Michaïl Lafond merely spread the news, and made it a subject of discussion. In his statements he said nothing of his own grievance, nor did he suggest a plan. He knew that this was not a case for violence, nor did he care that it should become such. His actions always depended very much on how an impulse hit his queerly constructed nature. In the present instance he might either resolve to get even with Billy Knapp by means of personal vengeance, or his anger might take the direction of a cold, set determination to get through the plains journey in spite of the scout's prohibition. That the latter, rather than the former course happened to appeal to him, was purely a matter of chance. So, though he said little to the direct point, the plan finally adopted in secret by a choice few had a good deal of his desire mingled in its substance.
The quiescence of the camp astonished and puzzled the three scouts. They had expected an outbreak, and were prepared for it. It did not come.
The three days slipped by; everything was packed; and early in the morning, before the dawn's freshness had left the air, the little band defiled across the prairie. A curious crowd gathered sleepily to watch it go, but there was no demonstration. Billy openly congratulated himself. Alfred looked to see that his revolvers were still capped.
The party comprised an even dozen "schooners," each drawn by four tough ponies. Besides these, a dozen men rode on horseback. On occasion, their mounts could be pressed into draft service. The men themselves were a representative lot; tall, bronzed, silent. They had taken part in the fierce Indian wars, then just beginning to lull; they had ridden pony-express with Wild Bill; they had stalked revenue officers in the mountains of Tennessee. As they strode with free grace beside their teams, or sat, with loose-swaying shoulders, their wiry little broncos, they drew to themselves in the early light the impressiveness of an age—the age of pioneers.
At their head rode Billy Knapp. At their rear rode Jim Buckley. Alfred was a little of everywhere at once. As a matter of habit, these three carried their rifles cross-fashion in front of them, but the new Winchesters and the old long-barrelled pieces of the other score of men were still slung inside the canvas covers, for the Indian country was yet to see. Beneath the axles hung pails. The wagons contained much food, a good supply of ammunition, and a scanty equipment of the comforts of life. In one of them were three wooden boxes, two trunks, the doctor, Mrs. Prue, and little Miss Prue herself, laughingly proud at being allowed to dangle along the dew-wet grass the heavy coil of a black snake whip.
The men shouted suddenly, the horses leaned to their collars, the wagons creaked, and the swaying procession began to loom huge and ghost-like in the mist that steamed golden-white from the surface of the prairie.
Then, from the haze of the town, six more wagons silently detached themselves, and followed in the wake of the first.
This second caravan differed from the other in that it deployed no outriders, and from the close-drawn canvas of its wagons came, once in a while, the sharp cry of a child, followed immediately by the comforting of a woman. The men drove from the seats, and across the lap of each was a weapon.
About five miles out, the first caravan halted until the second drew nearer. Billy Knapp cantered back to it. One of the men in the foremost wagon thereupon clamped the brake and jumped to the ground, where he stood, leaning on the muzzle of his big mountaineer's rifle, chewing a nonchalant plug.
"What's this?" demanded Billy, reining in his horse.
The man shifted his quid.
"Nawthin'," he drawled, "'xcept that this yare outfit's a-goin' too."
Billy's eyes snapped.
"We settled all thet afore," said he, with outward calm.
"This yare outfit's a-goin' too," reiterated the man.
"The hell it is!" cried the scout angrily. "We all said no women and no poor hosses, and that goes. Yore hosses are a lot of crowbait, and——"
"The women is women as is women," cried another voice, "and not yore leetle white-faced, yaller-haired sort that'd keel over if yo' said boo to her!"
During the laconic dialogue, the schooners had gradually drawn nearer, until now they were grouped in a rough crescent around the two men. Billy looked up to see a tall woman in blue gingham haranguing him from behind one of the seats.
"I reckon if she can go, we can; and you jest chalk that down, Mr. Speckleface!" she went on. Billy was slightly pockmarked.
Other canvas flaps opened, and the audience was increased by half.
"We're goin'," went on the woman, "whether you want us to or not; an' what's more, you got t' take care of us in the Injun country, an' if you don't I'll curse you from the grave, you white-livered, no 'count cradle robber, you! Folks has some rights on the plains, an' you know it jest's well as I do, an' if you think you can shake yore ole pals for a lot of no 'count tenderfeet, an' not find trouble, you jest fools yoreself up a lot, let me tell you that. If Dave yere had th' sperrit of a coyote, he'd fix you, Mr. Seoul!" with vast contempt.
"You men are all alike! A pretty face——" began the virago again, but Billy had fled at speed.
The man, who had been chuckling silently, spat and threw the rifle into the hollow of his arm.
"Good for you, Susie," he remarked.
"You shut up!" replied Susie with acerbity, and retired within. The man had yet to learn that one should never voluntarily step within the notice of an angry woman.
The two wagon-trains proceeded as before—one behind the other by about half a mile.
