Meanwhile a personal animus had sprung up against that general because of a mild stroke of justice on his part against a singularly proud man.
It seems that the personnel of Custer's former expedition to the Yellowstone included two civilians, a Dr. Honzinger and a Mr. Baliran. These men were not, of course, subject to the full rigor of military discipline, and so were accustomed to depart from, and return to, the main line of march at will. When they did not reappear in due time from one of these little trips, search was made; and they were found killed with arrows. Dr. Honzinger's skull was crushed in, but neither man was scalped, for the doctor was bald and the other wore his hair clipped short. Some time later, knowledge of the murderer's identity came to light, through information stumbled upon by one of Custer's own scouts.
At that period, rations and ammunition were distributed regularly at the various agencies. In return the savages promised to be good Indians and to submit to the white men's laws. This promise they kept faithfully enough, but according to their own standards. At the times of distribution, when inevitably a great many of the Indians were gathered together, the occasion was signalized by feasting and ghost dances. The latter are uncouth exhibitions enough, consisting decoratively of much cheap body-paint, many eagle feathers, and trashy jewelry; musically of most unmusical pounding and screaming; and physically of a crouching posture and a solemnly bounding progression from one foot to the other around a circle. They are accompanied by a recital of valorous deeds.
Such a dance was organized at the Standing Rock Agency, below Fort Lincoln, in the winter of 1875. As usual, besides the gathering of old warriors and squaws, assembled to watch the dance, the audience included a number of white men, present on business or pleasure. Among them was Charley Reynolds, one of Custer's scouts. This man stood exchanging idle comment and chaff with another scout, and throwing an occasional glance in the direction of the vortex of dancers, swirling about in gaudy confusion, like a whirlwind of autumn leaves. Suddenly he closed his mouth with a snap and leaned forward at keen attention. He had caught a few words that interested him.
The dancers had reached the point of frenzy. They leaped forward with solemnity still, but it was a quivering solemnity held in leash. Their bodies were tense, and the trailing knives and hatchets trembled with nervous force. Each warrior, nostrils distended and eyes flashing, was declaiming his deeds with an ecstasy that bordered on madness, rolling out tale after tale of murder, theft of horses—the only sort of theft countenanced by the Indian code—and fortitude under suffering. Noticeable among these dancers was a young warrior painted in the manner of the Uncpapa Sioux. He was of magnificent physique and striking countenance, but the most remarkable feature of his appearance was a huge, ragged scar across the muscles of his back. When the scout looked toward him, he was shaking in the air the chain of a watch, and declaiming at the top of his voice in the Sioux language.
"And he was great in body," he chanted, "and he fell, and I killed him with a stone, and the other fled, and I shot him, and so they died! I killed them! I am a great warrior, for I killed two white men, and these things are tokens that I speak the truth!"
He rattled the chain, and went through a vivid pantomime of the slaying of the two white men. Charley Reynolds recognized the trinket as belonging to Dr. Honzinger.
The young warrior was called Rain-in-the-Face, and he was at that time esteemed as the bravest of the northern Sioux. Others, such as Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull, might have been greater in generalship, but neither had the Uncpapa youth's reputation for sheer personal bravery. In the sun dance he had hung for four hours. The incisions behind the great muscles of the back, through which the rope was threaded, had been cut too deep, and the flesh failed to give way when Rain-in-the-Face was suspended. For some time he hung in midair, his whole weight depending from the loops of torn muscles, the blood streaming over his limbs, and the hot sun beating down upon him. Then the chiefs attempted to cut him down, but Rain-in-the-Face refused to permit it. Four hours later the flesh rent away from his bones, and he fell. That day made him the idol of the Sioux nation.
Charley Reynolds lost no time in informing Custer of his discovery, for the policy of the period was to punish as many culprits as possible, in order that the whites might establish, as soon as might be, a moral as well as military supremacy over the turbulent savages. The commander resolved to arrest Rain-in-the-Face. To that end he detailed a hundred men under Captain Yates.
Contrary to what one unused to the Indian character might expect, no difficulty was anticipated in finding the culprit. To be sure, the plains were broad and the hiding places many, but Rain-in-the-Face was at once an agency Indian and a reckless man. He drew his rations and he drew them boldly. With his blanket wrapped about him and his rifle peeping from its folds across his left arm, he stalked here and there among the agency's few buildings. Any distribution day at the reservation would discover him there.
But, on the other hand, the captain was not at all sure of being able to arrest him when found. A hundred men would stand but small chance in a fight with six hundred well-armed savages; whereas the appearance of a larger expedition would serve merely to frighten every agency Indian out into the wilds. The situation was not encouraging. How not to alarm the quarry, and how still to possess strength enough to seize it, was the problem that confronted Captain Yates.
