Part 18 (1/2)
”Red Dog wastes time and wind talking here. If he wants to be heard let him go there,” said Boynton, pointing to the distant agency. ”Unless,”
he added, with sarcastic emphasis,--”unless Red Dog's afraid.” And then he, too, reined deliberately about and signalled to his men to follow.
For a moment there was silence as Elk stumblingly put into Sioux the lieutenant's ultimatum. Then came an outburst of wrath and invective.
Red Dog afraid, indeed! Loudly he called for his horse, and the crowd gave way as a boy came running leading the chief's pet piebald. In an instant, Indian fas.h.i.+on, he had thrust his heavily-beaded moccasin far into the off-side stirrup and thrown his leggined left leg over the high silver-tipped cantle, and the trained war pony began to bound and curvet. Swinging over his head his beautiful new Winchester, Red Dog rode furiously to and fro, haranguing the excited tribesmen, and speedily more Indians were sitting hunched up in saddle, but darting skilfully hither and yon, yelping shrill alarm. Others dashed away to the distant village to rouse Red Dog's own people and summon the warriors that remained. In fifteen minutes, at the head of three hundred mounted braves, Red Dog was riding straight for the agency, his escort gaining numbers with every rod. Red Dog afraid, indeed!
Over the moonlit sweep of snow the watchers at the corral saw the coming throng, a moving ma.s.s, black and ominous as the storm-cloud. Within the buildings all hands were hastily barricading doors and windows and bustling a few women and children, trembling and terrified, into the cellars. Out in the corral in disciplined silence the troopers were promptly mustering and forming line. Six or eight of the party that arrived with Davies that morning having badly frozen fingers and toes were told off to act as horse-holders. ”We've simply to fight on the defensive,” said Boynton to his silent second in command, ”and we'll fight afoot. Thirty men can defend the corral and out-houses and the front of the agency. The rest we'll put in the building. That's all we've got.”
Away from the excited group at the office door a horseman turned and spurred full speed for the hills far to the southwest. ”Tell 'em we're attacked by overpowering numbers,” said McPhail, ”and want instant help,--all they can send us.” There was no time to write despatches; the shouts and taunts and shrill defiance of the coming troop already rang in their ears.
”Now then, McPhail,” said Boynton, lunging up through the snow-drifts, carbine in hand, ”I've got my men at every loop and knot-hole, and those beggars can't take this shop to-night. What I want is authority to arrest that head devil the moment he gets here.”
”It will only infuriate them and make matters worse,” pleaded the representative of the Indian bureau.
”Well, it's the only way to put an end to the row,” said the soldier.
”The only thing in G.o.d's world those fellows respect is force and pluck.
You've temporized too long. Arrest him and tell his fellows to disperse to their tepees in two minutes or we open fire.”
”How can you arrest him in front of all that array?” was the tremulous question. ”Do you suppose they'll permit it?”
”That's my business,” was Boynton's answer. ”I don't mean to let that gang come within three hundred yards, and you're a worse fool than I thought if you overrule me. I'm going to ride out there now to halt them at the creek. Then you order Red Dog forward with his interpreter and bring him in here a prisoner. You've not an instant to lose,” he finished as a trooper came up at the run, Boynton's big bay trotting at his heels. The lieutenant was in saddle in a second. ”Are you agreed?”
he asked.
”Why, they'll say we began it, lieutenant. They'll swear they were only coming to talk. They've always been accustomed to come here whenever they wanted to. We have only a handful of men; they've got a thousand fighting braves within a day's call. My G.o.d! I can't risk my family!”
”You've done that already with your confounded temporizing. Look there, man. It's too late now. There's where I would have held them, along the creek bank. Now they're swarming across.”
Singing, shouting, brandis.h.i.+ng lance and rifle, their barbaric ornaments gleaming in the frosty moonlight, some of the younger men darting to and fro on their swift ponies, mad with excitement, on came the surging crowd, led by the majestic figure of the big chief, jogging straight on at the slow, characteristic amble of the Indian pony, his war-bonnet trailing to the ground. From far and near, up and down the valley, dim, ghostly, shadowy hors.e.m.e.n came darting to join the array. Close behind Red Dog some rabid warrior began a wild war chant, and others took it up. Somewhere along the throng a tom-tom began its rapid, monotonous thump, and here, there, and everywhere the rattles played their weird, stirring accompaniment.
”Well, by G.o.d, McPhail! you may let them ride over you and yours, but they can't ride over me and mine without a fight,” said Boynton, now wild with wrath. ”That whole force will be swarming through the premises in five minutes. Quick, Davies!” he cried. ”Forward as skirmishers!
Cover that front! Ten men will do.” And without further command, scorning prescribed order of formation, but with the quick intuition of the American soldier,--the finest skirmisher in the world,--a little party of troopers watching at the corral gate, sprang forth into the moonlight and, opening out like a fan, carbines at trail or on the shoulder, forward at full run they dashed, spreading as rapidly as they possibly could to irregular intervals of something like ten yards from man to man, and presently there interposed between the coming host and the black group of buildings at their back this thin line of dismounted men, halted in silence to await the orders of the tall, slender subaltern officer, who, afoot like themselves, now stood some thirty paces in rear of their centre, calmly confronting the advancing Indians.
Up to Davies's side rode Boynton, bent and whispered a word, then spurred forward to the line, and there, reining in, raised to the full length of his arm a gauntleted hand, palm to the front, and gave the universal signal known by every Indian and frontiersman from Hudson's Bay to the Gulf of California,--”Halt!”
”Red Dog comes to talk with the Great Father's agent, not with you,”
shouted Elk, las.h.i.+ng forward for a parley.
”All right. Come on, you and Red Dog, but order your gang to stay where they are. The agent will talk with Red Dog, but no one else.”
Without audible orders of any kind, the Indians had suddenly ceased their clamor, and now, apparently, were quickly ranging up into long, irregular line in rear of their chief. Presently, as Red Dog and Elk conferred, there stretched across the snow-streaked prairie some three hundred motley braves, mounted on their war ponies, the flanks of the line receiving constant additions from the direction of the distant lodges. Then Elk again came forward, Red Dog sitting in statuesque dignity in front of his tribesmen.
”The white chief has his soldiers. The agent of the Great Father has his men. Red Dog demands the right to bring an equal retinue,” was doubtless what the Indian wished to say and what in the homely metaphor of the plains he made at once understood. ”You got soldiers. Agent got heap.
Red Dog he say he bring heap same,” was the way Elk put it, and Boynton expected it.
”Tell Red Dog the soldiers will fall back and the agent come half-way out afoot. Red Dog and you dismount and come forward half-way. If your people advance a step we fire. That's all.”
Another low-toned parley between the chief and his henchmen. Two minutes of silent fidgeting along the line of mounted Indians. Like so many blue statues the skirmishers stood or knelt, carbines advanced, every hammer at full c.o.c.k. Back in the shadows of the agency hearts were thumping hard and all eyes were strained upon the scene at the east. The moon, riding higher every moment, looked coldly down upon the valley. Elk came forward again, and Red Dog's war-bonnet wagged first to right and then to left. He was saying something in low tone to the braves at his back and they were pa.s.sing it along to the outer flanks of the line.
”Red Dog says soldiers go back and agent come out and talk,” said he.