At intervals Billy or Jim went back to expostulate. They might be able to undertake the responsibility of one woman, hardly of nine! But they never got a hearing, as all the conversation was vituperative and one-sided.
Alfred led the party to a deep, swift crossing of the Platte. By the aid of the extra ponies the ford was made without loss. The second party had a hard struggle, but emerged dripping and triumphant.
Billy and Jim were again put to rout in an attempt at mere verbal dissuasion.
Alfred took them roundabout through a piece of country, cut and gullied by rains. Some hills they climbed by the help of long ropes. The second party dragged their wagons up singly, using all their animals to each wagon. They lost some time, but the evening of the day following they strung out in the rear as imperturbably as ever. Alfred ordered all the riders into the wagons, and, by alternating the ponies, made forced marches, hoping thus to shake the others off. The others, however, discovering that Alfred's party had been doubling and twisting through the worst country, detached a single rider, whose business it was to search out the directest and easiest route. Thus they caught up. Alfred discovered it too late, for they were now on the borders of the Indian country.
Here a serious problem presented itself. The second party had, up to now, made no attempt to close in and join forces. On entering the Indian country, they would certainly do so. The question was, whether they should be resisted or received.
If they were not repulsed, could they be brought through successfully? If they were resisted, would the resistance be effective? One thing or the other must be decided immediately, for, whatever the policy adopted, it must be a settled policy before entering hostile ground.
In the contest of endurance, the score of men comprising the main party had taken part amusedly. They were under the command of the scouts. When the scouts ordered speed, speed was made. When they said to climb hills, hills were climbed. When they advised difficult fords, the difficulties of crossing were overcome. If the other train had trouble keeping up with the procession, why, that was good enough fun. But actual resistance was a different matter. After all, according to their lights, these other men were entirely in the right. They had been excluded from the expedition, on the basis of a rule which had been agreed to after some grumbling; and now that the rule had been broken by the very framers of it, there seemed to be no longer fair grounds of exclusion; and therefore a certain rough sense of justice inclined them to take sides with the bearers of the pea rifles in the rear. At the same time, they felt the truth of Billy's statement, that it would be impossible to get so unwieldy a caravan over the rough country and through the dangers to come. So, seeing reason on both sides, they maintained a guarded neutrality.
Resistance being out of the question, the three next considered the other horn of the dilemma. Alfred rode over to examine the prospective addition to the party. He found the animals in poor condition, partly because of the forced marches he had himself imposed. In his opinion they would not last out the journey, and he so reported, to the great consternation of the other two.
While they lamented, Prue came up and heard a part. She demanded the whole, and they told her frankly. The heroine of romance, realizing herself the cause of the trouble, would have offered to return with the other women, and so the whole question would have been resolved; but Prue was only a very nice little woman, in love with her husband. Her chief concern was not the triumph of eternal justice, but whether the whole expedition would come to nothing. She pondered.
"If you can't keep them from going with us, and if you can't get through if they do go with us," she said finally, "it seems to me that the only way to fix it would be to do something so they couldn't go"—with which vague hint this Puritan looked wickedly at them all, and went away, clinching her small hands with anger. From the hint, they made a plan to which all three agreed.
Next morning Jim roused the camp an hour earlier than usual, and insisted on an immediate departure. The horses were hitched, and the breakfast things put away. Then Alfred rode over to the other camp, with Jim and Billy following at a little distance.
People start a camp on the plains, in a safe country, by arranging the wagons in a rough semicircle. Behind this semicircle the horses are hobbled, and left to graze. In front of it the cooking-fire is built. During the night, besides the regular sentinels, one man is assigned to ride herd, but this is unnecessary in full daylight; so at breakfast the horses are left to graze quite unprotected. In a hostile country, picket ropes and more care are needed. This party had so hobbled twenty-four animals—four for each wagon, which is a scant supply.
Alfred cantered rapidly up to the herd from the east. He had made a long detour, so as to approach in the eye of the sun. With the twelve chambers of his revolvers he killed eleven horses. As I have said, Alfred was one of the best pistol shots in the middle West; After this, he put spurs to his mount, and shot away like an arrow in the direction of his own camp.
The unsuspicious mountaineers, at breakfast, did not gather their wits until too late. Then eight of them leaped fiercely upon some of the remaining animals, and pursued the wagon-train, which, under the frantic urging of Billy and Jim, was already under way in close order. A few of their bullets spattered against the wagon-bodies, and they wounded a horse.
This roused the other men. Neutrality was all right enough, but they could not afford to lose horses, so they made such a brave show of rifle muzzles that the eight fell back. Three to one was too big odds; but their rage was great.
Then Jim took his life in his hands, and rode a little way out on the prairie toward them, waving a white handkerchief. Somebody shot at him, and bored a hole through the looseness of his flannel shirt, whereupon he dismounted and dropped two horses with his new-model Winchester. His own horse was killed in the exchange, but Jim could take care of himself in frontier fashion.
