The Plow-Woman Part 22

Lounsbury walked out.

There was but one thing left for Colonel c.u.mmings to do: Ask this man to interpret in the Medicine Lodge, that at least the Indians might learn their position. Knowing it, they might be prevailed upon to select one of their own number to accompany the expedition and repeat the terms.

The commanding officer, rather provoked at Lounsbury, who, he thought, had harmed, and not helped, his cause, immediately suggested this course to Matthews.

"I can parley-voo for you there, all right," agreed Matthews, patronisingly. "But how you goin'?"

"You and I, alone."

Matthews stared. "Carry any guns?" he asked.

"Not when I go into the stockade. The Indians are without weapons. And I like to show them that I trust them."

The other laughed. "You go t' tell some redskins that they's goin' t'

be strung up, and y' don't take no gun. Well! not for _me_, Colonel!"

"Then, we'll have a guard."

"O. K. I'm with you."

A scout who understood the sign language was despatched to the stockade.

And by the time the braves were settled down before the blaze, Colonel c.u.mmings, Matthews, and a detail of armed men were before the aperture of the Medicine Lodge.

The soldiers waited outside the big wigwam, where they made themselves comfortable by moving up and down. Their commanding officer and the interpreter went in. At their appearance, the warriors rose gravely, shook hands, and motioned the white men to take seats upon a robe placed at Lame Foot's left hand. The air in the place was already beginning to thicken with kinnikinick and fire smoke; the mingled smell of tobacco and skins made it nauseating. Colonel c.u.mmings would gladly have hurried his errand. But Indian etiquette forbade haste. He was forced to contain himself and let the council proceed with customary and exasperating slowness.

The first step was the pipe. A young Sioux applied a burning splinter to a sandstone bowl and handed the long stem to the medicine-man. His nostrils filled, he gave the pipe to Colonel c.u.mmings, from whom, in turn, it pa.s.sed to Matthews, Standing Buffalo, Canada John, and thence along the curving line of warriors. When all had smoked, the bowl was once more filled and lighted, and once more it was sent from hand to hand. Not until this ceremony had been repeated many times did the council come to speech.

But neither the commanding officer nor his interpreter made the first address. Though the braves guessed that something unusual had brought about an a.s.sembly at this hour, and though their curiosity on the subject was childishly live, they surpa.s.sed their captor in patience.

Stolidly they looked on while Lame Foot rose to his feet.

The war-priest was not the figure that had led the band south after the battle; not the haughty, stately brave that the sentimentalist loves to picture. He was feathered and streaked as before. A stone mallet hung from his belt. But he wore no string of bears' claws. They had gone the way of the sutler, which was a tasty way, strewn with bright-labelled, but aged, canned goods. And as for his embroidered s.h.i.+rt, it was much soiled and worn, and he had so gained in weight--through plentiful food and lack of exercise--that he pressed out upon it deplorably with a bulging paunch.

Pompously, but using no gestures or inflections, he began a rambling, lengthy account of his past deeds of valour. From these he finally swerved to the recital of his people's wrongs. He climaxed, after an interminable amount of talking, with a boast that awakened the hearty approbation of his sloven fellows. "We but wait for the winter to go,"

he said, "for in the spring we shall have freedom. Our brothers, who are sly as foxes and swift as hawks, will sweep down upon the pony soldiers and slay them."

He sat down amid a chorus of "Ho! Hos!" The semicircle moved and bent and nodded. It was plain that he had expressed a common belief.

There was one Indian not of the council to whom his words meant more than freedom. That Indian was Squaw Charley. A moment after Colonel c.u.mmings' arrival, the pariah had crept noiselessly into the lodge and lain down in the shadows. From there, careful all the while to be quiet and to keep himself well screened, he listened to Lame Foot. But when the chief came to his bragging conclusion, Squaw Charley forgot his own degradation for a moment, and forgot to fear discovery. Was a battle indeed coming! New hope all at once!--the hope that he would have the opportunity, long desired, of getting away from the squaws, the old men, and the mocking children, and going with the warriors. Once with them, even in the role of cook or drudge, the chance might come to do a brave act, such an act as would reinstate him. Perhaps he could wound an enemy, and count coup upon him; perhaps he could face bullets or arrows to rescue a brother----

His dull eyes glinted like cut beads. In very excitement, he raised his bent, spare body.

