant of horsemanship.
Tawannears and Peter climbed gingerly on the horses of the slain guards, and we plunged into the center of the herd.
"Ha-yah-yah-yaaaa-aaa-aa-ah-hhh-yeeee-eee-ee!"
The war-whoop of the Long House split the silence of the night. I excited Sunkawakan-kedeshka to a frenzy. Tawannears and Peter thrust right and left with their captured lances. Half-tamed at best, these horses were restless of all restraint, and they reacted immediately to the turmoil. A shrill scream from the spotted stallion produced a chorus of responses. Mares fought to reach his side. Other stallions fought to keep them away. The herd went wild. Kicking, biting, neighing, screaming, it smashed aside the efforts of the herd guards to stop it and pelted southeast into the open prairie.
And in the midst of it my comrades swayed in their seats, in danger at any instant of being knocked to the ground. And Kachina and I clung desperately to the bare back of the stallion, his great muscles lifting him along at a stride which soon placed him in the fore of the stampede.
I saw one boy go down in the path of the mad rush, he and his mount trampled to a pulp. Others rode wide, shouting the alarm. The village behind us rocked to the thunder of hoofs; a cry of dismay rose to the stars that blinked in the dim vault overhead. Then teepees, herd-guards, warriors, trees and river were gone in the darkness. We were alone with our plunder on the prairie, all around us tossing heads and manes, flirting hoofs, lean barrels stretched close to the ground, tails flicking the grass-tips.
Mile after mile, the cavalcade pounded on, and I knew the discomforts my comrades must be suffering. But I could not stop. Nobody could have stopped that wild flight. I doubt if I could have stopped the spotted stallion in the first hour. All I could do was to grip him tight with my knees, cling to Kachina and pray he and his fellows would pick fair ground in the darkness.
It was near dawn when I judged there was a chance of success to stay the herd. I began with the stallion, calming him, soothing his nerves, and gradually, my influence extended to the horses surrounding him, mostly his attendant mares, as well as a few colts. No foals could have kept up with our rush. In fact, we had been dropping horses by the way for three hours or more. Those that were left were the hardiest, and their eyes were bloodshot, their flanks wet with foam, their lungs bursting. I slowed the troop to a canter, to a trot, Tawannears and Peters seconding me as well as they could. Finally, we pulled them to a walk, and induced them to graze.
I felt safe enough. We had traveled at a terrible pace, and the Comanche had no means of keeping up with us. Also, we were all exhausted, and I had designs for making use of our plunder which made me unwilling to founder the herd. So we sought shelter in a grove of trees, driving in there the stallion's immediate following, and permitting the other horses to graze at will, whilst we four slept through the forenoon.
Upon awaking, we killed a colt for food, taking pains to dispatch him in a part of the wood down-wind from his kind, and after eating I put into effect the plan I had designed to cover our future trail. Tawannears, Peter and I cut out of the ruck of the herd a score of the choicest ponies, which we drove into the wood to join Sunkawakan-kedeshka's cohort, guarded for the time being by Kachina. And this being done, we chased the remainder south, frightening them with bunches of burning grass. If the Comanches or others picked up our trail now they would be much more likely to follow the larger body, as was evidenced by the area of hoof-prints, and we might continue undisturbed upon our eastward journey, with a quantity of superfluous horseflesh to trade for weapons or food, besides a provision of mounts for ourselves to expedite our progress.
We left the grove at sunset and rode at a leisurely pace until the stars told us it was midnight, camping in the open close to a rivulet where there was ample grass and water for the horses. The next day we traveled as far as a second grove of trees on the banks of a considerable stream, which we concluded was the river we had followed eastward from the base of the Sky Mountains, and we made a halt of two days here to rest the herd and determine in our minds what our next step should be. I was all for continuing as we were, but Tawannears and Peter held that our wisest course was to cross the river and head north to the Dakota country, where we should be among friends and might be able to rely upon an escort to the Mississippi. But, as usual, fate intervened, and relieved us of the burden of the decision.
We were arguing back and forth on the afternoon of the second day, the horses grazing in the confines of the grove under the supervision of Kachina, who, with a little practice, had become as skilled a herd-guard as a shepherdess of turkeys, when we were disturbed by a call from her. She beckoned us to the bluff above the river.
"Strange people over there," she said, pointing.
The stream here was not more than a hundred or two hundred yards wide and in the clear air we could see the newcomers distinctly. They were plainly a returning war-party, travel-stained, badly cut-up, the worse for their adventures. Of sixty or more warriors within view ten or a dozen bore evidence of wounds. Their lances were broken. Their buffalo-hide shields were cut and hacked. But their horses were in the saddest plight of all. One lay down and died as we looked. Others could never move from where they stood.
Tawannears' eyes gleamed.
"Here is fresh favor from Hawenneyu," he exclaimed.
"How so!" I demanded.
"These people need horses. We need arms. We will make a trade with them."
"They look like very bad people," objected Kachina.
And in all truth, they were an evil group of swart, thick-set, cruel-visaged savages.
"No matter," asserted the Seneca. "They are on the far side of the stream from us. We will see that they stay there until we have finished our business with them. Otetiani and Tawannears will ride across and talk to their chief, and Gahano and Peter must move briskly about the wood to appear a numerous band. Lead the horses around where they can be seen. Call to one another. Walk about where they can see a part of you. We shall fool them. Their need is bitter."
None of us was disposed to argue with him, for if the need of the strange savages was bitter, ours was no less so. We had two lances wherewith to hunt and to defend ourselves, not even a knife amongst the four of us. Weapons we must have to dare traverse this tremendous sweep of open country, roamed by the most predacious Indians on the continent.
I whistled up the spotted stallion and one of his mares, and Tawannears and I mounted and rose forth from the trees, making a great play as we came into the open on the river bank of handing over our lances and other dummy weapons to Peter, who straightway marched back into the wood. We also pretended to shout orders to different points along the bank, and the Dutchman and Kachina whooped the answers to us or responded with whistle-signals. The band on the opposite bank had dragged themselves to their feet, and stared sullenly at us as we splashed into the shallows, and with upraised arms signaling peace.