Before the men could reload or move, Jim, imperturbably, arose from behind his dead mount, and waved his white handkerchief again. There was a moment's hesitation, then someone returned the signal. Jim promptly advanced. His remarks were brief and businesslike, and were received in sullen silence.
"You fellows have got to go back," said he. "You have hosses enough left to get your women back with, by goin' slow. If you try to shoot us up any, we'll kill every hoof you have. So don't come any funny business."
He turned squarely on his heel, and walked away rapidly. He wanted to get his distance before the reaction came. Michaïl Lafond, no longer impassive, shook his rifle after him.
"You damn skunk!" he shouted, hoarse with anger. "Tell your damn woman I'll pull every hair from her head!"
Jim did not turn his head, but ducked into the long grass, where he wriggled along Indian fashion. Lafond, who had thrown his rifle into position for a shot, started forward in pursuit, his face twisted with passion, but he was dragged back by main strength. Two of the horses bore double, and the little group turned sullenly toward the east.
The mood of the original party, after this incident, was grim. The bonds of plains brotherhood had been lightly broken.
Alfred had resorted to such desperate measures in making the best of undesirable conditions brought to pass by someone else.
Billy Knapp had done so because he had entered into a game, and declined to be beaten by anyone.
Jim alone was happy. He had done it solely and simply for a woman; and the woman had seen him fight for her.
The eight men of the attacking party returned slowly to the little dip of land which held the temporary camp. They were defeated, baffled, and angry. If a stranger had accosted them at that moment, he would probably have been gruffly answered one minute and assaulted the next. But for the present they were silent. They were Anglo-Saxons and Tennessee mountaineers for the most part; hence they were also adaptable, and attuned to the fatalism that comes from much contemplating of cloud-capped peaks and wind-swept pines.
Not so with Michaïl Lafond, who alternately raved and wept, frantically brandishing his rifle. An impassive mountaineer sat behind him, holding him to the party. If not thus restrained, he would, in the heat of anger, have attacked the whole train single-handed, for he was brave enough in his way. The sober second-thought of the Indian in him might perhaps have caused him to pause on the brink of the charge and sink into the long grasses to await the chance of a more silent blow; but the impulse up to that point would have been real and whole-souled. So it was now. The man raved as a maniac might. He called down the curses of heaven on his companions for cowards.
And in this, when he reached camp, he was ably seconded by the women. They surrounded him in a voluble and indignant group, and listened to him with sympathy, casting glances of scorn toward their passive lords and masters in the background. In their way they became as excited as Lafond. One or two wept. Most employed the variety of their vocabularies in giving the world what is known as a "piece of their minds."
In the still air of a prairie morning their hysterical cackle rose like the crying of an indignant band of brant. Lafond told, dramatically, what should have been done. The women, in turn, told how effectively they would have done it. The men were taking stock of the situation.
The mountaineers wasted little discussion on what might have been done. The question before them was that of the most practical method of returning over the long miles of prairie they had traversed in their pursuit of Alfred and his outfit. They entertained not a moment's doubt as to the necessity of the return. Their equipment consisted now of ten horses and six wagons. By humoring the animals they might be able to get through with a pair to each schooner. This meant the abandonment of one of the wagons, and the lightening of the others. It was decided. One of the men strode to the group of women.
Lafond was in the midst of a tirade, but when he saw the mountaineer approach, he prepared to pay eager attention to the plan of action.
"H'yar," announced the latter, with a little the heavier shading on his accustomed drawl, "that's enough of this h'yar jaw, I reckon. You-all come along and pack up."
"And when is it that we do pursue them?" asked Lafond eagerly.
"Pursue nothin'," replied the man. "We're goin' back."
There was a moment's silence.
"And you intend not to get that revenge?" the half-breed inquired.
"Revenge!" snorted the man. "You damn fool—withthatoutfit?" He swept a descriptive gesture toward the women. "Besides, what's the good now?" Lafond fell silent, and withdrew from the group.
The man of mixed blood is not like other men, and cannot be judged by the standards of either race. From his ancestors he takes qualities haphazard, without balance or proportion, so that the defects of virtues may often occur without the assistance of the virtues themselves. And, besides, he develops traits native to neither of the parent races, traits which perhaps can never be comprehended by us who call ourselves the saner people. He is superstitious, given to strange impulses, which may unexpectedly, and without reason, harden into convictions; obscure in his ends; unscrupulous in his means. No man lives who can predict what may or may not suffice to set into motion the machinery of his passions. A triviality is enough to-day. To-morrow the stroke of a sledge may not even jar the cogs. But, once started, the results may be tremendous, and quite out of proportion to the first careless touch on the lever. Such passions are dangerous, both to their possessor and to those who stand in their way.
