Part 8 (2/2)
Preloch understood the Comanche tongue, and she did not fight them. She made peace between those who wished to fight in the tribe. When people do not understand one another that must be the reason for all the trouble!”
”Then white men never fight with one another!” Star exclaimed suddenly.
The Big Gray Horse and the Old White Horse hung their heads and were silent, while the two Comanche ponies looked at them.
”_Do the white men fight one another?_” demanded Running Deer at last.
”Yes, sometimes,” the Big Gray Horse replied. ”There are white men who steal, kill, betray, and oppress the weak and helpless. Those who know the law and break it are punished by the law.”
”But the Indians do not know the white man's law, neither do they speak the same tongue,” snorted Running Deer, while her eyes showed little red sparks of anger. ”It was the white men who fought the Quahadas and took away Preloch and Prairie Flower.”
”The Comanches had killed and stolen white women and children,” replied the Big Gray Horse. ”So that was why the white men fought the Indians and took Quannah's mother and sister captive.”
”Then how are the white men any better than the Comanches?” Running Deer snapped angrily. ”You tell us that the white men are wise and good, and that the Comanches should learn the white men's ways and their laws, and yet you also say that the white men fight, steal, oppress, and kill one another, and if the Comanches take a white man's squaw or children, it is right for the white men to kill us, steal our women and children, and destroy our homes! If that is the right law for them, it is the right law for us. How can they teach us to be better than they are, themselves?”
”Just as you speak, I once heard an officer speak,” responded the Big Gray Horse. ”But when an order comes to an officer, he must obey. If we horses feel the reins, hear the bugle calling, see the troop guidon fluttering ahead of us, we ask no questions. Like our masters who ride us, we obey, for wherever the flag leads, we must follow and uphold it.
There is much I do not understand, but I do know we horses have no quarrel with the Comanche ponies.”
”Let us leave those things to men,” the Old White Horse said. ”We horses are good friends and will not bite or kick one another. Why should we fight when there is gra.s.s enough for us all? The world is big!”
”You are right,” was Running Deer's comment. ”And now if you will come with me I will show you where the gra.s.s is sweeter and more tender than any other spot for miles around. Only a few ponies besides myself and Star know the place. We will share it with you.”
Side by side the troop horse and the horse of the general followed the Comanche mare and her colt.
Chapter XII
Life in the Quahada village went very happily for Star and Songbird after the return of Quannah and his warriors. The white men had evidently withdrawn from their chase of the Comanches, and Quannah did not intend to cause further trouble unless the buffalo hunters or other white people encroached upon the land which the Quahadas considered their own.
The Old White Horse and the Big Gray Horse seemed to be very well satisfied among the Indian ponies, but Star was a special favourite.
More than once his mother chided him for liking the white men's horses better than older friends among the Comanche ponies. Sometimes she even drove him away from the cavalry horses and forced him to stay with the others. At such times Star did his best to escape her watchful eyes and return to his friends, but it was not an easy thing to accomplish. When his efforts failed, he would call loudly to the two horses, and their answers told him that they understood he had not deserted them.
”Why do you want to stay beside them all the time?” Hawk asked him one day when Running Deer had shouldered and nipped Star until he was in the very midst of the herd.
”Because they teach me so many things our ponies do not know,” he answered quickly.
”What can a white man's horse tell a Comanche pony?” Hawk said scornfully.
”A great many things,” was Star's reply. ”I listen to them talking to each other about big camps of white men, of strange houses that move as swiftly as lightning, and of the wonderful flag that floats every day from a tall white lodge-pole in the place where they live with many horses and soldiers.”
”We have lodge-poles, too,” Hawk spoke impatiently. ”Can their flag bring rain like the Thunder Bird that lives in the forks of the pole of the Sacred Sun Lodge?”
”No,” Star shook his head, ”I asked the Big Gray Horse about that, and told him how the Sun caught the Thunder Bird and kept it prisoner in the forks of the tall pole of the Sacred Sun Lodge, and that no rain could fall until our Medicine Men and warriors vanquished the Sun and set the Thunder Bird free; and how the Thunder Bird spread its great black wings and rain fell from its pinions upon the thirsty earth, so that the gra.s.s and flowers awoke from their sleep.”
”Can their flag do that?” demanded Hawk.
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