"They look much stouter than any tribe we have seen," I remarked. "Why, they wear body-armor, cuirasses of buffalo-hide. There is one who has an arrow still sticking under his arm."
Tawannears frowned.
"Kachina was right," he said. "These are bad people. I remember now. They are the Tonkawa."*
* Literal meaning—"They-all-stay-together."
"Who are they!" I asked.
We were not yet within earshot of them as they clustered on the bank.
"Chatanskah often told Tawannears of them when I first dwelt with Corlaer in his teepee years ago. They are the scourge of the plains. They have no home, but go wherever they please, hunting and killing. Their hands are raised against all other people's. They have no allies, no brothers. They make no treaties. They never receive ambassadors. They are ravaging one year in the Spanish countries in the South, or matching lances with the Apache; and the year after they strike the Dakota or the Cheyenne. They are like the wolf-pack. They never abandon their prey, and you must kill all before they abandon an attack. Their favorite food is human flesh."
I shuddered, eying askance the bestial visages lowering on the bank, faces as depraved, if more intelligent, than those of the Awataba.
"And we are to bargain with these!" I exclaimed.
"We must, brother. They are great warriors. If we yield to them they will think we fear them, and they will pursue us. Our horses would be bait enough. No, we have come so far, and we cannot draw back. We must carry it with a high hand. Be bold. Scowl at them. Show contempt. We have them at our mercy, but it is not convenient for us to attack. That is our position."
We kicked our horses up the slope of the bank, and drew rein in the midst of the half-circle of Tonkawa warriors. Not a weapon was displayed, for that would have been a gross violation of Indian etiquette, and even these freebooters respected the fundamental precepts of the race to some extent. But we were subtly made to feel that every man there itched to twist his knife in our hearts.
I found myself drawing back my lips from my teeth in an animalistic snarl of reciprocal hatred as Tawannears thrust out his two hands with the forefingers crossed at right angles, the figure in the universal sign-language for the desire to trade. When a young warrior tried to crowd his horse closer I touched Sunkawakan-kedeshka with my heel, and the spotted stallion shoved the offender off the bank. The youngster scrambled up again, a murderous look on his face, but the Tonkawa chief, a broad-shouldered giant of a man, wearing the hide cuirass and a feathered helmet, spat out a guttural order which curbed the tide of hatred.
"What do you want?" he demanded roughly in the broken jargon of Comanche, which passed for the trade language of the plains.
"We hold this ford," replied Tawannears in the same dialect, speaking with arrogant emphasis. The two conducted their conversation after the remarkable fashion of the Plains tribes, the basis of their speech being such Comanche phrases as they had in common, pieced out with Dakota, Pawnee, Arickara, Cheyenne and Siksika, and when they were at a loss for a common vocal ground of understanding reverting to the flexible sign-language, by which they never failed to convey the most complicated meanings.
Occasionally one of the leading Tonkawa warriors would intervene with a suggestion or a word if his chief seemed at a loss, but the debate was mainly a two-man affair.
"Who are you?" returned the Tonkawa haughtily, yet impressed by our swaggering manner.
"We are of no tribe," said Tawannears. "We are outlaws and fugitives. We ravage all whom we meet."
"Not the Tonkawa," commented the chief, with what on a civilized face I would have termed a grin of mild amusement.
"Yes, the Tonkawa, if they attempt to cross us," rejoined Tawannears.
"How many of the Taivo have you in your band?" inquired the Tonkawa, changing the subject.
"We have many," Tawannears lied easily. "This one you see with me is an In-glees. He is an exile from his people, a murderer. We have Franquis and Espanyas, Dakota and Shawnee, men of every tribe, including some from beyond the Sky Mountains. We have just raided a Comanche village and run off their herd."
This statement created the sensation Tawannears intended it should—for two reasons: the Comanches were enemies no tribe despised, and the suggestion of unusual wealth in horseflesh appealed to the special needs of the Tonkawa.
"That is well," answered the chief, with an evil smirk. "We need horses. We will come over, and take yours."
Tawannears laughed.
"Come, Tonkawas," he invited. "My young men are waiting for you behind the trees. They will shoot you down in the water, and those who reach the land will be fresh meat for the axes of our women."
"You lie," said the Tonkawa. "You are not so many as we."
"There are thirty warriors behind those trees," asserted Tawannears. "How many of you would die before you had their scalps—or before they fled?"
"We need horses," reiterated the chief. "We are not afraid to die. We are warriors. We are Tonkawa."
A murmur of savage approval, like the growl of a wolf-pack, answered him from his men.
"That is good hearing," said Tawannears lightly. "But the Tonkawa do not think straight. There is a cloud over their eyes. They say their medicine is weak."
"Why?"
"The Comanche are pursuing my people. They will be here soon, following the tracks of our horses. If we are here they will fight us. If you drive us away and capture the Comanches' horses, none the less will they attack you. How many of the Tonkawa would be left, after fighting us, to meet the Comanches?"
The Tonkawa pondered.
"We need horses," he said for the third time. "Give us what we require, and we will go away without harming you."
Tawannears roared with laughter.
"They say the Tonkawa are men of blood," he answered, wiping the tears from his eyes. "But they are really men who play with mirth."
A growl of muffled rage came from the Tonkawa band.
"Why should two wolf-packs attack each other when the deer are thick on every side?" Tawannears continued. "It is as I say, the eyes of the Tonkawa are filled with the blood from their wounds. They cannot see straight. They do not understand that my people do not fear them. Do you think we should have ridden to meet you, giving warning of our presence, if we had been in fear of you? I tell you, Tonkawas, you stand in more peril than we!"
This time there was no answering growl, and the Tonkawa chief muttered briefly in council with several of his older warriors.
"Why do you come here, then?" he asked bluffly.
"To trade," was Tawannears' prompt response.
"What? We are not traders. You can see we carry only weapons. We have been on a mission of vengeance." His voice swelled boastfully. "The Kansas slew a small hunting-party of our people many moons ago. Three sleeps back we burned their village, and filled our bellies with their blood. Their scalps hang on our lances."
It was true. The Tonkawa lances were broidered from midway of their shafts to the head with wisps of human hair of all lengths.
Tawannears nodded tranquilly.