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Now, from the gainsaying of his lesser revenge—the proving to Billy Knapp the futility of his objections—Lafond conceived the desire for a greater. There entered into his life one of those absorbing passions which are to be encountered in all their intensity only in such men as he—passions which come to be ruling motives in the lives of those who harbor them; gathering to themselves all lesser forces which are spread more evenly over saner existences; losing their first burning intensity, perhaps, but becoming thereby only the more sustained, cool, and deadly; so that at the last they lie unnoticed in the background of the man's ordinary life, coloring, influencing every act—a religion to which, without anger, but without relenting, he bends every long-planned effort of even his trivial and daily deeds. You may not understand this, unless you have known a half-breed; but it is true.
Interrupted in the midst of his flow of anger, and deprived of the immediate solace of shooting things at his enemies, Lafond fell into a sulking fit. During the rest of the day he brooded. After dark that night he wound his way silently through the grasses, crept up behind the solitary sentinel considered necessary in this peaceful country, stabbed the man in the back, and returned to camp. Thus his way was clear. Then he took from the wagons three slabs of bacon, a small sack of coffee, a large supply of powder, lead, and caps, a blanket, and a frying-pan and cup. With these he mounted the hill, past the dead sentinel, to the ponies. Two of the latter he drew apart from the herd. One of them he saddled; the other he packed with his supplies. Then the half-breed led them silently westward for a good half-mile. Then he mounted and rode away.
The wagon-train under the command of Billy Knapp, and Alfred, and Jim Buckley had a very hard trip before they were done with it. The only difficulty they did not encounter was lack of water. There was too much of that. Several times the party had to camp in one spot for days while the wagons were laboriously warped across rivers of mud and quicksand, with steep, slippery clay banks. How little Prue stood the journey so well, neither her father, her mother, nor the men of the party were able to divine; but she did, and, what is more, she seemed to think it great fun. So cheerful was she, and so sunny, that the men came to grudge each other her company. And as for Mrs. Prue and the doctor, who could help loving the patient sweetness of the one, or the pathetic, gentle, impracticable kindness of the other?
Yes, it was a hard journey; but somehow the feeling was not entirely of joy and relief when the stockade of Frenchman's Creek shimmered across the broad, flat foot-hills. There they separated. The dangers were over.
Then, to the surprise of everyone, the doctor waked up and knew just where he wanted to go. He displayed an unexpected familiarity with the general topography of the hills. It puzzled Billy. And, to the vaster astonishment of both hisconfrères, Jim suddenly announced, with quite unwonted volubility, that he had been intending all along to start in prospecting at the end of this trip, and that here he meant to quit scouting and leave the society of his brothers in arms—unless, of course, he added, as a doubtful afterthought, they wanted to join him. They profanely replied that they did not.
Most of the men pushed on immediately to Rockerville, whither a majority of the former inhabitants of Frenchman's Creek had already emigrated. Alfred and Billy decided to get over in the Limestone for a "big hunt" before returning East. Prue said good-by to them with real feeling, and most of them threw out their chests and were very gruff and rude because they were sorry to leave. Prue understood. They were kind-hearted men, after all, these rough pioneers. Billy remembered for almost two years how she looked when she said that, which was extraordinary for Billy. He had led so varied a life as pony-express rider, stage-driver, scout, Indian, bronco-buster, hunter, and trapper, that he had little room in his memory for anything short of bloodshed or a triumph for himself.
Finally, after all the rest had gone, Jim and the doctor made the mutually delightful discovery that they had selected the same locality, the one for his prospecting, the other for his scientific investigations. So the doctor simply left his outfit in Jim's wagon, and they all went up together.
The little scientist was as excited as a child. To him the country was as a document—a document which he had studied thoroughly in the pocket editions. He now had it before him in the original manuscript, open and unabridged.
And indeed, even to an ordinary observer, the Black Hills are a strange series of formations.
They run north and south at the westernmost edge of the northern prairie, and are, altogether, about as large as the State of Vermont. Unlike other ranges, they possess no one ridge that serves as a backbone to the system. The separate peaks rise tumultuously, like the rip of seas in a tideway, without connection, solitary, sombre. Between them lie deep gorges, or broad stretches of grass-park, which dip away and away, until one catches the breath at the grand free sweep of them. Huge castellated dikes crop up from the ridge-tops like ramparts. Others rise parallel in the softest verdure, guarding between their perpendicular sides streets as narrow and clean-cut as the alleys of a city of skyscrapers.