His first move may seem, when cursorily examined, most unwise. He detailed a lieutenant and forty of his little command, whose orders were to proceed farther down the river, ostensibly for the purpose of making inquiries concerning three Osage Indians wanted for murder. Thus his available force was reduced to sixty, and with that handful he intended to capture and take away, in the face of ten times the number, one of the most popular fighting men of the Sioux nation.
But, as a matter of fact, in so dividing his forces the captain was correct in his tactics. He realized that surprise was his only effective weapon, and his ruse made surprise certain by lulling any suspicion as to the object of the expedition.
Arrived at the agency, a cursory examination disclosed the fact that Rain-in-the-Face was not among the groups of Indians camped on the prairie. He must, therefore, be inside the agency building itself. Captain Yates distributed his men near the little structure, and Colonel Tom Custer went inside with half a dozen soldiers.
The room was found to be full of blanketed Sioux warriors, muffled to the eyes, indistinguishable in the half light, except as eagle-feathered silhouettes. Greetings were exchanged, pipes filled, and a grave silence fell on the little group. The minutes passed, but no one moved. The atmosphere was dense with smoke, and still the parties watched each other—the whites with veiled eagerness, the Indians with unsuspicious stolidity. Finally the agent piled dry wood on the fire, and the blaze leaped up the chimney. The heat became oppressive, so after a moment the warrior nearest the fireplace threw back the blanket from his shoulders. It was Rain-in-the-Face himself.
On this rather dramatic disclosure, one of the troopers uttered an exclamation. The Indian, always suspicious, at once leaped back and cocked his rifle; but before he could raise the piece or pull the trigger, Colonel Custer wound his arms around him from behind. The other Indians rushed from the room.
The captive's hands were tied as rapidly as possible, but by the time he was brought to the door, the Indians were running angrily from all directions toward the building.
Captain Yates had succeeded in intimidating the first comers by a show of force, but he was soon outnumbered and a struggle seemed imminent.
However, an old chieftain began to declaim in the violent, high-pitched monotone so much affected by Indian orators. This delay afforded the soldier a much needed respite, but it tended also to concerted action later. The white man seized his opportunity. Through the interpreter he called upon the chiefs to stand forward for a parley.
"My brothers will hear me," said the interpreter for him, "because it is right, for they wear the Great Father's blankets and his food is in their bellies. This young warrior is brave and his enemies are as the feeble wind to him. But his eye became blinded. He thought he saw before him the Pawnees, the enemies of his people; but they were old men of my race. He killed those old men, and now the Great Father would know why. He must tell the Great Father of his blindness. Therefore it is well that he should go.
"So restrain your young men and I will restrain mine. It might be that your young men would kill many of mine; and it might be that my young men would kill many of yours. But why kill them? It is useless, for first of all, by my hand, this young warrior would die."
At the advance of the chiefs, the Sioux warriors had suddenly, from the wildest confusion, calmed to the deepest attention. They stood motionless against the white background of the snow, only their fierce eyes rolling from the speaker to their own chiefs and back again. One of the latter replied—
"It is not well to talk so," he said brusquely. "The words of my brother are idle words and mean nothing. My young men are many, and yours are few; yet shall your young men go unharmed if you give to us our warrior."
He swept his blanket over his shoulder with a sudden gesture, and scowled. For answer Captain Yates drew from its holster his army revolver and presented it at Rain-in-the-Face's breast. The Sioux looked far away beyond the horizon, but his nostrils dilated.
"It is well," said the chief hastily, "for my brother's words are words of wisdom. Taketwowarriors to the Great Father, but leave us this young man, that he may teach us that blindness is not wise."
In answer to his gesture two Indian youths stepped forward, proud of the distinction.
"See," went on the chief, "these shall go with your young men, and all will be well."
Yates lowered his pistol, and turned.
"Tell him," he said to the interpreter, "that this man goes with us. If I see the muzzle of a rifle, I'll shoot him dead."
The savages listened gravely. Their first burst of rage had passed, and, as always with their race, they were loath to engage in a stand-up fight in cold blood. The Indian is brave enough, but he likes to be brave in his own way. The chief turned and waved his hand. Ten minutes later bands of savages were speeding swiftly away in all directions, and the agency was entirely deserted.
The little command shortly after set out on its return trip. Yates fully expected to be attacked before he rejoined his chief; but although many savages were at various times visible, hurrying by, the troops arrived at Fort Lincoln in due course, and Custer stood face to face with his future slayer.
There is little need to repeat here the details of Rain-in-the-Face's captivity. It is interesting, but not of the story. He received visits from great warriors representing various tribes of the Sioux nation—Brulé, Yankton, Teton, Ogallala—all uniting to honor him. To the surprise of the few white spectators, these visitors kissed the young captive on the cheek, a mark of respect and affection almost unheard of among this savage people. Two of the younger warriors asked and received permission to share his captivity for a time. Rain-in-the-Face bore the imprisonment well; was docile, friendly, apparently happy. He had many talks with General Custer, and came to be well liked.