"That is well," he said. "It is the fashion of my band to slay all who cross our trail. If we had not something else in view we should slay you."
The Tonkawa leaned forward in his pad-saddle, jaw menacing.
"Be careful or we test your boast!" he cried.
"You dare not," returned Tawannears casually.
And by the very gentleness with which he said it he carried conviction. The Tonkawa looked from him to the waving branches of the wood on the other side of the stream. It might conceal anything. There were horses grazing here and there, and at frequent intervals a figure showed between the trunks, never for long enough to supply opportunity for identification.
"You say you come to trade," objected the Tonkawa. "I have told you we have nothing to trade—except scalps."
He grinned the insinuation that we were the kind of warriors who were careless how we added to our tale of trophies. Tawannears ignored the gibe.
"Yet you have that which we require," replied the Seneca.
He pointed to the full quivers that hung at every warrior's back.
"Ho!" laughed the Tonkawa. "So you are weaponless!"
"It is true," answered Tawannears as gently as he had spoken before, "that we have shot away most of our arrows, but we have sufficient to account for you. Will you try us?"
"Why should we believe you?" derided the chief. "Do the Tonkawa trade like the Comanches?"
"What we seek is means to trade better with the Comanches," retorted Tawannears, a shaft which drew grim chuckles from his hearers.
The Tonkawa, for all their debased habits and uncouth manners, possessed the marked sense of humor which all Indians enjoy.
"How many horses will you trade?" asked the chief.
"How many do you need?" countered Tawannears.
The chief surveyed the depleted ranks of his band, and held up his ten fingers and thumbs twice—twenty.
Tawannears shook his head.
"That is too many. We do not require enough arrows to pay for them. You would have to empty every quiver."
"You can trade us so many or we will come and take them," threatened the chief.
Tawannears started to knee his horse around to return across the river.
"Wait!" called the Tonkawa. "We will give other weapons."
This was more than Tawannears really had expected—as he later admitted—to maneuver the other side into enlarging the scope of the trade. He went through the form of a consultation with me, and then asked:
"The Tonkawa make fine weapons. That is said everywhere. What will you give for twenty horses?"
"Six quivers of arrows, two bows and a leather cuirass for yourself."
"It is not enough." Tawannears rejected the offer decidedly. "With six quivers you must give six bows—and we will take four cuirasses and ten knives and hatchets."
The Tonkawa scowled furiously.
"Would you leave us weaponless, too?" he howled. "We will first come and take what we require!"
I thought he was in earnest now, but when Tawannears repeated his play of breaking off negotiations, it had the same effect as the first time; and the upshot of it all was that we agreed to accept six quivers, four bows, two cuirasses, and ten knives and eight hatchets. This was more than we needed, of course, but we had to ask for so much to carry out the pretense of our numbers.
After the terms of the trading had been arranged we came to the question of the means of putting the deal into effect. The Tonkawa chief wanted us to drive the horses over to his side of the river—having first suggested that his band come across and receive their new mounts at the edge of the wood, in order to save us trouble!—and receive the weapons there. But Tawannears finally engaged him to the stipulation that the trade was to be completed in midstream, betwixt four persons on a side, the others of both sides, as he put it, to retire out of arrow-shot from the banks.
This much accomplished we returned to our friends, rounded up twenty head and brought them to the margin of the bank, Kachina and Peter helping us to handle the herd. The Tonkawa had observed the terms of the agreement, in so far as the retirement of the main body a long bow-shot from the bank; but the four waiting at the water's edge, with the complement of arms, all carried their own weapons, and there was some delay whilst Tawannears rode forward and demanded that they throw down everything, except the goods intended for us.
This created a delay, and Kachina drew my attention to the sudden darkening of the western sky. The day had been murkily close, with a sweating heat. Now the sun was obscured by a haze, and in the west a rampart of leaden-black clouds was heaping above the horizon, lapping over like a series of gigantic waves that tumbled and struggled amongst themselves, lashing out convulsively in long, inky streamers. The air was soggy. Not a breath was stirring.
"A storm is coming," she said. "We must be quick."
"Yes," I agreed, "but we cannot take chances with these people. They are treacherous."
"The storm will be worse than the Tonkawa," she affirmed, shrugging her shoulders.
I did not believe her, nor did I give a second thought to what she had said. My attention was confined to the four warriors with whom Tawannears was arguing, and I attached far more importance to what they did than to the approaching storm. As a matter of fact, I was correct in my suspicions, for subsequent events proved that they were meditating a surprise assault upon us, planning to stampede the horses to their side of the stream, and relying upon flight to save them from the friends they still supposed us to have concealed in the wood.
Tawannears spoke forcibly to the Tonkawa chief, who was one of the four representatives of his side, and as Peter and I began to drive the horses back toward the wood, he yielded. The four, accompanied by Tawannears, rode into the current, the trade-weapons wrapped in three bundles, one carried by each of the chief's assistants. We turned the horses with some difficulty and met them half-way. The chief, I think, smelt a rat as soon as he realized Kachina to be a woman.
"Wah!" he grunted. "Cannot you send warriors to meet warriors?"
"The women who go with our band fight with our band," returned Tawannears coolly. "They sit with the warriors."
The Tonkawa eyed the wood behind us, and it must have occurred to him that no other figures were in view. But if he considered taking the offensive at that juncture, he abandoned the idea when Peter rode up beside him and clamped huge paws on two of the bundles of weapons. I took the third bundle and passed it to Kachina, intending to keep my hands free for whatever might happen. But the Tonkawa evidently decided to run no unnecessary risks. He and his men skilfully packed the twenty horses together and herded them toward the northern bank. We, on our part, headed south.
We had not reached the shore, when we heard the racket of hoofs and looked back to see the remainder of the Tonkawa streaming down to the bank, the weariest of their mounts flogged to the gallop, lances brandished overhead. Their chief, weaponless as he was, never stopped to retrieve his arms from the northern bank, but put himself at the head of his warriors as they stormed into the water. Splashing, yelling, whooping, they shoved our herd before them, those with failing ponies dropping off in the shallows to mount bare-backed the first fresh horse they could catch.
"Run, brothers!" said Tawannears curtly.