Through it all, back and forth, like the walls of a labyrinth, run the broken, twisted, faintly defined geological systems, which cross each other so frequently and so vigorously that all semblance of order is lost in the tumultuous upheaval. Here are strata deposited by the miocene tertiary; here are breakings forth of metamorphic rocks of many periods; here are the complex results of diverse influences and forces. Down in the south is a great cavern—of which ninety-seven miles and twenty-five hundred rooms have, at this writing, been explored—which was once the interior of a geyser. For ages it spouted; for ages more its fluids crystallized and petrified into varied and beautiful forms; and then, finally, many layers of stratified rock were slowly overlaid to seal forever this dried-out, beautiful, lifeless mummy of a cave. It lies there now, as it has lain through the centuries, with a single, tiny opening by which it can be entered—a palace of vast re-echoing halls, hung with jewels, a horror-haunted honeycomb of unsounded depths, a solemn abode wherein not the faintest drip of water, not the gentlest sigh of air through the corridors, breaks the eternal silence. Only its mouth roars continually as the winds rush in or out. The Indians assign to it the spirits of their dead warriors, and cannot be induced to approach it. Geologists rave over it, and cannot be persuaded to come away.
But this is in the latter day of railroads and tenderfeet. At the time of which this story treats, little was known of the country. It was simply a great second-hand shop, of a little of everything in the geological line.
When the party arrived at Spanish Gulch, the doctor was so eager to get into the wonderful hills that only with the greatest difficulty did he constrain himself to help Jim erect a log cabin for the accommodation of his family. Even then he was not of much use, although he could at least help to lift timbers. Jim practically did it alone, and it took him almost a month; but when it was done, it was very nice. The doctor accepted the free gift of the scout's labor and skill quite as a matter of course, just as he had taken the free gift of an ordinarily expensive pilotage across the plains; but the woman appreciated, and perhaps she understood, for she suddenly became very shy in Jim's presence. And then, sometimes, she would gaze at him, when he was not looking, with an adoration of gratitude filling her eyes.
After the doctor's home was finished, Jim betook himself into another gulch, where he constructed a less elaborate shelter for his own occupation. Thenceforward he spent much of his time in mysterious prospecting operations; but two or three times a week he liked to sit perfectly silent under the tree which overshadowed the doctor's cabin, watching Prue, if she happened to be near, playing with Miss Prue, or trying to talk with the doctor. He never went inside the house, even in the winter; and he never seemed to try to know Prue any more intimately. It would have been difficult for him to say just what pleasure he discovered in these visits.
After a little, the routine of life became fixed. The doctor took up his work systematically. Each morning he plunged into the hills. His little bent form moved from ridge to ridge, following his own especial leads as earnestly as the most eager gold prospector of them all. Sometimes he got lost, but generally he managed to reach home at sunset. He was entirely preoccupied. He ate his meals as they were set before him without question, he pulled on his well-mended clothes without noticing the new patches, he warmed himself before his fire without a thought of whence came the wood, blazing up the mud-chimney.
Prue at first wondered a little at this, for even in his intensest absorption the doctor's home-life had been much to him; but in time she came to appreciate his mood, and to rely on herself even more than usual. She had such an exalted opinion of his work that she easily fell into the habit of sacrificing herself to it. She watched for the things that pleased him, or, rather, did not bother him, for his pleasures were negative; she carefully excluded all disturbing influences, and came to look on this lonely time as only a probation, sooner or later to be over, after which, in the fulness of his success, he would turn to her with his old love. To hasten this she would have cut off her right hand.
So, much to the disgust of Jim Buckley, the brave little woman took the management of things upon herself. During the long days, while the doctor was away, she schemed to make both ends meet. She raised a few vegetables in a plot of open ground on the sunny side of the creek, working in it daily with an old spade. Her face was hidden in the depths of a sunbonnet, and her hands were covered with a pair of deerskin gauntlets, for she could not forget, poor woman! that she was gently bred, and she hated to see her skin reddening in the dry air of the hills.
Items of necessity she bought scantily, sparingly, of travelling pedlars, for prices were high. Candles for the winter, corn-meal, occasionally flour, coffee, sugar—all these counted. Things cost so much more here than she had anticipated. Prue saw the end coming, distant though it might be. She sometimes did little bits of mending for passing miners, and was paid for it. Oftener she skimped on the daily meals, pretending that she was tired and did not care to eat. The doctor never noticed, nor did she mean that he should.
In the presence of his work, he could think of nothing else. Once, when they ran out of wood, she told him of it. It worried him for a week. Material necessities drew his mind away from the attitude of calm scientific investigation. The pile of fuel that goes with every new shack lasted the first winter through. After that was gone, Prue used the chips made when the house was built, as long as they held out. Then she tried to chop down a tree herself. Jim Buckley found her sitting on a stone, the axe between her knees, her face buried in her hands. Beside her was a pine scarred at random with weak, ill-directed blows. He made a few profane remarks into his thick beard concerning the doctor, then took the axe from her, and started to work. In a week enough firewood was piled over against the house to last the winter. During that week he ate his noon meals in the little cabin. The woman did her best, and used up a fortnight's provisions in the attempt to make a respectable showing before the hungry man. But in spite of that he saw through her pitiful efforts, and offered to let her have money. She drew herself up and showed him the door. When he had gone, bewildered, she went out and looked at the white shining wood-pile and wept bitterly.