But he had much leisure for thought, and he was a proud man.
After some months, two white men, grain thieves, were placed in the same guard house. Being enterprising pioneers, they promptly sawed a hole and escaped. Rain-in-the-Face availed himself of the opening.
Once under the open sky, he adjusted his moccasins and struck boldly across the prairie for the West. Rain-in-the-Face was no longer an agency Indian, but a hostile.
Rain-in-the-face had no very definite idea of where he should go. The main and pressing need was to put a certain distance between himself and his pursuers as rapidly as possible.
To this end, he pushed diligently north-west in a bee line. At first he covered his trail skilfully, so that Custer's men would have to guess his direction of flight as any one of the three hundred and sixty degrees of the complete circle. After a little, this was unnecessary. It became desirable to fall in with a camp of the Sioux, in order that he might be directed to his own tribe of that people, the Uncpapa.
But as day followed day, Rain-in-the-Face owned himself puzzled. In the space of time that had elapsed since his escape, he should have encountered a dozen bands, for he was intimately acquainted with the country and with the Indian habit of life. The village sites were deserted, the plains were empty. The Indian did not know of the two expeditions, commanded respectively by Crook and Terry, which, the one from the south and the other from the north, were converging at the Big Horn; nor that in that district nearly every plains Indian had encamped, either openly allied with Sitting Bull, or near enough to become so should such a move seem expedient.
So for a week he subsisted alone as only an Indian can.
Let loose a tired pony at night on the plains, and in the morning he will turn up well fed and full of vigor. It is the same with a savage. He knows expedients for getting food, for preparing it, for combating thirst, for sleeping in bad weather with some degree of comfort, which a white man never acquires without a long and hazardous apprenticeship. It is a case of the survival of the fittest; and the Indian always survives.
Toward the end of the week, Rain-in-the-Face drew near the low hills of the Cheyenne River, in good condition, except that his moccasins were nearly worn out. Then he became aware of a camp. As beseemed a good warrior, he scouted carefully until he had satisfied himself that the lodges were those of people of his own nation. Then he allowed himself to be captured by the herd boys and escorted to Lone Wolf, the chief of the band.
Lone Wolf had been easily persuaded by Lafond that it was not good policy to join Sitting Bull. The tribe was well fed and rich. It could gain nothing by such a war, and could lose much. Now was the time to prepare against the coming winter; now, in the early summer, when the energy of the band was at its flood. War it had enjoyed but recently with the Pawnees; so the hearts of the young men were big with valor. Let them equally enjoy the chase, the other branch of a brave's education.
These, and a hundred like reasons, Lafond had urged so plausibly that the chief had come, without difficulty, to his way of thinking. After all, why not at least await the plum season, and the great gathering of prairie chickens which was invariably consequent on the ripening of the fruit? With that plan in view, the warrior had moved his band and all its household goods to the banks of the Cheyenne, where he settled down peaceably to a season of plenty. There Rain-in-the-Face found him.
The camp had been pitched, after the usual rambling manner, in a broad grass park of sandy subsoil, below hills on which wandered the ponies in times of safety, or lurked the sentinels in time of danger. Above the lodges, like blazoned arms, were suspended the spears and shields of the warriors, and before the open flap of each the owner could be seen sprawled in dignified idleness among his favorite squaws. Children sat grave and silent near at hand, or whirled in mimic and noisy warfare farther out over the prairie. Dogs skulked here and there. Kettles above shallow fire holes bubbled and steamed. About over the ground was strewn the indescribable litter of a long-used camp. Through the early summer air rose shrill laughter, the sounds of good-natured chaff, the yelp of dogs and the hum of lower conversation; for, no matter how shy or stoical an Indian may seem before strangers, he is sociable enough among his own people. Near the centre of the village stood the lodge of Lone Wolf. At his hand sat Michaïl Lafond.
The half-breed had in the past two years reverted almost to the type of his more savage parent. His hair was long and worn loose, after the Sioux fashion. The upper part of his body was naked. About his neck hung a string of bears' claws. Paint streaked his countenance. White buckskin leggings, ornamented with beads, covered his legs. Only the shifty character of his eye and a certain finer modelling of the bold lines of his face differentiated him from the full-blooded Sioux at his side. The two were conversing in the Sioux language.
To them the boys brought their stranger. From various directions squaws and children sidled nearer for a look. The warriors, disdaining such an exhibition of womanish curiosity, remained placidly smoking in the sunshine. Near at hand the sounds of laughter and of conversation died, and the solemnity of ceremony fell.
As he approached, the stranger raised his right hand, palm forward, in token of peace, and then drew the edge of the same hand across his throat from left to right. This latter is the "sign" of the Sioux, and thus Lone Wolf was made aware that he received one of his own nation. Lone Wolf inclined slightly, and raised his hand with the peace gesture. The three then sat and the inevitable pipe was produced.