With a blind thought for some such emergency, I had picked for our mounts Sunkawakan-kedeshka and three of his mares. The stallion loved to run; his favorites, I knew, would exert every energy to keep up with him. The four fairly flew up the bank and out upon the prairie. We were a long mile in the lead when the first of the Tonkawas straggled into sight. They would capture the rest of the herd in the wood, but we could not help that. Our one purpose was to place as much distance as possible betwixt us and that demon throng.
It grew darker and darker. The afternoon was well advanced, but sunset came late these Summer days. The gloom was unnatural. Objects showed distinctly in the gray light, and behind us was formed a strangely vivid picture—a belt of open grass; then the low-lying figures of our pursuers, their ponies stretching to the furious pace; then the green bulwark of the trees; and over all the dense, smoky-black canopy of the storm-clouds, arching nearer and nearer. The sun was blanketed completely. The last patch of blue sky dwindled away in the east. A low moaning sound made me wonder if the shouts of the Tonkawa could carry so far. Kachina turned in her saddle and pointed.
"Look!" she cried.
We obeyed her. The Tonkawa had stayed their pursuit. They were yanking their horses to a halt. Some of them already were heading back toward the wood. The moaning sound grew louder. The cloud-curtain in the West stretched now from the prairie's floor to the sky's zenith, sootily impenetrable.
"They fear the storm!" cried Kachina.
"It will be very wet," assented Tawannears. "We must wrap up our new bows."
"I tell you there is no need to think of bows," she exclaimed with passionate eagerness. "You have never seen one of these storms or you would know how grave is our peril. The wind blows the grass out of the ground. If it catches us in the open we shall be blown over—horses and all. I have seen them in the valley at Homolobi, and out here it will be worse, much worse!"
"What are we to do?" I asked.
"We must have shelter."
Tawannears and I both laughed.
"The only shelter is in the wood we left," I exclaimed.
"We are fortunate to be out of it," she declared. "Trees blow over. No, we must find a hole, a depression in the ground, anything——"
"Dis way," interrupted Peter calmly.
He turned his horse clumsily to the left and led us down the steep bank of a miniature rivulet, a tributary of the river beside which we had been camping. Under the bank we were out of sight of people on the prairie, and at least partially protected from the storm. At Tawannears' suggestion, we wrapped our new weapons in our clothing—what the Comanches had left us—and stowed them in a hole in the bank. Then, having done all that we could, we sat close together on the ground, holding the horses' rawhide bridles.
The moaning had increased to a dull, vibrating roar, muffled and vague. Jagged splashes of lightning streaked the sky. The air had become chilly cold, and we shivered for want of the clothes we had put aside. There was a peculiar tension in the atmosphere. The horses sensed it. They stamped nervously, jerked around at unexpected noises. The stallion whinnied at me, asking reassurance, and I stroked his muzzle.
"It is long coming," said Tawannears.
"Yes," answered Kachina, "and when it is here we shall be fortunate if we can breathe."
Suddenly, the moaning roar became a deafening scream; the blackness mantled the earth like a garment, and we, huddled close to the ground, felt the shock of a great arm sweeping just above our heads. It was the wind. There was no rain, but a shower of objects began to fall against the opposite wall of the gulch. Shapes, indistinct in the mirk, crashed formless into the bed of the rivulet. The horses were frantic. The stallion snatched back as something sailed past him, and pulled me to my feet. I felt as though a giant's hand had clutched my neck. I began to lift into the air, and knew I was being sucked up. The stallion broke free from me, but I still continued to rise. Then I was violently clutched by the ankles and hauled down to earth.
Peter dragged me against the bank beside him.
"Stay down!" he bellowed in my ear. "Der windt plows you away."
"But the stallion!"
"All der horses are gone. Idt cannot be helped."
A lightning-bolt exploded with a crash, and a cold, purple radiance briefly illuminated our surroundings. The air was filled with trees, wisps of grass, clods of earth. The distorted bodies of a man and a horse lay against the opposite bank of the depression—'twas they, doubtless, had stampeded our mounts. Apparently they had been hurled there by some caprice of the wind. I had a vision, too, of the strained faces of my comrades—Peter's little eyes very wide, Kachina's hair all tumbled about her face, Tawannears grimly watchful. Then darkness again, and the steady, monotonous roar of the wind, no thing of puffs or gusts, but a stupendous, overpowering blast of sheer strength that no living being could stand up to.
It was tricky and sly, ruthless and resourceful. It dropped pebbles and earth-clods on us. It eddied in the depression and created whirlpools which snatched at us lustfully. And once there was a thud overhead and a crumbling of the bank—and a large tree rolled down upon us, the butt of the trunk missing Kachina by a hand's-breadth. But this last attack was really a blessing in disguise, for presently the rain came, and when the wind let up we were able to prop the tree against the bank, and it furnished some slight shelter, stripped though it was of leaves.
The rain was almost more terrible than the wind. For a while, indeed, the wind continued undiminished, lashing us with slanting columns of water that struck like liquid lances, the drops spurting up half a man's stature from the ground after the impact. Then, as the wind dropped, the rain came down perpendicularly, whipping our naked bodies with icy rods. A chill permeated the air. We were so cold that our teeth chattered. And the cold and the rain and the darkness continued, hour after hour.
How long it lasted I do not know, but I remember noting the lessening of the downpour, its swishing away in the East and the frosty twinkling of the stars. We were all too exhausted to think of anything except rest and we cowered beneath the tree-trunk, huddling close for warmth, and somehow slept. When we awoke the sun was rising, and the air was fresh and clear. The sky was cloudless and a soft blue. But all around us was strewn the wreckage of the storm.
The bodies of the man and horse the lightning-flash had revealed in the night still lay in two heaps of broken bones and pounded flesh. Three other horses, battered beyond recognition, were scattered along the bank of the shallow ravine or river-bed. Peering over the top of the bank we discovered that broad patches of the prairie had been denuded of grass, the underlying earth gouged up as though with a plough. The grove in which we had hidden was hacked and torn, an open swath cut through it, many trees down, all more or less mutilated.