But in spite of economy the closest, and the sacrifice of absolutely every non-essential, the time came when the last cent had gone. The woman stood face to face with want. And, as ill-luck would have it, at this period the doctor was especially brimming with enthusiasm, for he had almost achieved the one result he needed to fill out his scheme. He worked feverishly to forestall the snow. He was full of his system, alternating between glowing enthusiasm and a haunting fear that the winter would set in too early. He must have uninterrupted time for work until then, he said. On this depended his professional reputation, their fortune.
She set her lips firmly and looked about her. The flour and meal were gone; there were no candles, and without candles how could the doctor put the last touches to his book when winter fell? Little light filtered through the oiled paper of the windows. She sold her ring to some passing gamblers. The money soon slipped away. For a few days she fought hard with her pride. Then she put on her sunbonnet, and, kissing the child tenderly, went, with heightened color, down the gulch to Jim Buckley's.
She found him sitting on a stump in front of his dirt-roofed shack, pounding into sand some quartz in an iron mortar. He did not hear her until she stood beside him. Then he arose, drawing his gaunt form up quickly, taking off his broad hat, and wiping his grimy hands on his jeans.
"Mr. Buckley," she said hurriedly, before he could speak, "I have come to tell you how sorry I am that I was so rude to you. You have been very kind to me, and I had no right to speak to you as I did. No, no!" she implored, as Jim opened his mouth to expostulate. "I must tell you that, andpleasedon't interrupt me.
"My husband is doing some very valuable work," Prue continued, "very valuable, and when he gets it done he will be very famous and very rich. But just now it takes all his time and attention, so that he doesn't realize—how—poor—we—are." The little woman's cheeks burned, and she lowered her head until the sunbonnet hid her face. "Of course, if I should tell him," she went on proudly, "he would attend to it at once. But I mustn't do that. He needssucha little time to finish his work, and I mustn't—must I?" And she suddenly looked up into Jim's honest eyes with an imploring gesture.
Jim was standing, his broad hat against his knee, looking at her fixedly. No doubt he was thinking how, when he had first seen her, her cheeks were as full and ripe as the apples of his old home in New England; and was wondering if the dip of strata were worth this. Seeing that he intended no reply, she looked down again and went on.
"I came here to see you about that. Once, Mr. Buckley, you offered to lend me some money, and I—I—am afraid I was very rude. And now—oh, dear!" And suddenly the poor little figure in faded and patched calico sank to the ground, and began to sob as if her heart would break.
Jim was distressed. He started forward, hesitated, looked up at the sky and down the gulch. Then he threw down his hat and darted into the cabin, returning in a moment with a buckskin bag, which he tossed impulsively into her lap.
"There, there!" he said distractedly. "Why didn't you say so before? Stop!Pleasestop! Oh, the——"
She looked up suddenly with a blinding smile.
"Now, don't say anything naughty!" she cried airily through her tears. She laughed queerly at Jim's open mouth and astonished eyes. He could not grasp the meaning of her change of mood. Before he could recover, she was on her feet, a roguish vision of blushing cheeks and dancing eyes. She shook the buckskin bag in his face.
"Aren't you afraid you'll never be paid, sir?" she demanded; then, with a quick sob, "I think you are the kindest man in all the world!" The next instant the alders closed about her fluttering figure on the trail. For a week after, her cheeks burned, and she was afraid to look out of the cabin lest Jim should be coming up the path.
As the winter wore away, however, she began to see the bottom of the little buckskin bag. The doctor was as absorbed as ever. She could not bring her pride to the point of asking Buckley for another loan, and so again the terror of poverty seized upon her. Her eyes looked harassed and worn, and her mouth had queer little lines in the corners. She would stand watching the flames in the chimney for hours, and then would turn suddenly, hungrily, and snatch up the little girl, devouring her with kisses. Sometimes she would wrinkle her brow, peeping into the doctor's manuscripts, trying to make out how near the end he was, but she always laid them down with a puzzled sigh. She did not eat enough, and she grew thin. She tried expedients of which she had read. For instance, one day she went down into the creek bottom and cut some willows. She peeled the bark from them, and from the inside rind she collected a quantity of fine white dust, with which she made a pasty kind of dough. The biscuits were tough and of a queer flavor. Even the doctor, after tasting one of them, looked up in surprise.
"What do you call this, my dear?" he inquired.
She clapped her hands gayly, and laughed with a catch in her voice.
"Oh, a queer Indian dish I've learned, that's all. You neverdopay any attention to what you eat, so I thought I'd make you for once."
"Oh," said the doctor, smiling faintly.
The willow flour appeared no more.
