Part 7 (1/2)
In accordance with the tribal agreements the Chis-chis-chash joined their camp with the Dakota, and together both tribes moved about the buffalo range. Every day the scouts came on reeking ponies to the chiefs. The soldiers were everywhere marching toward the camps. The council fire was always smoldering. The Dakota and Chis-chis-chash chiefs sat in a dense ring while Sitting Bull, Gall, Crazy Horse and all the strong men talked. They regarded the menace with awe; they feared for the camp with its women and children, but each voice was for war. It was no longer poor beaver-men or toiling bull-wagons; it was crowds of soldiers coming up every valley toward the villages which before had been remote and unmolested. If any soothsayer could penetrate the veil of the future he held his peace in the councils. The Indians tied up their ponies' tails for the struggle and painted for war. Three cartridges were all a fine buffalo robe would bring from a trader and even then it was hard to get them; but though the lodges had few robes many bra.s.s-bound bullets reposed in the war-bags.
The old thrill came over the Fire Eater in these agitated times. He could no longer leap upon his pony at full gallop, but rode a saddle.
The lodge chafed him until he gathered up a few young men who had been acting as spies and trotted forth on a coyote prowl. For many days they made their way toward the south. One day as he sat smoking by a small fire on a mountain-top, somewhat wearied with travel, the restless young men came trotting softly back over the pine needles saying:
”Come out and you will see the white soldiers.” He mounted and followed, and sitting there amid the mountain tangle he saw his dreams come true.
The traders and the talking men had not lied about the numbers of their people, for his eye did not come to the rear of the procession which wound up the valley like a great snake. There were pony-soldiers, walking-soldiers, guns on wagons, herds of the white men's buffalo, and teams without end. The Fire Eater pa.s.sed his hands across his eyes before another gaze rea.s.sured him, and having satisfied himself he asked a young man: ”Brother, you say there are as many more soldiers up north by the Yellowstone?”
”There are as many more--I saw them with my own eyes, and Blow Cloud over there has seen as many to the east. He could not count them.”
For an hour the spies watched the white columns before the Fire Eater turned his pony, and followed by his young men disappeared in the timber.
Upon his arrival at the big camp the Fire Eater addressed the council:
”I have just come five smokes from the south, and I saw the white soldiers coming. I could not count them. They crawl slowly along the valley and they take their wagons to war. They cannot travel as fast as our squaws, but they will drive the buffalo out of the land. We must go out and fight them while our villages lie here close to the mountains.
The wagon-soldiers cannot follow the women's pack-horses into the mountains.”
The council approved this with much grunting, and the warriors swarmed from the villages--covering the country until the coyotes ran about continually to get out of their way. No scout of the enemy could penetrate to the Indian camps. The Indians burned the gra.s.s in front of the on-coming herds; they fired into the enemy's tents at night, and as the pony-soldiers bathed naked in the Yellowstone ran their horses over them. They would have put out many of the white soldiers' fires if the wagon-guns had not fired bullets which burst among them.
But it was all to no purpose.
Slowly the great snakes crawled through the valleys and the red warriors went riding back to the village to prepare for flight.
One morning the Fire Eater sat beside his lodge fire playing with his young son--a thing which usually made his eyes gleam. Now he looked sadly into the little face of the boy, who stood holding his two great scalp braids in his chubby hands. He knew that in a day or two the camp must move and that the warriors must try to stop the Yellow-Eyes. Taking from his scalp a buckskin bag which contained his bat-skin medicine he rubbed it slowly over the boy's body, the child laughing as he did so.
The sun was barely stronger than the lodge fire when from far away on the hills beyond the river came a faint sound borne on the morning wind, yet it electrified the camp, and from in front of the Fire Eater's tent a pa.s.sing man split the air with the wolfish war-yell of the Chis-chis-chash. As though he had been a spiral spring released from pressure, the Fire Eater regained his height. The little boy sat briskly down in the ashes, adding his voice to the confusion, which now reigned in the great camp in a most disproportionate way. The old chief sprang to his doorway in time to see a mounted rider cut by, shrieking, ”The pony-soldiers are coming over the hills!” and disappear among the tepees.
With intense fingers the nerved warrior readjusted his life treasure, the bat-skin, to his scalp-lock, then opening his war-bags, which no other person ever touched on pain of death, he quickly daubed the war paint on his face. These two important things having been done, he filled his ammunition bag with a double handful of cartridges, tied his chief's war-bonnet under his chin, and grasping his rifle, war-ax and whip, he slid out of the tepee. An excited squaw hastily brought his best war-pony with its tail tied up, as it always was in these troublesome times. The Fire Eater slapped his hand violently on its quarter, and when he raised it there was the red imprint of the hand of war. The frightened animal threw back its head and backed away, but with a bound like a panther the savage was across its back, a thing which in tranquil times the old man was not able to do.