Of the Tonkawas there was not a trace. Whatever casualties they had endured, plainly they had fled from so unlucky a spot; and that they had suffered by the storm we were convinced by ascertaining that the dead man the wind had blown into our hiding-place wore the hide cuirass which distinguished these raiders. Probably they had continued upon their way south as soon as the rain abated sufficiently.
Our horses had vanished with equal completeness. The rain had washed out hoof-prints, and we had no means of tracking them. And I have often reflected upon the oddity of circumstance in twice throwing the spotted stallion in my path, only to separate us without warning after he had fulfilled his mission. I hope that Sunkawakan-kedeshka and his mares escaped the storm, and that he lived out his life, free and untamed, leading his herd upon the prairies. But I do not know. Destiny had its use for him. He served his dumb turn—and passed on.
Yet I like to think—and it may be I have imbibed somewhat of the red man's pagan philosophy from over-much dwelling in his society—that in this shadowy after-world of spirits, in which both red man and white profess belief, man shall find awaiting him the brave beasts that loved him on earth. There I may ride through the fields of asphodels, gripping between my knees the spirit-form of that which was Sunkawakan-kedeshka, feeling again the throb and strain of willing muscles, curbing the patient, tireless energy as I used to, watching the velvet ear that ever switched back for a kind word or drooped at a rebuke. But I dream—as old men must.
Consider now our plight. We who had been lately so harried by fate were once more exposed to its whimsies. But recently prisoners, next free but weaponless, we were today at liberty and armed, but the horses upon which we had relied to expedite our passage of the plains were gone. Also, we required food for we had not eaten since noon of the day previous. Our nakedness I do not emphasize because Tawannears was an Indian and accustomed to it, and Peter and I had been habituated to it by years of exposure. For Kachina we had saved enough clothing to cover her, although she resented the distinction, and was as ready to bear her share of hardship as any of us.
Our food problem was solved temporarily by Peter, who insisted, and proved to our satisfaction that the flesh of the horses killed by the storm was still perfectly good. We ate it without avidity, tough, stringy meat, and sodden with moisture, but it sustained us for new efforts.
Having unburied our cache of weapons, we examined them carefully and were able to equip ourselves anew, Peter carrying the two extra quivers of arrows at his own insistence. The two hide cuirasses, cumbrous garments of the thick neck-hide of the buffalo slowly dried by fire, we discarded as being too hot and confining and stinking of their former wearers. We likewise threw into the bed of the rivulet those knives and tomahawks for which we had no use, retaining four of each, of very fine Spanish steel, which the Tonkawas must have traded or ravaged from the Apache or other Southern tribes.
We were none of us disposed to continue eating horse-meat and we were all anxious to get as far as possible from a country which had been so singularly prolific in misfortune for us. So as soon as we had tested our bows and drunk deep of the brown stream that foamed along the gulch, we set out northeastward, aiming to work back to the river we had been following ever since we quit the Eastern skirts of the Sky Mountains. We were governed in adopting this course by the same reasons which had influenced us before: we were afraid to venture away from water, we were more likely to find game near a river, and finally, it served as a guide to us in threading this pathless territory. To be sure, as we had proved already, there was more danger of meeting savages adjacent to a considerable river; but that was a risk we had to take. We were resolved to be doubly vigilant after our experiences with the Comanches and Tonkawas.
For three days we paralleled the river, pitching our course several miles to the south of it and approaching its banks only when we were driven to do so by need of water. During this time we fed on hares and a small animal which lived in multitudes in burrows under the prairies, besides a few fish which Tawannears caught in the river, employing a bone-hook he fashioned himself and a string of rawhide from Kachina's shirt. We saw no other men or large animals, and the country gave every indication of having been swept bare by the storm.
On the fourth day we began to sight buffalo, and supped to satisfaction on the luscious hump of a young cow Tawannears shot, overjoyed at this welcome change in our diet. But the buffalo were the cause of our undoing. The small scattered herds that we first met were the usual advance-guards of an enormous army, grazing its way northward, and in order not to be delayed by its slow progress we crossed the river to the North bank and hurried east, intending to loop the front of the main herd. This we succeeded in doing, and then decided to remain on that side of the river, inasmuch as we knew we must be far south of the point at which we sought to strike the Mississippi, and ought really to be heading rather north of east.
'Twas this move which brought fresh trouble upon us, albeit conducing in the long run to our salvation. Had we remained on the south bank, we might have run the gauntlet of enemies by other means, but this story must have been shaped differently—additional evidence of the immutable determination of Destiny to govern the issue of our lives. And had we not been blinded by our desire for haste and the isolation we had found in the track of the storm we should have realized that the approach of so large a herd would be a bait for the first tribe whose scouts marked it down. But we were blinded—by accident or Destiny, as you please.
As I have said, we pushed on north of the river, adhering to our former plan of keeping out of sight of its channel, and scouting carefully the ground ahead. We never gave a thought to what was behind us, and were paralyzed when Kachina, idly surveying the country from the summit of one of the long, easy swells which broke the monotony of the level plains, caught Tawannears by the arm and pointed westward, too surprised for words, fear and amazement struggling in her face.
It was the middle of the forenoon, a warm, bright Summer day, yet not warm enough to bring up the dancing heat-haze which played strange tricks with vision in these vast open spaces. The next swell behind us was some two or three miles distant, and over its crest were galloping a string of tiny figures—horsemen with waving lances and glaring white shields. We were as distinct to them as they were to us, and the fact that they gave no special sign of exultation at seeing us was proof sufficient that they had been following us for some time. They were trailing us, scores of them, ay, hundreds, as they poured over the crest of the swell in a colorful, barbaric stream of martial vigor—and they could travel three feet to our one. Of course, they had picked up our trail in riding down to the river to meet the buffalo herd, and had followed it with the insatiable curiosity and rapacious instinct of their race.
So much we reasoned in the first second of discovery. We wasted no time in conversation, but dodged below the crest of the swell and ran at top-speed for the river as offering the nearest available cover under its banks. But the wily savages behind us divined our plan, and when, after we had traveled a mile, Tawannears reconnoitered their positions, it was to learn that they had detached a troop to ride diagonally up the slope of the swell and so cut us off from our goal. Two hundred of them were abreast of us at that moment less than a mile away.