Thus Rain-in-the-Face was received with all ceremony. Later, the first dip into the kettle of boiling meat was conceded him, and in that manner he was made free of Lone Wolf's lodge. No question was asked as to his identity, and he vouchsafed no information; that would come later, when the warriors gathered for a formal powwow.
And in the meantime, Michaïl Lafond's roving French eyes took in every detail of the stranger's appearance, and his keen French mind drew its own conclusions. Near the close of the afternoon, he left his seat and addressed the stranger.
"My brother knows ponies," said he. "Will he look upon one of mine?"
It was equivalent to an invitation to call. The savage arose and stalked by the half-breed's side in the direction of Lafond's fine lodge of whitened skins. As they approached, two young squaws glided away. Lafond spoke a word to one of them, and a moment later the boys of the camp raced eagerly in the direction of the band of ponies on the hill.
THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!"THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!"
THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!"THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!"
The lodge of Michaïl Lafond stood just beyond the village proper and on a slight elevation. The entire camp lay spread out before it, a panorama to be seized by a single sweep of the eye.
The savage paused for a moment before entering the doorway, and looked about him with a little envy. Never had he visited a band so well supplied with ponies, so efficiently armed, so wealthy in robes and lodges and kettles and all the other articles of Indian wealth which go to make up prosperity. Lafond watched him closely. The Indian turned inside the doorway, and sat down on a heavily furred buffalo skin near the entrance. In the background wallowed a dim confusion of skins, robes, and utensils. Lafond placed himself beside his guest and the pipe was lighted.
The stir following the stranger's arrival had lulled. The women and children, having satisfied their curiosity as to his personal appearance, returned to their wonted occupations, so that once again the mingled noises of the camp rose from the little valley.
In a moment the young squaw led up a pony. The animal was fine above the average. Its limbs were deer-like in delicacy, its nostrils were wide, its neck slender and tapering—quite in contrast to the ordinary Indian pony's clumsiness in this respect—and, above all, it was marked black and white in thepintofashion. This last is considered to indicate superior spirit and is much prized. The woman had twisted pieces of bright-colored cloth and eagle feathers into the mane and tail.
At the sight of so beautiful an animal, the stranger exclaimed in delight.
"It pleases my brother?" inquired Lafond politely. "It is his."
The squaw led the beast forward, touching the young warrior's hand with the end of the halter in token of proprietorship. Lafond rose and closed the tent flap. The noises of the camp were at once muffled, and twilight fell.
"My brother is a great warrior," he began after a moment, "yet he has need of ponies, for he comes on foot and his moccasins are worn."
The stranger, impassive but watchful, made no answer.
"My brother has come far?" went on Lafond cunningly.
"Far," repeated the youth politely.
"His eyes have seen the waters of the Great River?"
The savage bowed.
"Perhaps his pony was lost there?"
"It may be."
"The sight of the white man frightened him and he was drowned?"
The Indian's eyes flashed.
"It may be so."
"On his back my brother bears great scars," said Lafond suddenly after a short pause; "but they are the scars of a brave man. He bears other scars on his face; they are the scars of shame."
He ceased abruptly at the stranger's fierce ejaculation. The Indian seemed about to spring on him.
"But," the half-breed went on in haste, "my brother will destroy the shame, and the scars will go." He leaned forward and touched the savage lightly on his bare shoulder. "They are the scars from the white man's prison," he said.
For a moment the stranger's face was a study in livid hate. Then all expression died from it, leaving it stolid as before.
The half-breed smoked in silence. His surmises had been correct. This was indeed the young hero of the sun dance, the news of whose imprisonment had, by chance, come to his ears but a short time before. He considered. Finally, he turned to his guest once more.
"My brother has travelled many miles," he said. "Tell me, has he seen the lodges of his people?"
"The prairies have been waste."
"I will tell you why. The great white war chief has gone with his young men beyond Pah-sap-pah. There the warriors will strike him and destroy him. My brother's people are there."
The hate came back into the Indian's face with a flash. He fingered the haft of a knife that lay near his hand.
"I will join my people," he said.
"And aid them. It is well. But will my brother go alone and without arms?"
"What would you?" replied the Indian bitterly. "Am I a chief that I should go attended? Do arrows and rifles grow on the prairies?"
The half-breed craftily permitted another impressive but momentary silence to fall.
"But if my brother were to ride with a hundred fighting men; on his own pony; with a rifle in his hand—would not that be more in accord with his dignity as a brave warrior?" he suggested suddenly.
"Where are a hundred such?"
Lafond arose and pulled aside the flap of the tent. The camp lay in the half glow as a flat picture, and its noise burst in through the open doorway like a blare of music. The Indian's expressive eyes flashed comprehension.
