The Great Sioux Trail Part 41

All through that dark, primordial night, in which they were carried back, in effect, at least ten thousand years, they never relaxed the watch for a moment. Now and then they sent arrows into the dusk, sometimes missing and sometimes. .h.i.tting, and the growling of the bears and wolves and the screaming of the great cats was almost continuous.

The darkness seemed eternal, but at length, with infinite joy, they saw the first pale streak of dawn over the eastern mountains.

"Now the fierce animals will withdraw farther into the forest," said Roka. "Beyond the reach of our arrows they will be, but they will not depart wholly."

"Someone must go to the village for help," said Will, "help not only for us, but to take away two or three tons of this good meat. Why, the bull looks even bigger this morning than he did last night. One of my snowshoes is broken, but, if Pehansan will lend me his, I'll make the trip."

"You will not," said Roka. "Despite your skill with the bow and arrow you would be devoured before you had gone a mile. The fierce beasts would be in waiting for you and you would no longer have a ring of fire to protect you."

"Then what are we to do, Roka? We can't stay here forever within the ring of fire, living on steaks cut from the bull."

"Waditaka has become a great young warrior and he thinks much. Few as young as he is think as much as he does."

"I don't grasp your meaning, Roka."

"Perhaps it would be better to say that no one thinks of everything."

"I'm still astray."

"We'll call the people of the village to us."

"If you had the voice of old Stentor himself, of whom you never heard, you couldn't reach the village, which you know is more than twenty miles away."

"We will not call with our voices, Waditaka. Behold how clear the morning comes! It is the light of bright winter and there is no light brighter. The sun is rising over the mountains in a circle of burning gold and all the heavens are filled with its rays."

"You're a poet, Roka. The spell has fallen upon you."

"Against the shining blaze of the sky the smallest object will show, and a large object will be seen at a vast distance. Bring our blankets, Pehansan, and we will spread them over the little fire here."

Will laughed at himself.

"The smoke signals!" he exclaimed. "How simple the plan and how foolish I was not to think of it!"

"As I told you," said Roka, "one young warrior, no matter how wise, cannot think of everything. We will talk not with our mouths but with the blankets."

In this case the signals were quite simple. Pehansan pa.s.sed the blanket twice rapidly over the fire, allowing two great coils of smoke to ascend high in the air, and then dissipate themselves there. After five minutes he sent up the two smoky circles again. The signal meant "Come."

"We will soon see the answer," said Roka, "because they are anxious about us and will be looking for a sign."

All three gazed in the direction of the village, the only point from which the reply could be sent, and presently a circle of smoke, then two, then three, rose there. Pehansan, in order to be sure, sent up the two circles again, and the three promptly replied.

"It is enough," said Roka joyfully. "Now they will come in great force on their snowshoes, and we will be saved with our huge prize."

They waited in the utmost confidence and at times Pehansan sent up the two rings again to guide the relief band. But the people from the village had a long distance to travel, and it was noon when they saw the dark figures among the undergrowth and hailed them with joyous cries. At least thirty had come, a few young warriors--there were few in the village--but mostly old men, and the dauntless, wiry old squaws.

They exclaimed in wonder and admiration over the mighty beast the three had killed, and among the bushes about the campfire they found great skeletons, all eaten clean by the huge mountain wolves.

"Truly you were saved by fire," said old Xingudan, who had himself headed the relieving party.

With so many to lift and pull they were able to remove the entire robe from the giant buffalo, the finest skin that many of them had ever seen.

It was so vast that it was a cause of great wonder and admiration.

"It belongs," said Xingudan, "to Waditaka, Pehansan and Roka, the three brave warriors who slew the buffalo."

"The three live in different lodges and they will have to pa.s.s it one to another for use," said Inmutanka.

Will glanced at Roka, who understood him, and then he glanced at Pehansan, who also understood him.

"It is the wish of the three of us," said the youth, "that this great skin be accepted by the brave and wise Xingudan, whose knowledge and skill have kept the village unhurt and happy under conditions that might well have overcome any man."

A look of gratification, swift but deep, pa.s.sed over the face of Xingudan, but he declined the magnificent offer. Nevertheless the three insisted, and old Inmutanka observed wisely that the skin should go only in the lodge of the head chief. At last Xingudan accepted, and Will, although he had not made the offer for that purpose, had a friend for life.