Tawannears halted.
"'Tis useless," he said brusquely. "We shall wind ourselves to no purpose. All that is left for us is to sell our lives dearly."
He turned his face skyward and appealed to his gods as a warrior and an equal.
"Oh, Hawenneyu," he exclaimed, "and you, too, of the Honochenokeh, have you permitted Tawannears to escape all these perils, to obtain his Lost Soul, and abandoned him at the end to Hanegoategeh? See, Tawannears calls upon you for aid. And upon you of the Deohako, Three Sisters of Sustenance, Our Supporters! Tawannears calls upon you by right.
"Will you desert him when he has toiled and suffered so? Will you desert his white brothers who have been loyal through dangers no men ever dared before? Will you desert the Lost Soul who has been true to him in death, who returns with him from the land beyond the sunset, she who has traversed the Halls of Haniskaonogeh, the Dwelling-place of Evil, she who has passed with us through the lodge of Gaoh, lord of the winds, she who has defied Hanegoategeh?
"Oh, Tharon the Sky-holder, Tawannears calls upon you to uphold him! But if death must come, then, oh, Hawenneyu, let Tawannears and his Lost Soul die together! Let the white brothers go with us to the Halls of the Honochenokeh! Let us take with us the spirits of many warriors! Grant us a good death, oh, Hawenneyu!"
I am a Christian, but I thrilled to that prayer, and I called out—"Yo-hay!" after the manner of the People of the Long House.
Kachina notched an arrow, and loosed it into the air.
"Whatever the gods say, we fight!" she said. "We fight where the arrow falls."
It quivered into the sod a hundred yards in front of us just under the crest of the swell.
"Ja, dot's as goodt a place as any," Peter agreed equably. "Andt now we fight, eh?"
We trotted up to the arrow and clustered around it as the flanking party of the attackers galloped over the crest between us and the river. They whooped their delight upon seeing they had headed us, and a warrior commenced to ride his pony in furious circles to signal the main body they had us at bay, whilst the rest raced back to engage us. In five minutes they had strung a ring and were drawing in closer and closer toward bowshot distance.
Of all the tribes we had seen these men were the handsomest and most imposing. Tall, broad-shouldered, their bronze bodies shining with grease, they sat their pad-saddles, stirrupless, as though they were part of the horses under them. Their heads were shaven, except for a narrow ridge from forehead to scalplock, which was stiffened with paint and grease until it stood erect in semblance of a horn. Their faces were fierce, but intelligent. They proved their reckless valor by the way they overwhelmed us.
As bowmen they had no rivals. We opened upon them as soon as we thought we had a faint chance of driving a shaft or two home; but they, clinging to their horses, shooting sometimes from the opposite sides or even from under their bellies, encumbered, too, with lance and shield, were able to send in shaft for shaft, which we avoided only by rapidly shifting our ground. We saw at once that in an arrow-duel we stood no chance, and as they did not seem anxious to force conclusions immediately, at Tawannears' suggestion we suspended our fire. They promptly desisted from their attack, their restless circle hovering round and round us, ready to smother any attempt at escape.
"Why do they wait?" cried Kachina. "They surely do not fear us!"
"Not they!" retorted Tawannears. "These people are great warriors."
"Who are they?" I asked.
"Tawannears never saw them before, brother."
"Here comes der chief," spoke up Peter.
With hundreds of deep voices chanting rhythmically, a mighty cavalcade came slowly over the summit of the swell, rank on rank of horsemen, the sunlight glinting on the white or painted surfaces of their shields, a forest of feathered lances standing above the horn-like headdresses. Leading them all was a warrior taller than the tallest, his chest arched like a demi-cask, the muscles playing on his huge shoulders as he controlled his mettlesome white horse. His face was as gravely handsome as Tawannears'; with a high forehead and a jutting, beaked nose; but his eyes were the fierce, watchful eyes of a savage, and his mouth was a cruel, thin line.
"A t'ousandt men!" gasped Peter.
The warriors in the circle around us reined in their horses, tossed their lances aloft and joined their voices in the booming chant of their brethren. Two of them quirted out of the line and raced up to the chief on the white horse to report. We could see their animated gestures, the frequency with which they pointed at us. The chief raised his hand, the chant was stilled, and he rode through the circle, attended by the two messengers, or sub-chiefs, and halted within hail of us.
Tawannears strode forward to meet him, and I marveled at the assurance the Seneca conveyed in his attitude. It was as if he were backed by the whole force of the keepers of the Western Door.
"Who are you?" he demanded in the tone of one who holds power, speaking in the same mingled dialect of Comanche and Dakota he had used with the Tonkawas.
The chief on the white horse was manifestly amazed at Tawannears' assurance, but he replied quietly in the same tongue:
"They say I am Awa, war-chief of the Chahiksichahiks.* Who are you who walk on the ground with white men?"
* Men-of-men, the real name of the Pawnee, the latter name, meaning Horn-wearers, being their designation by other tribes.
"They call me Tawannears, warden of the Western Door of the Long House, war-chief of the Hodenosaunee," Tawannears shot back.
"Tawannears is many moons' journey from his teepee," rejoined Awa. "He did not come to our village and ask permission to cross our country."
"Why should a chief of the Long House ask permission to go on the Great Spirit's business?" returned Tawannears. "We have done your people no harm."
"If that is so," said the chief on the white horse, "render up to my people the maiden who is with you, and you may go free."
"Why?" asked Tawannears, bewildered.
"Every Summer Tirawa, the Old One in the Sky, sends my people a maid for a sacrifice. They say the maid with you comes to die on the scaffold under the morning star."
"They say lies," answered Tawannears with passion. "You shall not have her alive. She is holy."
Awa's reply was a gesture with his hand and a shouted order in his own language. A hundred warriors slipped from their horses in the first rank of the array outside the circle, dropped lances, shields and bows and ran toward us.
Tawannears, his face a mask of fury, ripped an arrow from his quiver and drove it at Awa's chest; but the chief on the white horse calmly interposed his shield and stopped it neatly, and the charge of warriors on foot compelled the Seneca to run back to us. We, who had understood practically nothing of the dialogue which had passed, were uncertain what the situation meant. Tawannears, himself, was at a loss.