"And if they go?" he asked.
"I, too, have enemies," replied Lafond.
Rain-in-the-Face smoked meditatively. If this man held the power to sway thus the policy of the camp, why did he not use it to crush the enemies of whom he had spoken? What added force could a young, unarmed stranger bring him that would compensate for the trouble and expense to which he was putting himself?
Lafond saw the hesitation and dreaded aright.
"My enemies dwell in Pah-sap-pah," said he simply.
In that sentence he exposed the weakness of his position. Pah-sap-pah was sacred, so sacred that for many years miners fled to it as to a sanctuary, certain that once within its dark border pursuit would cease. Hunts in it were undertaken only at certain times of the year, and under peculiar auspices. War died into peace when it dashed against those sombre cliffs. The winds in the trees were voices of Soulless Ones, bewailing always their fate; the frown of sun-red Harney—or the peak afterward known under that name—was instinct with the brooding wrath of some great manitou, who slept lightly only when his children disturbed him not. Even the powerful influence of Michaïl Lafond had failed to induce Lone Wolf to enter the Black Hills on an errand of murder.
But the name of Rain-in-the-Face was one to conjure with in just such matters as these. He was not only a brave man and a great warrior, but he was favored of the gods. In the belief of the Sioux nation, his wonderful endurance in the sun dance was at once evidence and warranty of it. Without divine favor he could not have endured so long; enduring so long had brought to him great abundance of divine favor. So, without actually professing to be a medicine man, he had freely accorded to him all the confidence a member of the priestcraft usually enjoys. If Lafond could induce Rain-in-the-Face to lead, the warriors of the band would follow blindly, even into Pah-sap-pah itself.
The Indian started as he caught the import of Lafond's words.
"My brother has looked upon the face of the angry Manitou," went on Lafond eagerly; "and he has not been afraid. He has danced the dance of death, and the great Manitou has stretched out his hand and held him up. My brother is favored of the Great Spirit, and he is not afraid."
"It is Pah-sap-pah," replied the Indian sombrely.
"Yes, it is Pah-sap-pah, and Pah-sap-pah is sacred. In Pah-sap-pah are two men, and they go here and there breaking her rocks, cutting her trees, defiling her streams. They profane the spirits. On the clouds of the mountain Gitche Manitou frowns because his children permit it. 'Why comes not one to take these away?' he says. 'My children have forgotten me.'"
"Gitche Manitou is great," said Rain-in-the-Face thoughtfully. "Why does he not destroy his enemies?"
"Gitche Manitou destroys through his chosen. Destroy thou, and it will be Gitche Manitou who destroys through thy hand."
The wily half-breed had caught this doctrine of the Jesuit in his old north country home, and his crafty use of it impressed its force strongly on the savage's mind. Lafond proceeded—
"And who more fitted than Rain-in-the-Face?"
The Indian glanced at him with new respect at this knowledge of his name.
"For he stands near to the Great Spirit, and the warriors will follow him."
The half-breed paused, pretending to consider the difficulties.
"The men are but two and there is a woman. There are here a hundred warriors, and each warrior has a gun and much powder. When the profane ones have been destroyed, then Rain-in-the-Face will turn northward and enter the camp of Sitting Bull at the head of many fighting men. It little beseems so great a warrior of the Uncpapas to go begging a rifle from the Tetons!"
The mind of Rain-in-the-Face, thus relieved of some degree of its superstitious fear, lay fully open to this last appeal to his pride. He picked up the pipe and puffed stolidly on it twice.
"The enemies of my brother shall die," said he.
Before the formal conference of that evening, Michaïl Lafond had arranged to carry out his side of the bargain. He had done this very simply. After the conversation in the lodge he had gone to Lone Wolf.
"The stranger is Rain-in-the-Face, of the Uncpapas," said he. "He is pleased with our warriors and he wishes to lead them against the great white war chief near the Big Horn. There are also strangers in Pah-sap-pah whom it is the will of Gitche Manitou that Rain-in-the-Face should destroy, and he desires your help."
Lone Wolf was delighted. That so famous a warrior should choose his band was honor enough to repay any effort.
In all this transaction, the offices of Michaïl Lafond could easily have been dispensed with. If Lone Wolf had gone to Rain-in-the-Face and said, "Behold, here are my young men. Lead them," the latter would have accepted the tender with joy. If, on the other hand, the stranger had merely announced his identity to Lone Wolf, that chieftain would gladly have furnished him with everything he needed. But each was in the dark as to one fact, of which Lafond had knowledge. Rain-in-the-Face did not suspect how his imprisonment had increased his importance, nor did he know that the deep content which brooded over Lone Wolf's camp was only apparent, and had been carefully fostered by Lafond. Nor did Lone Wolf recognize Rain-in-the-Face, nor realize how anxious the youth was for an escort to uphold his pride. It was by seeing little things of this sort, and acting upon them, that the half-breed had gained so much influence.
