"Bring Me His Ears" Part 18

"He war thar, Hank; layin' in that little gully, watchin' ye like ye war pizen." He turned to Tom. "Shall we go an' drag him out?"

"No," answered Tom. "Let him think we don't know nothin' about it. Him an' his trail inter Santa Fe! Reckons mebby that if them barefoot soldiers try ter take us in front o' th' caravan they'll get a good lickin'; but if he can coax us off from th' rest, he kin run us inter an ambush. If thar's airy way inter Santa Fe that we don't know, I'm danged if _he_ knows it! Let him spy on us, now that we know he's doin' it.

Thankee, Jim."

By the time they had reached Jim's little fire a figure was wriggling down the gully, and at an opportune time arose to hands and knees and scurried to the shelter of Franklin's wagons, a smile on its face. Now it was certain that Tom Boyd was going through to Santa Fe, and all would be well. He chuckled as he recalled what he had said about the Mexican troops not meeting the caravan until Point of Rocks was reached; they would meet the train at any point his messenger told them to.

At Cow Creek another quiet night was followed by another delayed start and shortly after noon the vanguard raised a shout of elation, which sent every mounted man racing ahead; and the sight repaid them for their haste.

Under their eyes lay the Arkansas River, dotted with green islands, its channel four or five hundred yards wide, and so shallow that at normal stage it was formidable at many points. While its low, barren banks, only occasionally tinted with the green of cottonwoods, were desolate in appearance, they had a beauty peculiar and striking. As far as the eye could see spread the sand-hills and hillocks, like waves of some pale sea, here white and there yellow, accordingly as to how the light was reflected from them. Its appearance had been abrupt, the prairie floor rising slightly to the crumbling edge, below which and at some distance flowed the river, here forming the international boundary between Texas and the United States. While territorially Texas lay across the river, according to Texan claims, actually, so far as supervision was concerned, it was Mexico, for the Texan arm was yet too short to dominate it and the ordinary traveler let it keep its original name.

While its northern bank was almost dest.i.tute of timber, the southern one showed scattered clumps of cottonwood, protected from the devastating prairie fires from the North not only by the river itself, but also by the barren stretch of sand, over which the fires died from starvation.

To the right of the caravan lay the gra.s.sy, green rolls of the prairie, to an imaginative eye resembling the long swells of some great sea; on the left a ribbon of pale tints, from gleaming whites to light golds which varied with the depths of the water and the height and position of the sun. Ma.s.sive sand dunes, glittering in the sunlight made a rampart which stretched for miles up and down the river and struck the eye with the actinic power of pure, drifted snow. Here the nature of the prairie changed, losing its rich, luxuriant verdure, for here the short buffalo gra.s.s began to dominate to a noticeable extent.

The excitement spread. Eager couriers raced back to the plodding caravan to tell the news. Some of the more impressionable forthwith rode toward the river, only a few yards away, hot to be the first to splash in its waters; but they found that prairie air was deceptive and that the journey over the rolling hillocks was a great deal longer than they had thought. But a few miles meant nothing to them and they pushed on, careless of Comanche, Kiowa, or p.a.w.nee Picts, some with their guns empty from the salute they had fired at sight of the stream. The caravan kept stolidly on, following a course roughly paralleling the river and not stopping until evening found it on the far side of Walnut Creek after they had crossed a belt of such poor gra.s.s that they had grave doubts about the pasturage at the encampment; and the flinty, uncompromising nature of the ground down the slope of the little divide, in which seemingly for eternity was graven the strands of the mighty trail, seemed to justify their fears. But then, while they were worrying the most, the gra.s.s improved and when they had crossed the creek not far from its mouth they found themselves in a little, timber-fringed valley thick with tall gra.s.s. And they now had entered one of the great danger spots of the long trail.

Hank Marshall got his fire started in a hurry while his partner looked after the pack mules; and when Tom came back to attend to the fire and prepare the supper, Hank dug into his "possible" sack and produced some line and a fish hook. Making a paste of flour, he mixed it with some dried moss he had put away and saved for this use. Rolling the little doughb.a.l.l.s and hardening them over the fire he soon strode off up the creek, looking wise but saying nothing; and a quarter of an hour later he returned with three big catfish, one of which he ate after he had consumed a generous portion of buffalo hump-ribs; and he followed the fish by a large tongue raked out of the ashes of the fire. To judge from his expression he had enjoyed a successful and highly gratifying day, and since he was heavy and drowsy with his gorging and had to go on watch that night, he rolled up in his blanket under a wagon and despite the noise on all sides of him, fell instantly asleep. He had "set hisself" to awaken at eleven o'clock, which he would do almost on the minute and be thoroughly wide awake.