"Fight," he shouted hoarsely. "We must not be captured."
We loosed arrows as rapidly as we could draw from quivers and notch them. 'Twas impossible to miss at that point-blank range, and we killed a dozen men before they came to hand-grips. Then we used knife and hatchet, Kachina as remorselessly as the rest of us, our assailants, evidently under Awa's orders, scrupulously refraining from drawing a weapon, lest they harm the girl who was destined for the sacrifice.
Back to back, striving to protect Kachina, we fought like wolves in famine-time, our arms aching from slaughter, but the Pawnee would not give in. They dived betwixt the legs of their comrades who were grappling barehanded against our knives, and so pulled us down. Peter was last to go, a dozen men clinging to his limbs. Kachina, biting at her captors, was led struggling from the heap of bodies. We others were jerked to our feet, arms pinioned and dragged after her.
The Pawnee horsemen crowded around us and the men we had killed. The chief on the white horse stared with satisfaction at Kachina's lithe body, hardly covered by the rags of her garments, and grinned amusement when she spat at him, trying to plant her teeth in the arm of one of the men who restrained her. He turned from her to the panting, bleeding warriors who held us, and to the pile of dead around the arrow Kachina had shot into the air. It stood there yet, hub of an ill-omened wheel of corpses, its feathers ruffling in the breeze. It seemed to fascinate him. His grin became a frown.
"You have made me pay a price for the girl," he said to Tawannears. "That is well. The Pawnee are not afraid to pay what Tirawa asks. But you shall pay now a price to me."
He drew his own bow from its case, and selected a shaft from the quiver at his side, notched it and aimed it at my chest.
"Awa will shoot you, one by one," he announced. "Afterward your hearts shall be cut out, and we will make strong medicine with them. This white man shall die first."
I had no more than time to smile at Tawannears and Peter when he pulled the bow-string taut and loosed. I had braced myself for the shock, knowing the shaft at that range must go clean through me. And certes, the blow was all that I had expected. I staggered before it. Had it not been for the warriors who held my arms I must have fallen backward.
Involuntarily I had shut my eyes. I opened them again, expecting to be in another world, marveling that the pain of an arrow in my vitals was no worse than a smart rap upon the chest. Around me I heard a gusty sigh, the sound made by many people expelling their breath. I looked down, wondering if I could still see myself, if the blood would be spurting or trickling.
But I could find no wound. There was no arrow, no mark, no blood. I felt the savage holding my left arm sag strangely and turned to him. His face was gray, his eyes glazing. The arrow which had struck me was projecting from his side, buried half-way to the head. He collapsed as I looked at him.
There was an audible gasp from the ranks of horsemen. I found Awa's face in the throng, and noted that it was almost as ashen as that of the dying man beside me. The chief held the bow stiffly in his left band, right arm crooked as when he had loosed.
Tawannears laughed harshly.
"Strong medicine Awa has made!" he mocked. "He shot at my white brother an arm's-length away, and my brother turned the arrow against the great chief's warrior. Will Awa try again? Shall we make more medicine for him?"
Awa's arm was trembling as he returned the bow to its case.
"Your white brother has strong medicine," he admitted. "We will carry you all to our village, and our medicine-men shall try their magic upon you. Awa is a war-chief, not a maker of magic."
"We are both warriors and medicine-men!" Tawannears derided him mercilessly. "Shall we make trial of our medicine again?"
Awa abruptly reined his horse about, shouted an order and clattered off at the head of his cavalcade. Our guards first bound our arms loosely behind us, then tied strips of rawhide betwixt us and themselves, one on either side, and mounted us upon ponies. Thus each of us was tied to a pair of the Pawnee.
I called to Tawannears as he was led by me.
"What happened? My eyes were shut. I——"
"Your Orenda is powerful, brother," he replied seriously. "It has spread its hand over our heads. Hawenneyu has used it to answer the prayer of Tawannears."
I was no less puzzled by this, but Peter cackled shrilly.
"Look adt your chest," he squeaked.
I bent my head. My chest was bare, unscarred. All it showed was the little deerskin pouch Guanaea had hung around my neck by a thong the day we left Deonundagaa, which had stayed by me through all our adventures. No Indian would have dreamed of taking it from me, for it contained my medicine, and the possibilities for evil inherent in interference with another man's medicine were boundless.
I regarded the pouch idly, my mind occupied with the thought that it was practically the only possession with which I had started upon our journey that was still with me—and I was startled to see a slit in its front. I looked at it more closely. Yes, there was a slit, such a slit as an arrow-head might make.
What had Tawannears said?
"Your Orenda is powerful, brother."
And what had Guanaea said in hanging it there?
"That will protect you against all evils! A most powerful Orenda! I had it made by Hineogetah, the Medicine Man."
But that was ridiculous, I told myself! I had worn it to please Guanaea, and because her forethought had touched me. But was that a reason for subscribing to gross superstition? This fetched me around to my starting-point. The fact remained that the bag had stopped an arrow. How? My mind cast back for further aid, and memory came to my rescue.
What had it contained?
"The fangs of a bull rattlesnake. That is the spirit to resist evil. The eye-tooth of a wolf. That is the spirit to resist courage."
The eye-tooth of a wolf! That had done it. I wiggled my chest-muscles and felt the protuberance under the draw-string—and beneath it a certain soreness. The arrow had driven head-on into the tooth and been diverted sideways into the warrior on my left. So mysterious as this are the wonders of Providence—or Destiny—or an Iroquois medicine man?
During the afternoon of the fifth day of hard riding our guards fetched us from the midst of the column to a position next to Awa. The chief had recovered somewhat from his bedazed wonder—no doubt he had half-expected me to continue working miracles—and regarded us with saturnine satisfaction.
"Soon we shall enter the villages of our people," he announced, swinging his arm toward the prairie in front of us. "The medicine-men of the Chahiksichahiks then will make trial of the white man's medicine—and we will build a scaffold for the red maiden to lie upon when she weds the morning star."
"That is to be seen," returned Tawannears with undisturbed arrogance. "A voice has whispered in my ear that the Great Spirit has other plans. It says there will be misfortune for the Horn-wearers if the red maiden is sacrificed."