Four days later, Lone Wolf's camp swept northwestward toward the Big Horn Mountain. On the 25th of June, Rain-in-the-Face confronted General Custer, on a knoll near the river of the Little Big Horn. A great battle was all but over, and the few remaining troopers, their last cartridges gone, were fighting desperately with sabres.
The savage shot the white man through the heart.
All through this time of dread and danger, of plot and counterplot and intrigue, of brooding war and half-awakened pillage, the doctor went on peacefully collecting his funny little statistics, utterly oblivious to everything but their accumulation and arrangement. Every morning of the warmer months he went out into the hills for the day. There he would grub about among his ledges and leads, pecking away at the rocks with his little hand pick, filling his canvas bags, jotting down notes and statistics in his notebook.
During its progress he was blind to everything but his work. One day, as he walked along the top of a ridge, a huge bear rose up in his path. The doctor politely lifted his hat and passed to one side. The decline of the sun alone he noticed. When the shadow of Harney crept out to him he turned toward home. As he neared the log cabin his placid eyes fairly beamed through his spectacles. When he came in sight of it he ran forward, his specimen bags swinging heavily against his legs, caught up the child stumbling to meet him and carried her, laughing and struggling, to the woman in the doorway. Then they had supper all together—bacon, or perhaps game, with vegetables from the garden, and corn bread. Occasionally they had white bread and coffee, and always fresh water from the cold mountain creek. After supper the doctor went outdoors to arrange his specimens and plot out his notes as long as the daylight lasted. His wife moved about inside softly. After a time she brought out the little girl in her nightdress to be kissed. So the twilight neared, and the long day was done.
As the yellow glow crept down, she came outdoors too, and sat pensively looking over the peaks of the lower mountains to the distant Cheyenne and the prairies. Beyond them was the East. There were cities and books and other women and the beat of human life in the air. Here was a still, lonely grandeur that even the wind in the pines did not relieve.
The doctor finally had to put aside his work for lack of light, and sat at her feet leaning against the logs of the cabin. She looked down on his little figure, his round shoulders, his forehead even now abstract and wrinkled with speculation, his kindly blue eyes, his sensitive mouth, and then she softly reached out and took his hand. The two sat there until the moon rose over the Bad Lands. Then they went inside. In moments such as this the woman lived.
In winter time the doctor sat near the fireplace, writing by the candlelight on his great book. She was in the shadow, looking at him with tenderness, smiling wearily at the eager quivering of his chin, and rocking gently back and forth. The little girl played demurely on the floor within the circle of firelight, her curls falling down on her forehead. She piled up her blocks, and occasionally, as one would fall, she would look up in deprecation of her mother's hush. The golden heads of the mother and child were like sunshine before the dark walls of the cabin. Against them the firelight gleamed. Outside, the thin, light snow drifted fitfully by the pane. The doctor wrote. The woman watched in patience. The child played.
As spring came on, the doctor got out into the hills again.
One day he came back and found the woman murdered and the child gone. The cabin was ransacked from one end to the other, but no attempt had been made to fire it.
The doctor put his specimen bags methodically in their places, and then sat down by his dead wife.
At evening some passing miners found him there holding her hand. With some difficulty, and by the exercise of a gentle force, they persuaded him to rise, after which they tenderly laid the body on a couch, concealing as best they might the red tonsure where the scalp had been. They set the cabin in order and cooked supper from the provisions in their wagon. The doctor ate and drank in silence, making no sign when the men spoke to him.
After supper he went outside and began to arrange his specimens. When darkness fell he came in, stood undecided for a moment, and then lay down on a bear-skin, Jim's gift, and slept.
The men looked at one another in a puzzled way, conversing in low tones. Soon they too rolled themselves up and went to sleep on the floor.
Early in the morning Jim Buckley came down the gulch with part of a deer. The men told him the news hurriedly, between mouthfuls of coffee. Jim looked at the dead woman with a hardening of the mouth and a softening of the eyes; then he went out and for the first time took the doctor's hand.
When they had finished breakfast, the men made a rough bier of willow branches plaited, on which they gently laid the body. Two went down to the soft earth by the creek bottom and began to dig. The others followed with their burden, which they laid beside the growing excavation, and then stood with bared heads, waiting for the diggers. The doctor would not come. After a little persuasion they left him sitting on the ground, leaning against the logs of the cabin, looking out over the bluffs of the Cheyenne to the east.
The men in the trench worked rapidly and skilfully, one loosening the gravel with his pick, the other shovelling it out on the grass. Suddenly the latter stopped in the act of tossing a shovelful. He pushed his stubby forefinger in among the gravel for a moment and drew out an irregular bit of metal. It was gold.
They buried the young wife elsewhere, and staked out the claim, and others, lying along the creek.