Fearing for the alertness of the sentries that night, a number of plainsmen and older traders agreed upon doing duty out of their turns and followed Hank's example, "settin'" themselves to awaken at different hours; and despite these precautions had a band of p.a.w.nees discovered the camp that night they most certainly would have been blessed with success; and no one understood why the camp had not been discovered, for the crawling train made a mark on the prairie that could not be missed by savage eyes miles away.

Because of the height and the luxuriance of the gra.s.s within the corral the morning feeding, beyond the time needed for getting ready to leave, was dispensed with and the train got off to an early start, fairly embarked on the eastern part of the great buffalo range and a section of the trail where Indians could be looked for in formidable numbers.

This great plain fairly was crowded with bison and was dark with them as far as the eye could see. They could be numbered by the tens of thousands and actually impeded the progress of the caravan and threatened constant danger from their blind, unreasoning stampedes which the draft animals seemed anxious to join. Because of the matted hair in front of their eyes their vision was impaired; and the keenness of their scent often hurled them into dangers which a clearer eyesight would have avoided. So great did this danger become shortly after the train had left the valley of the Walnut that the rear guard, which had grown slightly as the days pa.s.sed, now was sent out to protect the flanks and to strengthen the vanguard, which had fallen back within a few hundred feet of the leading wagons. Time after time the stupid beasts barely were kept from cras.h.i.+ng blindly into the train, and the wagoners had the most trying and tiring day of the whole journey.

Several bands of Indians at times were seen in the distance pursuing their fleeing game, but all were apparently too busy to bother with the caravan, which they knew would stop somewhere for the night. No longer was there any need to freight buffalo meat to the wagons; for so many of the animals were killed directly ahead that the wagoners only had to check their teams and help each other butcher and load. This constant stopping, now one wagon and now another, threw the train out of all semblance of order and it wandered along the trail with its divisions mixed, which caused the sweat to stand out on the worried captain's forehead. His lieutenants threatened and swore and pleaded and at last, after the wagons had all they could carry of the meat, managed to get four pa.s.sable divisions in somewhat presentable order.

While the caravan shuffled itself, chased buffalo out of the way, turned aside thundering ranks of the formidable-looking beasts, and had a time hectic enough to suit the most irrational, p.a.w.nee Rock loomed steadily higher, steadily nearer, and the great sand-hills of the Arkansas stretched interminably into the West, each fantastic top a glare of dazzling light.

Well to the North, rising by degrees out of the prairie floor, and gradually growing higher and bolder as they neared the trail and the river, were a series of hills which terminated abruptly in a rocky cliff frowning down upon the rutted wagon road. From the distance the mirage magnified the ascending hills until they looked like some detached mountain range, which instead of growing higher as it was approached, shrunk instead. It was a famous landmark, silent witness of many b.l.o.o.d.y struggles, as famous on this trail as was Chimney Rock and Courthouse Rock along the great emigrant trail going up the Platte; but compared to them in height it was a dwarf. Here was a lofty perch from which the eagle eyes of Indian sentries could descry crawling caravans and pack trains, in either direction, hours before they reached the shadow of the rocky pile; and from where their calling smoke signals could be seen for miles around.

Two trails pa.s.sed it, one east and west; the other, north and south. The former, cut deep, honest in its purpose and plainness, here crossed the latter, which was an evanescent, furtive trail, as befits a pathway to theft and bloodshed, and one made by shadowy raiders as they flitted to and from the Kiowa-Comanche country and the p.a.w.nee-Cheyenne; only marked at intervals by the dragging ends of the lodgepoles of peacefully migrating Indian villages, and even then pregnant with danger. Other eyes than those of the prairie tribes had looked upon it, other blood had been spilled there, for distant as it was from the Apaches, and still more distant from the country of the Utes, war parties of both these tribes had accepted the gage of battle there flung down. On the rugged face of the rock itself human conceit had graven human names, and to be precise as to the date of their foolishness, had added day, month, and year.

While speaking of days, months, and years it may not be amiss to say that regarding the latter division of time the caravan was fortunate.