Awa scowled.
"We shall see," he agreed.
Feathered lances bobbing overhead, our great escort of savage horsemen cantered out of a shallow gulley onto the bank of a sizeable river. A mile or so east and well back from high-water mark began a series of low, hump-backed mounds, which I took to be natural features of the terrain. But as we came nearer people popped out of them, and we perceived that they were houses, partly dug out of the ground and roofed and walled with sods, commodious dwellings, larger than the largest of teepees and invariably round in shape.
The people who met us were old men and women, with an occasional young child of toddling age or under. Awa barked a question to the first group, and one of the old men quavered an answer, gesturing down-river, where the sod-covered earth-houses reached as far as we could see. With a nod of acknowledgment, the chief heeled his horse to a gallop, and we rode on at speed along a rough trail that led betwixt houses and river-bank. Beyond the houses were simple gardens, and in rear of these horses grazed. Dogs ran out of many houses and barked at us. But nowhere did we see a man or woman in the prime of life or a half-grown child.
The mystery of the deserted village—or, rather, succession of villages—was settled after we had ridden another three miles, when an enormous crowd of savages appeared in an open space in the center of the largest collection of earth-houses. There must have been ten or twelve thousand people clustered together, men, women and children, all deeply interested in some proceeding which we could not see at first. But the thudding of the hoofs of Awa's band attracted their attention, and they opened their ranks for us, so that our column passed through the outskirts of the throng and came to a halt on the verge of a circle of hard-trodden clay, perhaps a hundred feet across.
In the center of this space stood a fire-charred stump of wood, and lashed to it with strips of green hide was the black-garbed figure of a man whose dead-white face brought a gasp of astonishment from my lips. 'Twas Black Robe, Père Hyacinthe, the Jesuit, whom we had last seen the day he insisted upon leaving us on the western bank of the Mississippi, striding alone into the unknown wastes ahead!
His ankles were hobbled loosely and bound to the base of the stump. His hands, knotted behind his back, were likewise fastened to it. He could move a foot or so in either direction, and six feet away from him a party of warriors were building a pile of light-wood, which had reached the height of his knees when our arrival distracted them from their labors.
His soutane was the same rusty, torn garment he had worn three years before. His sandals were patched and worn. His gaunt figure testified, as always, to the ceaseless toil and deprivation to which he subjected himself. His emaciated features shone with the radiation of some inward light, and his face, with eyes closed, was upturned in prayer. Certes, no man could have been in worse case, yet his racked body contrived to express an ecstasy of joy beyond all words. Indeed, his utter lack of fear, the otherworldliness of his devotion, had already sapped the savage energy of his would-be tormentors. They were not used to seeing a man face the prospect of torture without boasting or exultation, with no more than the calm disdain of a courage higher than any emotion they knew.
I was not alone in my surprise. Tawannears clicked his tongue. Peter muttered—
"Der Jesuit!"
Kachina remarked with interest—
"Another white man!"
And Awa was as dumfounded as ourselves. He shouted a question, and a knot of gorgeously-decorated chiefs and medicine-men detached themselves from the front rank of the onlookers and clustered about his horse, pointing at us, their eyes fairly popping from their heads. Evidently, they, too, were surprised—and that was not strange, for 'twas seldom these wild horsemen of the plains saw three white men at once, or so I reasoned.
"The Great Spirit's ways are difficult to follow," commented Tawannears. "He has carried us again along Black Robe's trail."
"Awa will see in his capture an excuse for daring to disregard my Orenda," I said pessimistically.
"Nein, nein," squeaked Corlaer. "All is not well wit' der Pawnee. See how dey boggle andt chaw togedder."
'Twas so. Awa's face was a mingling of baffled rage, hysterical superstition and credulous awe. His gaze shifted rapidly from us to the figure of Black Robe, eyes still closed, lips murmuring in silent prayer. The medicine-men and chiefs who had swarmed up to the war-chief were staring at us with expressions akin to fear. Awa suddenly spat out an ejaculation, and pushed his horse beside us. We four were now the focal object of the crowd's attention.
"Whence did you say you have come?" he demanded of Tawannears in the polyglot trade dialect.
"From beyond the setting sun," Tawannears replied gravely. "I have been to the Land of Lost Souls, and there I found this maiden who loved me once before on earth and is come back with me to reënter my lodge."
"But this Taivo, this white man?" Awa leveled his finger at me.
"He, too, has come with me from the land beyond the sunset."
Awa spoke rapidly in the Pawnee tongue, and one of the medicine-men, a brightly painted, elderly man with wrinkled face, took up the conversation in Comanche.
"It was foretold by the white man at the stake that you would come," he began.
"That is likely," admitted Tawannears, unperturbed.
"He told us," continued the medicine-man, with a fearful look over his shoulder at that black figure bound to the tree-stump, "that he served a God who would come to us from the sky, and when we asked him if he meant Tirawa, the Old One in the Skies, he said no. But when we asked if this new God would come from the sunset he said it might be, that He would come in a great blaze of glory, with power to bend all to His will. Is this Taivo at your side the God of whom the first white stranger spoke?"
Tawannears turned and translated swiftly the gist of this to me.
"Say that we come to herald the coming of that God," I directed him. "Even as the white man at the stake came to tell the Chahiksichahiks that we should come to them from the setting sun."
The medicine-man and his fellows, even the fierce Awa, heard this announcement with growing awe.
"For a sign," added Tawannears, "the Taivo, who permits me to call him brother, and who is attended by the great white warrior who has the strength of many buffalo showed Awa, the war-chief, how he could turn aside arrows and direct them against his enemies. Let Awa speak for me!"
The war-chief admitted the fact, no longer surly, but agitated by a sense of the prestige attaching to him as a principal participant in a miracle transcending any like event his people had ever known.
"But what of the maiden?" he urged practically. "Surely, Tirawa directed you to bring her here for the sacrifice?"
"The maiden is holy," replied Tawannears. "She has paid the price of life here on earth. She comes, as has been said, from the Land of Lost Souls. Would Tirawa ask for the sacrifice of one who had descended from his own lodge?"