So Prue slept quietly at last. Her little life was drab-colored in spite of the lights of adventure and drama that had played over it. It contained a great love and a great sacrifice. So little of the gold would have made her happy, and yet all the wealth of these new placers could not have saved her at the last!
A rider dashed up to them at the cabin, bringing news of the outbreak. It was directed to the towns of the North, and had only brushed Spanish Gulch on its destroying way. The men camped on the site of the new placer. They built cradles and pumped water down from Spanish Creek, so that in a little time the gulch contained quite a town. The first discovery is known as the Doctor's Claim, and so you can find it recorded in the records of Pennington County to-day. It turned out to be very rich.
And as for the doctor—he died.
The day following the conference, Lone Wolf struck camp. The squaws quickly removed and rolled into convenient bundles the skin coverings of the tepees. The poles of the latter were strapped on each side of the ponies in such a manner that, their ends dragging on the ground, a sort of litter was formed for the transportation of the household goods and the younger children. Before the sun was an hour high, the caravan was under way.
From this, the South Fork of the Cheyenne, the main band, under Lone Wolf, were to push directly through to the Big Horn. Lafond, Rain-in-the-Face, and the warriors detailed for the expedition were to carry out the adventure of Pah-sap-pah to the half-breed's satisfaction, and were then to rejoin the main body as soon as possible.
The smaller band cut in to the Black Hills shortly after daybreak one morning. It rode up Spanish Gulch a little before noon.
Most of these warriors had never before entered the dark limits of Pah-sap-pah. They were plainly in awe of its frowning cliffs and rustling pines. They rode close together, whispering uneasily. Even Rain-in-the-Face failed to reassure them. Why should he? He was a little afraid himself.
Lafond's knowledge of the topography of the place was excellent. He had visited it several times. He had watched the doctor, step by step, throughout a long day of geological searching. He knew Jim Buckley's dwelling, where he worked, what hours he kept, and just how late he sat up at night. Innumerable times he had viewed the doctor, Prue, and the scout through the buck-horn sights of his long rifle; yet he had never been even tempted to pull the trigger. Why? Because he was a Latin, and so theatrical effects were dear to him; because he was an Indian, and so revenge with him seemed to lie not so much in the mere infliction of injury as in the victim's realization that he was being come up with. Lafond not only wanted the doctor and his companions to be killed, but he wanted them to know why they were killed, and by whom. It was finer to be able thus to do the thing with all the stage settings. The dramatic instinct was part of the barbaric quality of his nature, like a love for red.
So Lafond had let slip innumerable opportunities of picking off his victims single-handed, merely to gain the local knowledge necessary to a finalcoup de théâtre. Consequently, he knew where the cabin was situated, and quickly scouted the state of affairs. The coast was clear. He gave the required signal; the savages silently approached on foot, and they entered the little house together.
Now at this time of year, in the Black Hills, there occurs a daily meteorological phenomenon of a rather peculiar character. The hot air from the prairies sweeps over from the Missouri River, crossing a number of lesser streams in its passage, until it strikes the slope of the hills. There it is deflected upward, gradually becoming colder as the elevation rises, until, at the barrier of Harney, it gathers in rain clouds. These are at first mere wisps of down, streaming in ragged ribbons from the peak; but with incredible rapidity they gain in density and extent, until they spread over a considerable area of the surrounding country. Then they empty themselves in a terrific deluge of water and hail, accompanied by thunderclaps so reverberant that they seem to arise from the rending of the hills themselves. After this short crisis, the dismembered clouds float out over the prairie and are dissipated in the hot air, even before they reach the first white turrets of the Bad Lands.
So rapidly does the storm gather and break, that there is but a short half hour between the morning and the afternoon clearness of the skies. To those who have never experienced this phenomenon, it is startling in the extreme; to those who have, it is a matter of seeking temporary shelter until the disturbance blows over. In any case, the first indications are but scant warning.
By the time the little band of Indians had reached the doctor's cabin, the first wisps of cloud were clinging to Harney. While they were in the house, the blackness gathered and loomed and darkened until the sun was obscured and the western hills lost themselves in rain.
The doctor was in the hills. Prue was making the bed in the little bedroom, and little Miss Prue was asleep on a rug in one corner of the larger apartment. The savages stole in with noiseless, moccasined feet behind the stooping woman. Lafond, forgetting in his excitement everything but the lust of killing, stabbed her deeply twice in the broad of the back. She fell forward on the bed without a murmur, and the murderer, seizing the knob of her hair, circled her brow with his knife's edge, and ripped loose the scalp. Then they all glided back into the other room.
Three of the savages took from the wood box near the crude fireplace some of the dried kindling with which Jim Buckley had supplied the family, and began to build a little wigwam-shaped pyramid against the side of the wall. Others moved about furtively, prying here and there for possible plunder. They preserved absolute silence, for the superstitious terror of the place was working on them, and they had begun to experience that panic-like tremor which seems to create an invisible clutch ready to seize from behind.