The band began to cut up the vast body, which, when the flesh was well pounded and softened by the squaws, would alone feed the village for quite a period. The task could not be finished that day, but they built such a ring of great fires for the night that the fierce carnivora did not dare to come near. The next day they reached the village with the great bull, carried in many sections.

Will's nerves had been attuned so highly during the terrible siege that he collapsed to a certain extent after his return to the village, but he suffered no loss of prestige because of it, as everybody believed that he and his comrades had been besieged by evil spirits, and Pehansan and Roka as well were compelled to take a long rest. He remained in the lodge a whole day, and Inmutanka brought him the tenderest of food and the juices of medicinal herbs to drink, telling him it was said on every side that the prophecy had come true, and his craft and skill had saved the village in the terrible winter.

The second day he was in the village, where the women and old men were pounding and drying the flesh of the buffalo, but only the most skilful were permitted to sc.r.a.pe the vast skin, which, when it was finally cured, would make such an ornament as was never before seen in the lodge of a Sioux chief. But Will, Pehansan and Roka were not allowed to have a share in any work for a long time. They were three heroes who had fought with demons and who had triumphed, and for a s.p.a.ce they were looked upon as demi-G.o.ds.

Nevertheless, they had their full share in the hunt. The wise old Xingudan, backed by the equally wise old Inmutanka, forbade any expeditions far from the village unless they were made in great force, and their judgment was soon proved by the fact that many bears, wolves and mountain lions of the greatest size were slain. Numerous fires, however, made the region immediately about the lodges safe, and as the river flowed almost at their feet the women could break the thick ice and catch fish, without fear of the wild beasts.

It was during this interval that Will began to think again very much of the faithful white friends whom he had lost, the redoubtable scout, the whistling and cheerful Little Giant, and the brave and serious Brady.

Heraka had told him that they were dead, but he could not believe it. He began to feel that he would see them again, and that they would renew the great quest. He had preserved the map with care, but he had not looked at it for a long time. Yet he remembered the lines upon it as well as ever. As he had reflected before, if it were destroyed, he could easily reproduce it from memory.

Then his three lost friends became vague again. The months that had pa.s.sed since his capture seemed years, and he was so far away from all the paths of civilization that it was like being on another planet. He had never yet learned exactly where he was, but he knew it must be in the high mountains of the far north, and therefore toward the Pacific coast.

Then all these memories and mental questions faded, as the life of the village became absorbing again. Frightened herds of elk and moose, evidently chased by the great carnivora or in search of food, came into the valley and the Indians killed as many as they needed. They might have killed more, but Xingudan forbade them.

"Let them take shelter here," he said, "and grow more numerous. It is not to the interest of our people that the big deer should decrease in numbers, and if we are wise we will let live that which we do not need to eat."

They saw the wisdom of Xingudan's words and obeyed him. Perhaps there was not another Indian village in all North America which had greater plenty than Xingudan's in that winter, so long and terrible, in the northern mountains. Big game was abundant, and fish could always be obtained through holes in the thick ice that invariably covered the river. Their greatest difficulty was in keeping the horses, but they met the emergency. Not only did the horses dig under the snow with their sharp feet, but the Indians themselves, with Will at their head, uncovered or brought much forage for them.

Will understood why such sedulous care was bestowed upon the ponies, which could be of little use among the great mountains. When spring was fully come they would go eastward out of the mountains, and upon the vast plains, where they would hunt the buffalo. Then he must escape.

Although he was an adopted Sioux, the son of Inmutanka, and had adapted himself to the life of the village, where he was not unhappy, he felt at times the call of his own people.

The call was especially strong when he was alone in the lodge, and the snow was driving heavily outside. Then the faces of the scout, the Little Giant and the beaver hunter appeared very clearly before him. His place was with them, if they were still alive, and in the spring, when the doors of ice that closed the valley were opened, he would go, if he could.

But the spring was long in coming. Xingudan himself could not recall when it had ever before been so late. But come at last it did, with mighty rains, the sliding of avalanches, the breaking up of the ice, floods in the river and countless torrents. When the waters subsided and the slopes were clear of snow Xingudan talked of moving. The lodges were struck and the whole village pa.s.sed out of the valley. The tall youth, dressed like the others and almost as brown as they, who had been known among white people as Will Clarke, but whom the Indians called Waditaka, wondered what the spring was going to bring to him, and he awaited the future with intense curiosity and eagerness.