Part 10 (2/2)

”What's up--where?” demanded Wingate.

”On three mile, on the water where they camped night afore last. Thar they air ten men, an' the rest's gone. Woodhull's wagons, but he ain't thar. Wagons burned, mules standing with arrers in them, rest all dead but a few. Hit's the p.a.w.nees!”

The column leaders all galloped forward, seeing first what later most of the entire train saw--the abominable phenomena of Indian warfare on the Plains.

Scattered over a quarter of a mile, where the wagons had stood not grouped and perhaps not guarded, lay heaps of wreckage beside heaps of ashes. One by one the corpses were picked out, here, there, over more than a mile of ground. They had fought, yes, but fought each his own losing individual battle after what had been a night surprise.

The swollen and blackened features of the dead men stared up, mutilated as savages alone mark the fallen. Two were staked out, hand and foot, and ashes lay near them, upon them. Arrows stood up between the ribs of the dead men, driven through and down into the ground. A dozen mules, as Jackson had said, drooped with low heads and hanging ears, arrow shafts standing out of their paunches, waiting for death to end their agony.

”Finish them, Jackson.”

Wingate handed the hunter his own revolver, signaling for Kelsey and Hall to do the same. The methodical cracking of the hand arms began to end the suffering of the animals.

They searched for sc.r.a.ps of clothing to cover the faces of the dead, the bodies of some dead. They motioned the women and children back when the head of the train came up. Jackson beckoned the leaders to the side of one wagon, partially burned.

”Look,” said he, pointing.

A long stick, once a whipstock, rose from the front of the wagon bed. It had been sharpened and thrust under the wrist skin of a human hand--a dried hand, not of a white man, but a red. A half-corroded bracelet of copper still clung to the wrist.

”If I read signs right, that's why!” commented Bill Jackson.

”But how do you explain it?” queried Hall. ”Why should they do that? And how could they, in so close a fight?”

”They couldn't,” said Jackson. ”That hand's a day an' a half older than these killings. Hit's Sam Woodhull's wagon. Well, the p.a.w.nees like enough counted 'coup on the man that swung that hand up for a sign, even if hit wasn't one o' their own people.”

”Listen, men,” he concluded, ”hit was Woodhull's fault. We met some friendlies--Kaws--from the mission, an' they was mournin'. A half dozen o' them follered Woodhull out above the ferry when he pulled out. They told him he hadn't paid them for their boat, asked him for more presents. He got mad, so they say, an' shot down one o' them an' stuck up his hand--fer a warnin', so he said.

”The Kaws didn't do this killin'. This band of p.a.w.nees was away down below their range. The Kaws said they was comin' fer a peace council, to git the Kaws an' Otoes to raise against us whites, comin' put so many, with plows and womernfolks--they savvy. Well, the Kaws has showed the p.a.w.nees. The p.a.w.nees has showed us.”

”Yes,” said the deep voice of Caleb Price, property owner and head of a family; ”they've showed us that Sam Woodhull was not fit to trust.

There's one man that is.”

”Do you want him along with your wagons?” demanded Jackson. He turned to Wingate.

”Well,” said the train captain after a time, ”we are striking the Indian country now.”

”Shall I bring up our wagons an' jine ye all here at the ford this evenin'?”

”I can't keep you from coming on up the road if you want to. I'll not ask you.”

”All right! We'll not park with ye then. But we'll be on the same water.

Hit's my own fault we split. We wouldn't take orders from Sam Woodhull, an' we never will.”

He nodded to the blackened ruins, to the grim dead hand pointing to the sky, left where it was by the superst.i.tious blood avengers.

Wingate turned away and led the wagon train a half mile up the stream, pitching camp above the ford where the ma.s.sacre had occurred. The duties of the clergy and the appointed s.e.xtons were completed. Silence and sadness fell on the encampment.

<script>