Part 21 (1/2)
”Captaincy!” he repeated, taken aback by my audacity. ”Captaincy! That is beyond all reason.”
”Yet if I succeed beyond reason--?”
”In such event--But let that wait until your return.”
”If ever I do return,” I added.
”True; but you can thank yourself that you are thrusting your head into the noose, with your eyes open.”
”Then Your Excellency gives me leave to join as a volunteer?”
”We shall see--we shall see.”
”But, Your Excellency, a man likes time for preparations.”
”That is your own affair, sir,--though I may say that, at present, I feel disposed to grant you the favor. I shall let you know in good time.”
With this I was forced to be content. The General rose to enter his office, with a pompous gesture of dismissal.
But upon my return to my friend's quarters, he and Mrs. Pike and Lieutenant Wilkinson joined in a.s.suring me that, since the General had not refused me point blank, I had every reason to expect a favorable decision.
CHAPTER XIV
THE LURE
It was well in line with the General's character that he kept me on tenterhooks until the very afternoon before the intended day of marching. Then, as it were at the eleventh hour, he included in his written orders to Lieutenant Pike, to march the following day, a brief paragraph to the effect that I was to accompany the expedition as a volunteer surgeon.
Notwithstanding the orders of the General, we did not start in the morning, but were forced to wait over until the fifteenth of July, owing to the unreadiness of our savage charges, the Osage captives who had been rescued from the Pottawattomies and who were to be returned to their people under our escort.
The first stage of our journey, up the devious Osage River, was one tedious to all and exceedingly laborious to those whose duties confined them to the navigation of the boats. In confirmation I need only add that the Summer was fast nearing its close before we arrived at the Osage towns.
There, instead of the generosity which we had a right to expect from an Indian tribe to whom we had restored so many members, we were delayed many days by their ungrateful reluctance to supply us with horses, and in the end obtained with greatest difficulty only a few of their least desirable animals.
Yet, relieved of the boats and our Indian charges and possessed of these few pack-beasts and saddle horses, our march on toward the p.a.w.nee Republic, when at last we did get under way again, soon carried us into the prairie which lies westward of the three-hundred-mile belt of half-forested lands along the Mississippi. We had come to that vast extent of desert plains which, though abounding in game, is all but dest.i.tute of timber. In consequence of this fact, young Wilkinson and I agreed with Pike that the arid waste is destined to serve forever as the Western boundary of the Republic's settled population.
About the middle of September I was sent on ahead of the party to the p.a.w.nee Republic, accompanied by a young p.a.w.nee called Frank, one of the half-dozen of his people attached to the expedition at St. Louis. We were well mounted, and travelled rapidly in a northwesterly direction, across the lower fork of the Kansas River and the three branches which flow into the Republican Fork from the south and west.
At first we kept a sharp outlook for hunting and war parties of the Kans, who at the time were not on the best of terms with their cousins the Osages. But throughout our trip we saw nothing more dangerous than the numerous panthers which thrive on the superabundant game. Though bold, these tawny beasts were too well fed to trouble us. The same was true of the gray wolves, a small pack of which followed us day after day to feast upon the carca.s.ses of the buffaloes we killed.
Evening of the fourth day brought us into the vicinity of the p.a.w.nee Republic. We were riding along over a broken, hilly country, and my savage companion was telling me, in a mixture of bad French and worse English, that we should soon come within sight of the Republican Fork and his home village, when suddenly we rode into a broad track which could only have been made by a large body of hors.e.m.e.n, over two hundred at the very least.
”Hold!” I cried, reining up and pointing at the signs. ”Look. Many people went south, on horses, two or three weeks ago. Your people? They have gone to the Arkansas?”
”_Non!_” grunted Frank, and leaping off, he caught up and handed to me a tent pin. ”p.a.w.nee? _non!_ Stick no grow in p.a.w.nee hunting-ground. White man's knife cut him. _Voila!_”
”White man!” I repeated in amazement.
How was it possible that there could have been so large a party of white men traversing this remote wilderness? As I sat staring at the wooden pin, studying its grain and shape, Frank circled around through the beaten gra.s.s in search of further signs. A guttural cry from him compelled my attention.
He was holding up a broken spur.