So the long winter drew to its close, and still the brave little woman set her face resolutely forward, striving to help the doctor with his life-work as only a woman can. She could see no way out. The case was hopeless, and often she shed impotent tears over her inability. He worked so hard, and she did so little!
And then the spring brought with it the solution.
For two weeks after, Michaïl Lafond, cut loose from the crippled wagon-train returning to Three Rivers, travelled westward by the sun, sleeping under the stars, living on bacon, coffee, and an occasional bit of small game, drinking muddy water from buffalo wallows which providential rains had filled. At the end of that time he was raided by the Sioux. When they approached him, he led forward his two ponies, placed his rifle on the ground in front of their noses, unslung his powder-horn and laid it beside the weapon, and stepped back, throwing his arms wide apart. The Indians rode forward silently, a strange, naked band, whose fancy ran to chrome yellow, and took possession of Lafond and his equipment.
The half-breed became a squaw man, and lived with these Indians for some time. At first he was given drudgery to do. He did it, but kept his eyes open, and learned the language. After a little his chance came.
The band captured a wagon-train, and massacred its men and women. It found itself in possession of fifty or sixty horses, half a score of wagons, some provisions, and a goodly quantity of blankets, axes, utensils, and the rude necessities of life on the frontier. An Indian cannot possess too many ponies, he is always ready to eat, and blankets come handy in winter; but he has absolutely no use for the rest of the plunder. So he usually puts a torch to the lot, and has a bonfire by way of celebration.
On this occasion, Michaïl Lafond succeeded in getting Lone Wolf to postpone the bonfire, to lend him twenty ponies, and to detail to his service half as many squaws. The feat in itself was a mark of genius, as anyone who knows the Indian character will admit, and cost Michaïl many of his newly learned words, put together with all of his native eloquence.
The twenty ponies, driven by the ten squaws, drew the schooners and their contents to the Bad Lands, where Michaïl concealed them in a precipitous gully of the deeply eroded sort so common in that strange, rainless district. Then he returned fifteen of the ponies to Lone Wolf. Lone Wolf's band took up quarters within striking distance of the cached schooners.
All this was done by Michaïl Lafond, and when it was completed he drew a long breath. He felt that the foundations of his influence were laid. It was no light thing thus to have drawn self-willed savages from their accustomed ways of life. He had done it only by vague promises of great benefits to accrue in the immediate future, said benefits to be "big medicine" in the extreme. Lone Wolf had pondered much; had seen an opportune shooting star; had consented.
A month later, a half-breed returned alone across the plains from the hill country. At Pierre he announced open trail. He had himself come through without the least trouble, he claimed, although he had seen many Indians. This was strictly true. He went on to say that he would sell his outfit cheap, as he was anxious to go on east. The gold prospects were good. He had a partner squatting on several claims, to whom he would return the following year. He hinted mysteriously of capital to be invested and exhibited a small nugget of placer gold. Most of this was untrue, and the nugget he had found, not in the placer beds, but in a small pasteboard box in one of the schooners.
The outfit brought three hundred and fifty dollars, for the half-breed sold cheap. With this money and the horses he departed the day following.
Michaïl was now richer by three hundred and fifty dollars and five horses than he had been before his capture by the Indians. Were it not for two considerations, he might have decamped with the proceeds. Conscience was not one of them. In the first place, his Caucasian instincts taught him to look ahead to larger things. In the second place, his Indian blood would not let him lose sight of certain bits of savagery he had in contemplation. So, instead of decamping, he purchased with the money, in a town where he was unknown, five of the new breech-loading rifles and nearly five thousand rounds of ammunition. His tale here was simple. The trail wasnotopen, and a wagon-train was soon to attempt the task of opening it. He loaded the munitions on his five broncos, and joined Lone Wolf, who was outlying near at hand.
In the course of the next six months a certain half-breed, with various stores and outfits, was observed in several small towns on the border of the frontier. In half of them he was headed east and sold his outfit; in the other half he was headed west and bought rifles. At the end of the year there remained no more schooners in thecacheof the Bad Lands, but Lone Wolfs band was the best armed in all the West. Michaïl Lafond had let slip the chance of embezzling some thousands of dollars, but he had gained what was much mere valuable to him—power over an efficient band of fighting men, and the implicit confidence of a tribe of Sioux Indians. He was respected and feared. His unseen influence was felt throughout the whole plains country.
Lafond was too shrewd either to repeat his venture or to become identified with the tribe. His influence, as has been said, was unseen and unsuspected. Lone Wolf's band was successful from the Indian standpoint, pernicious from the white man's. That was all that appeared on the outside. Lafond himself became a savage. He slept out with little cover, and often rode with none at all. He ate dog and rattlesnake, when dog and rattlesnake happened to be on the bill of fare. He carried a knife deep in the recess of a long, loose buckskin sheath; and from the ridge of his tepee hung five clotted horrors, torn from the heads of the victims of his personal prowess. The number of these might easily have been augmented, but Michaïl struck seldom in his own person. When he did, not one of the victims escaped, for no man must have seen Michaïl, the savage. Michaïl, the civilized, would need a clear field before him when once again he appeared in the towns.