Even the encouraging presence of Rain-in-the-Face was not potent enough to prevent this. Out on the plains the personality of the man had loomed large, but here the legend was greater than he. The warriors felt the imminence of the frowning, brooding manitou of Harney; they almost heard the moaned syllables of the Soulless Ones' complaint. Their movements were those of timid mice, advancing a little, hesitating much, ready to flee in panic.
Not so Lafond. He strode roughly over to the corner where the child lay. In his mind, with new vividness, burned that old picture of his humiliation. He began to realize, now that the patient repression of his hate was over, how potent it had been. Alfred and Billy Knapp were out of his reach for the present, but here were the others ready to his hand. He seized little Prue by the hair of her head.
The child, thus suddenly awakened, screamed violently, shriek upon shriek, as her terror became more fully conscious of the savage and his bloody knife. About the room the warriors paused nervously. Accustomed enough to screams of this sort, they were now dominated by superstition and were thrown off their wonted balance.
And then a fearful thing occurred. Before their eyes, in the open door, groped and staggered the woman Lafond had stabbed but a moment before. From the red raw surface of her scalp blood streamed—streamed over the remaining fringe of her hair, matting it down; streamed down into her eyes, blinding them; over her drawn countenance; over the dabbled, sticky, clinging fabric of her garment, reddened still more by the pulsing flood from the two great wounds in her body. Her breast heaved painfully, the breath coming and going with a strange bubbling gurgle. Her face was turned upward almost to the ceiling above in the agony of her endeavor. Her little hands, become waxen, clutched and unclutched the side of the door. The child screamed yet again, mercifully hidden from this awful sight by the intervention of Lafond's body. The woman made a supreme effort to advance, plunged forward, and rolled over and over on the cabin floor.
At the same instant, with a shriek of wind and a roar of rain, the voice of the thunder spoke.
The savages, who had watched with strained eyes this resurrection from the dead, yelled in an ecstasy of superstitious terror and rushed for the door.
Lafond, utterly unmoved, called to them in Indian and swore at them in French, but they were gone. He hesitated for a moment in evident indecision as to what should be done next. Then he rapidly bundled the little girl in a blanket and threw her across his shoulder. As he hurried to the door, he paused for a moment over the motionless heap of blood and rags on the floor, coolly thrusting his knife again and again into the unresisting flesh.
He caught the fugitives only below the cañon of Iron Creek. They had made no pause until well out of the hills, and were still shaking with superstitious dread. Even Rain-in-the-Face, bold and self-confident as he was, had yielded to the panic; nor could the persuasions, threats or ridicule of the half-breed induce them to return.
For a time Lafond was of two minds as to his own course in the matter. Should he leave things as they were for the present or should he return alone to complete the work? Finally he decided on the former. The Gallic love of the spectacular again intervened; besides, he was possessed of a certain large feeling that the world was not wide enough to save his victims from him when he should judge the time fit. He found much joy in gloating over what he imagined the two men would say, do, and think when they returned to the cabin. And he was a good deal of a savage. He looked forward with fierce delight to the great battle which he foresaw would soon take place between Sitting Bull and his white enemies. So he rode on with the little band of warriors to overtake Lone Wolf.
The savages plainly could not understand his encumbering himself with the child. The custom had always been to seize such a victim by the ankles, whirl it once about the head to get a good swing, and then to dash its skull violently against a bowlder. They saw no reason why the rule should be departed from in this case. Neither did Lafond; but the queer, zigzag intuition of the half-breed had caused him to feel dimly that he should preserve the child, and as he was in the habit of gratifying his whims, he proceeded to carry out his intention in this case. Once his decision was expressed in emphatic form, his companions acquiesced. The child was Michaïl's captive; with his own captive he could work his will. That is the Indian code.
So little Miss Prue was carried for seven days on the back of a horse. She did not cry much, and this saved her from violence. Her two years of outdoor life had made her constitution robust, and this helped her in inevitable privation. At the end of the week, the band caught up with Lone Wolf and his camp, and Miss Prue was given over into the care of Lafond's two young squaws. With them she underwent the customary two days' jealousy, and then entered fully into the heritage of kindliness which every Indian woman squeezes, drop by drop, from her arid life and lavishes on the creatures who are gentle with her.
She had, to be sure, to learn the Indian virtues of silence and obedience. She had to do the little tasks that are set to girl babies everywhere among the savage tribes. And, above all, she had to learn to endure. But, in recompense, the two Indian women adored her. They decked her out in beaded work and white buckskin; they put bright feathers in her hair and bright beads about her little neck; they saved choice bits for her from the family kettle; and when night came they lay on either side of her and softly stroked her hair as she slept. Over her head, among others, hung her mother's scalp.