This was the first time in years that the warrior had had a chance to wear his war-bonnet in battle. Rapidly adjusting his equipment as he sat his plunging horse, he brought his quirt down with a full arm swing and was away. By his side many st.u.r.dy war-ponies spanked along. At the ford of the river they made the water foam, and the far side muddy, with their dripping. They were grotesque demons, streaked and daubed, on their many-colored ponies. Rifles clashed, pony-whips cracked, horses snorted and blew, while the riders emitted the wild yelps which they had learned from the wolves. Back from the hills came their scouts sailing like hawks, scarcely seeming to touch the earth as they flew along.
”The pony-soldiers are coming--they are over the hill!” they cried.
The crowded warriors circled out and rode more slowly as their chiefs marshaled them. Many young Red Lodge braves found the Fire Eater's place, boys who had never seen the old man in war, but who had listened in many winter lodges where his deeds were ”smoked.” As they looked at him now they felt the insistency of his presence--felt the nervous ferocity of the wild man--it made them eager and reckless, and they knew that such plumes as the Fire Eater wore were carried in times like these.
The view of the hill in front was half cut by the right bank of the coulee up which they were going, when they felt their hearts quicken.
One, two, a half dozen, and then the soldiers of the Great Father came in a flood across the ridge, galloping steadily in column, their yellow flags snapping. The Fire Eater turned and gave the long yell and was answered by the demon chorus--all whipping along. The whole valley answered in kind. The rifles began to pop. A bugle rang on the hill, once, twice, and the pony-soldiers were on their knees, their front a blinding flash, with the blue smoke rolling down upon the Indians or hurried hither and thither by the vagrant winds. Several followers of the Fire Eater reeled on their ponies or waved from side to side or clung desperately to their ponies' necks, sliding slowly to the ground as life left them. Relentless whips drove the maddened charge into the pall of smoke, and the fighting men saw everything dimly or not at all.
The rus.h.i.+ng Red Lodges pa.s.sed through the line of the blue soldiers, stumbling over them and striking downward with their axes. Dozens of riderless troop horses mingled with them, rus.h.i.+ng aimlessly and tripping on dangling ropes and reins. Soon they were going down the other side of the hill and out of the smoke_;_ not all, for some had been left behind.
Galloping slowly, the red warriors crowded their cartridges into their guns while over their heads poured the bullets of the soldiers, who in the smoke could no longer be seen. On all sides swarmed the rus.h.i.+ng warriors mixed inextricably with riderless troop horses mad with terror.
As the clouds of Indians circled the hill, the smoke blew slowly away from a portion of it, revealing the kneeling soldiers. Seeing this the Fire Eater swerved his pony, and followed by his band charged into and over the line. The whole whirling ma.s.s of hors.e.m.e.n followed. The scene was now a ma.s.s of confusion which continued for some time, but the frantic Fire Eater, as he dashed about, could no longer find any soldiers. As the tumult quieted and the smoke gave back, they all seemed to be dead.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 13 The rus.h.i.+ng Red Lodges pa.s.sed through the line of the blue soldiers]
Dismounting, he seized a soldier's hair and drew his knife, but was not able to wind his fingers into it. He desisted and put back his knife muttering: ”A dog--he had not the hair of a warrior--I will not dance such a scalp.”
The Fire Eater looked around him and saw the warriors hacking and using their knives, but the enemy had been wiped out. Horses lay kicking and struggling, or sat on their haunches like dogs with the blood pouring from their nostrils. He smiled at the triumph of his race, mounted his pony and with his reeking war-ax moved through the terrible scene. The hacking and scalping was woman's work--anyone could count a _coup_ here.
As for the Fire Eater, his lodge was full of trophies, won in single combat. Slowly he made his way down the line of horror until he came to the end--to the place where the last soldier lay dead, and he pa.s.sed on to a neighboring hill to view the scene. As he stood looking, he happened to cast his eyes on the ground and there saw a footprint. It was the track of a white man's moccasin with the iron nails showing, and it was going away from the scene of action. Turning his pony he trotted along beside the trail. Over the little hills it ran through the sage brush. Looking ahead, the Fire Eater saw a figure in a red blanket moving rapidly away. Putting his pony to speed he bore down upon the man with his rifle c.o.c.ked. The figure increased its gait, and the red blanket fell from the shoulders revealing a blue soldier. It was but an instant before the pony-drew up alongside and the white man stood still, breathing heavily. The Fire Eater saw that his enemy had no gun, the thought of which made him laugh: ”A naked warrior; a man without even a knife; does the man with the iron moccasins hope to outrun my war-pony?”
The breathless and terrified white man held out his hand and spoke excitedly, but the Fire Eater could not understand. With menacing rifle he advanced upon his prey, whereat the white man, suspecting his purpose, quickly picked up a loose stone and threw it at him but only hit the pony.