The life was fascinating to such as he. He loved it, but he did not forget his purposes. When at last he had gathered firmly the reins of his power, he shook them, and the twin steeds of Murder and Rapine swept destroyingly through the land.
For the present there was peace on the plains. Wagon-trains came across the Pierre trail, or further down along South Fork. Custer explored. White men settled in the Black Hills, in spite of the treaty. The Indians hunted buffalo, and their wives made robes, and cut tepee poles from the valley of Iron Creek.
But in spite of all the seeming tranquillity, the seeds of discord had been sown broadcast, and Lafond, with his devilish cleverness of insight, could see that the struggle was not long to wait. Both sides felt aggrieved, and both sides had more than a show of reason for feeling so. Perhaps, in the long run, this was an inevitable result of the advance of civilization; but it is a little unfortunate that the provisional races must be set aside so summarily. That fact serves occasionally to cast a doubt in reflective minds on the ultimate benefit of the civilization.
We who look upon our tamed country, or those plainsmen who have perforce to struggle in the thick of the avenging troubles which follow injustice as surely as symptoms follow the disease, may not be able to see the Indian's side of the question. We, the peaceful citizens, enjoy the security of policed cities and fenced prairies; and we are convinced that it is worth the price. They, the pioneers, fight, and are maimed; they lose their worldly possessions, and their heart-strings are twanged to the tuning of grief; and so they become partisans, to whom the old scriptural saying that "he who is not for me is against me" comes home with a sternness brewed of tears.
But to those others who looked on from the height, to the men who sat safe, but moved the pawns on the board—to them there was a real justice, and they infringed it; a real duty, and they failed it. They held the whip hand and spared not the lash, and it shall be visited unto them.
Nearly fifty years ago, a Lieutenant Warren, at the head of a small exploring party, approached the Black Hills. He was met near the South Fork by a friendly but firm deputation of Sioux chiefs. Pah-sap-pah was sacred. Pah-sap-pah must not be entered. All the rest of the country was open, by the courtesy of the red men, to their white brothers, but sacred land must not be profaned. Warren acquiesced, and contented himself with ascertaining the general extent and configuration of the forbidden district. When, in the fulness of time, the government entered into treaty with these Indians, Warren's policy was continued, and the Black Hills were, by a special clause, exempted from white invasion forever. According to the Indians, the place was the abode of spirits, and each tree, each rock, each dell, had its own especialmanitouwhom it were sacrilege to offend by the touch of profane hands.
For many years the treaty was respected. Then a Pawnee brought into one of the reservations a small quantity of gold dust, which he confessed to have found in the Hills.
The following spring, Custer, at the head of an expedition of one thousand two hundred men, entered into a long scout with the avowed purpose of exploring the Black Hills for indications of gold. In this he acted directly under his governmental orders. Thus was the treaty first broken.
Next year the Hills were overrun with miners, illegal miners, just as the troops had been with illegal explorers. They scattered through the wilderness in vast numbers, and about a hundred of them staked out, near the centre of the Southern Hills, a town which they named Custer City. The irony was unconscious. What followed was farcical, and was relished as such by the participants. Bodies of troops were sent to enforce the treaty. Legally they did so. Although inferior in numbers to the miners, and no better armed, they succeeded several times in sweeping all the trespassers together into one band. The latter submitted good-naturedly. The culprits were then turned over to civil authority. Civil authority waited only for the disappearance of the troops to set the miners at liberty; whereupon they scurried, as fast as their animals could carry them, back to the prospect-holes of their choice. It was all a huge joke, and everybody knew it.
In the meantime the Indians were becoming restive. It may not be known to the general reader, but it is a fact, that one of the strongest virtues of the red man's character is his fidelity to his given word. A liar is, in his moral code, the most despised of men. He cannot conceive the possibility of broken faith, and there are recorded instances wherein an Indian condemned to capital punishment has been set free on his oral promise to return for his hanging; and he has returned. Therefore the Sioux could not understand the infraction of the treaty.
They had viewed with alarm the scouting expedition by Custer. On the invasion by the horde of miners, the following spring, an outbreak was only avoided by the prompt action of the troops in evicting the trespassers; but now, this winter of 1875, the more sagacious of the Indian leaders were beginning to suspect the truth, namely, that the eviction had been nothing but a form, and that Pah-sap-pah, in spite of the treaty, was lost to them forever. Affairs were ripe for a great Indian war; and, realizing this, the department set on foot Crook's and Reynolds' unfortunate expedition toward the Big Horn.
The savages at once began to gather under a famous chief, Sitting Bull. The storm rumbled, and Custer was despatched to effect a junction with his brother officers somewhere north of the Hills.