Troubles between Indians and whites developed slowly during the history of the Trail, from the earlier days of the fur trains and the first of the traders' caravans, when Indian troubles were hardly more than an occasional attempted theft, in many cases successful, but seemingly without that l.u.s.t for blood on both sides which was to come later. After the wagon period begun there was a slight increase, due to the need which certain white men found for shooting game. If game were scarce, what could be more interesting when secure from retaliation by the number of armed and resolute men in the caravans, than to pot-shoot some curious and friendly savage, or gallantly put to flight a handful of them? The ungrateful savages remembered these pleasantries and were p.r.o.ne to retaliate, which caused the death of quite a few honest and innocent whites who followed later. The natural cupidity of the Indian for horses, his standard of wealth, received a secondary urge, which later became the princ.i.p.al one, in the days when theft was regarded as a material reward for killing. While they may have grudged these periodic crossings of the plains as a trespa.s.s, and the wanton slaughter of their main food supply as a constantly-growing calamity, they still were keener to steal quietly and get away without bloodshed, and to barter their dried meat, their dressed hides, their beadwork, and other manufactures of their busy squaws than to engage in pitched battle at sight. Had Captain Woodson led a caravan along that same trail twenty or thirty years later, he would have had good reason to sweat copiously at the sight of so many das.h.i.+ng savages.

The captain knew the Indian of his day as well as a white man could. He knew that they still depended upon trading with the fur companies, with free trappers and free traders, and needed the white man's goods and good will; they wanted his trinkets, his tobacco to mix with their inner bark of the red willow; his powder, muskets, and lead, and, most of all, his watered alcohol. He knew that a white man could stumble into the average Indian camp and receive food and shelter, especially among those tribes not yet prost.i.tuted by contact with the frontier; that such a man's goods would be safe and, if he minded his own business, that he would be sent on his way again unharmed. But he also knew their l.u.s.t for horses and mules; he felt their slowly growing feeling of contempt for men who would trade them wonderful things for worthless beaver, mink, and otter skins; and a fortune in trade goods for the pelt of a single silver fox, which neither was warmer nor more durable than the pelt of other foxes. And he knew the panicky feeling of self-preservation which might cause some greenhorn of the caravan to shoot true at the wrong time. So, without worrying about any "deadly circles" or about any period of time a score or more years away, he sweat right heartily. And when at last he drew near to Ash Creek, the later history of which mercifully was spared him, he sighed with relief but worked with the energy befitting a man who believed that G.o.d helped those who helped themselves; he hustled the caravan down the slope and across the stream with a speed not to be lightly scorned when the disorganized arrangement of the train is considered; and he halted the divisions in a circular formation with great dispatch, making it the most compact and solid wall of wagons seen so far on the journey.

CHAPTER XII

p.a.w.nEES

At this Ash Creek camp before the wagoners had unhitched their teams there was a cordon around the corral made up of every man who could be spared, and the cannon crews stood silently around their freshly primed guns. The air of tenseness and expectancy pleased Woodson, for it was an a.s.surance that there would be no laxity about this night's watch. With the animals staked as close to the wagons as practicable, which caused some encroachments and several fist fights between jealous wagoners, the fires soon were cooking supper for squads of men from the sentry line; and as soon as all had eaten and the camp was not distracted by too many duties, the cordon thinned until it was composed of a double watch.

Before dusk the animals were driven inside, secured by side-line hobbles, which are much more effective than hobbling the forelegs, and all gaps were closed as tightly as possible.

The evening shadows darkened and ran into blackness; the night wind crept among the branches of the thin line of trees on both banks of the creek and made soft soughings in the tall, thick gra.s.s; overhead the sky first darkened and then grew lighter, shot with myriads of stars, which gleamed as only prairie stars can; and among them, luminous and bright, lay the Milky Way. The creek murmured in musical tones as it fretted at some slight obstruction and all nature seemed to be at peace. Then sounded the howl of a buffalo wolf, the gray killer of the plains, deep, throaty, full, and followed by a quick slide up the scale with a ringing note that the bluffs and mountains love to toss back and forth. Yet it was somehow different. Woodson and his trapper aides, seated together against a wagon, stirred and glanced sidewise at each other. Not one of them had felt the reflex answer of his spine and hair; not one of them had thrilled. A simple lack; but a most enlightening one.

Franklin bit into a plug of tobacco, pushed the mouthful into his cheek with deft tongue, and crossed his legs the other way. "h.e.l.l!" he growled. "Reckon we're in fer it."

"They jest can't git it _all_ in, kin they?" commented Zeb Houghton, coming up.

"No," answered Tom Boyd. "They leave out th' best part o' it." He glanced in the direction of the nearest fringe of trees, noisy cottonwoods all, and shook his head. "We been havin' too fine a stretch o' weather. Hear them trees? In two hours it'll be blowin' hard; an' I kin feel th' rain already."

From the blackness of the creek there arose a series of short, sharp barks, faster and faster, higher and higher, the lost-soul howl climbing to a pitch that was sheer torture to some ears.

"Kiyote sa.s.sin' a gray," chuckled Zeb, ironically.