Hearing the movement, Lame Foot glared round, and his eyes fell upon the outcast.

"Woo!" he cried. "A squaw in the council-lodge! Woo!"

There was a general turning, and those nearest the pariah made peremptory gestures.

A second Charley stood uncertainly. Then the look of one accused came into his face. He tottered backward, through the lodge opening, and out into the snow.

The council continued.

A dozen warriors followed the war-priest in speech-making. Each of them said no more than he. To Colonel c.u.mmings' disgust, each one said no less. Added to the tediousness of it all were Matthews'

interpretations. Toward three o'clock, however, the prime object of the meeting was reached.

When the commanding officer at last rose, he was in no mood to mince matters. He used few words, but they were forcible. He asked the interpreter to repeat them precisely.

They had their effect. While Matthews was doing this, the colonel did not glance away from the council-fire, yet he knew that in the semicircle there was genuine consternation. Grunts, startled, angry, threatening, ran up and down the line. Those warriors named for possible execution alone were silent.

Presently, one of the others spoke. "If we tell you where to go, how do we know the white chief will not fall upon the winter camp of our brothers as Custer, The Long-Hair, fell upon Black Kettle's?"

"I am not going with the pony soldiers," Matthews hastened to say.

"Across the Muddy Water, where the road pa.s.ses, is a wide piece of land which has been stolen from me."

One of the four condemned glanced up. It was Lame Foot. "By The Plow-Woman?" he asked.

"By her father. I shall stay until that land is mine again. One of you must ask your chief that he give up the pale-face squaws."

Canada John answered him. "A brave can but take the words of the white chief. That is not well. One of a double tongue must go."

"The white chief has but one," said Matthews, and tapped his own chest.

A silence followed.

"The journey begins when the sun is little," he added, and sat down.

"Will not the white chief wait until spring?" asked Lame Foot, whose guile made up for his physical defect.

The others studied Colonel c.u.mmings' face as the question was put to him. They saw the purpose--postponement, which might bring freedom for them, and also a retention of the captive women.

The colonel's answer did not need interpreting. "No!" he said, and struck his knees with his open palms.

"Why should two squaws matter?" asked Shoot-at-the-Tree. "Are there not many everywhere? We will give the white chief some of our ponies."

"Your ponies floated, belly up, down the river moons ago," said Matthews.

Twenty pairs of eyes sparkled with hate. That was news indeed!

Lame Foot spoke again. There was a mathematical phase of the terms which troubled him. "Why should four die for two?" he demanded. "Among the whites, has a squaw the value of two soldiers?"

Matthews answered gravely that it was so. The brave snorted contemptuously.

Canada John shook his head. "Thus comes much evil because we shot the pinto buffalo."

At that point, the hoof-sheaths that trimmed a rope near the entrance rattled. The semicircle craned their necks. A plump hand was pulling aside the flap of the lodge. Then, through the low aperture and into the light of the fire stepped an Indian woman. She flung back a head-shawl and faced red man and white. A murmur came from the braves. It was Brown Mink.

As with the men of the band, plentiful food and no exercise had worked wonders with her. She was less slender and more solid than formerly. Her full cheeks shone like the bulging sides of a copper kettle. But her spirit was little changed. She waited no invitation to speak. She paused for no words. In her earnestness, she leaned forward a little.

"Brown Mink is young," she said. "She is but an unfledged crane walking in strange waters. But she speaks with the voice of her father, your mighty chief that was. Canada John talks straight. One of a double tongue must go. The white chief is very angry, so that he plucks the hairs from his hands. The squaws must be brought back, or four braves will be choked by ropes. But who can make things smooth? Only The Double-Tongue. Promise him much--promise to help him drive the thief from his land."