"'Upon what meat hath--'" began Tom, and checked the quotation. "He oughter be tuckin' his tail atween his laigs an' streakin' fer th'

Platte; or mebby _he_ missed somethin', too," he said. "Everythin' else shuts up when th' gray wolf howls."

"Doubled watches air not enough fer tonight," growled Woodson, as a tremulous, high-pitched, chromatic, and descending run in a minor key floated through the little valley. If it were an imitation of a screech-owl it was so perfectly done that no man in the caravan could detect the difference.

"Us boys will be scoutin' 'round all night," replied Tom. "Hank an' th'

others air gittin' some winks now. I don't look fer no fight afore daylight; but they'll sh.o.r.e try ter stampede us afore then. Reckon I'll take a good listen out yonder," he said, and arose. He went to Joe Cooper's little wagon and was promptly challenged.

"It's Boyd," he answered. "Stick to the wagon, Uncle Joe. We ain't looking for any rush before daylight. If one comes Hank and I will get here quick. Where is Miss Cooper?"

"In th' wagon, of course!"

"That's no place for her," retorted Tom. "Those sheets won't stop arrows. Put her under the wagon, an' hang blankets down th' sides, loose at th' bottoms. Tight blankets or canvas are little better than paper; but a loose Mackinaw yields to th' impact somewhat. I've seen a loose blanket stop a musket ball."

"Can I do anything useful, Mr. Boyd?" came Patience's voice from the wagon. "I can load and cap, anyhow."

Tom's chuckle came straight from his heart. "Not yet, G.o.d bless you.

Despite their reputation in some quarters, p.a.w.nees are not the most daring fighters. Any of the tribes east of the Mississippi are paragons of courage when compared to these prairie Indians. p.a.w.nees would rather steal than fight; and they know that this is no helpless caravan, but one with nearly two hundred armed men. If they were Comanches or Kiowas, Utes or Apaches, I'd be bothered a lot more than I am now. And they know that there are two cannons pointing somewhere into the night. All we have to worry about is our animals."

The mournful, hair-raising screech of an owl sounded again, and then all the demons of h.e.l.l seemed to have broken loose around the camp. The corralled animals, restless before, now surged one way and now another, largely cancelling their own efforts because wave met wave; but all the while they were getting wilder and more frantic and the blood-chilling yells on all sides finally set them into a sort of rhythm which more and more became uniform. They surged from one side to the other, striking the wagons harder and harder. Then the yelling ceased and the p.a.w.nee whistle was heard. There ensued a few minutes of silence and then the whistle sounded again. It set off a h.e.l.lish uproar on one side of the encampment and the frantic animals whirled and charged in the other direction. The shock rocked some of the wagons and would have overturned them but for the great weight of their loads. Antic.i.p.ating this surge of the animals some of the traders, told off by the captain, had bound bundles of twigs and dried gra.s.s to long cottonwood sticks and now set them afire and crawled under the wagons, thrusting the torches into the faces of the charging ma.s.s. This started the animals milling and soon the whole herd was running in a circle. The stampede had failed.

Here and there from under the wagons on the threatened side of the encampment guns stabbed into the night, showing where tenderfeet were gallantly engaged in guessing matches. Arrows curved over the wagon tops and some of the torch wavers on the other side of the camp had narrow escapes before their purpose was accomplished and the torches burned out.

A cricket chirped twice and then twice again not far from Joe Cooper's little wagon, and the alert plainsman crouched behind an outer wheel answered by three short trills. "Don't shoot, Uncle Joe," Tom softly called. "That's Hank."

Hank seemed to be having a hard time of it and made more noise than was his wont. Alarmed, Tom was about to crawl out and help his friend to the corral when Hank's querulous complaint barely reached him.

"Danged if ye ain't so plumb full o' buffaler meat ye nigh weigh a ton,"

growled the hunter. "Yourn as heavy as mine, Jim?"

"Wuss," complacently answered Ogden.

"Huh!" snorted another voice, crowding so much meaning into the grunt that he had the best of the little exchange and the last word.

"If I could tw.a.n.g like you, Hank," said Ogden, pausing a moment to rest, "I'd have a hull dozen, danged if I wouldn't. Mine's got nigh ter six feet o' feathers a-hangin' ter him."

Tom rocked back and forth, laughing silently. "Then he makes up fer th'

rest o' yer dozen!" he gasped. "Hostages, by th' Great Horned Spoon!" He made some funny noises in his throat and gasped again. "A _chief_, too!"

"An' a plumb waste o' good ha'r," growled Hank. "But jest now it's wuth more on thar heads than fastened ter our belts. Hyar, haul this hyar warrior o' mine under th' waggin. I'm all tuckered out."