The Westerners Part 8

In that sentence he exposed the weakness of his position. Pah-sap-pah was sacred, so sacred that for many years miners fled to it as to a sanctuary, certain that once within its dark border pursuit would cease. Hunts in it were undertaken only at certain times of the year, and under peculiar auspices. War died into peace when it dashed against those sombre cliffs. The winds in the trees were voices of Soulless Ones, bewailing always their fate; the frown of sun-red Harney--or the peak afterward known under that name--was instinct with the brooding wrath of some great manitou, who slept lightly only when his children disturbed him not. Even the powerful influence of Michal Lafond had failed to induce Lone Wolf to enter the Black Hills on an errand of murder.

But the name of Rain-in-the-Face was one to conjure with in just such matters as these. He was not only a brave man and a great warrior, but he was favored of the G.o.ds. In the belief of the Sioux nation, his wonderful endurance in the sun dance was at once evidence and warranty of it. Without divine favor he could not have endured so long; enduring so long had brought to him great abundance of divine favor.

So, without actually professing to be a medicine man, he had freely accorded to him all the confidence a member of the priestcraft usually enjoys. If Lafond could induce Rain-in-the-Face to lead, the warriors of the band would follow blindly, even into Pah-sap-pah itself.

The Indian started as he caught the import of Lafond's words.

"My brother has looked upon the face of the angry Manitou," went on Lafond eagerly; "and he has not been afraid. He has danced the dance of death, and the great Manitou has stretched out his hand and held him up. My brother is favored of the Great Spirit, and he is not afraid."

"It is Pah-sap-pah," replied the Indian sombrely.

"Yes, it is Pah-sap-pah, and Pah-sap-pah is sacred. In Pah-sap-pah are two men, and they go here and there breaking her rocks, cutting her trees, defiling her streams. They profane the spirits. On the clouds of the mountain Gitche Manitou frowns because his children permit it.

'Why comes not one to take these away?' he says. 'My children have forgotten me.'"

"Gitche Manitou is great," said Rain-in-the-Face thoughtfully. "Why does he not destroy his enemies?"

"Gitche Manitou destroys through his chosen. Destroy thou, and it will be Gitche Manitou who destroys through thy hand."

The wily half-breed had caught this doctrine of the Jesuit in his old north country home, and his crafty use of it impressed its force strongly on the savage's mind. Lafond proceeded--

"And who more fitted than Rain-in-the-Face?"

The Indian glanced at him with new respect at this knowledge of his name.

"For he stands near to the Great Spirit, and the warriors will follow him."

The half-breed paused, pretending to consider the difficulties.

"The men are but two and there is a woman. There are here a hundred warriors, and each warrior has a gun and much powder. When the profane ones have been destroyed, then Rain-in-the-Face will turn northward and enter the camp of Sitting Bull at the head of many fighting men. It little beseems so great a warrior of the Uncpapas to go begging a rifle from the Tetons!"

The mind of Rain-in-the-Face, thus relieved of some degree of its superst.i.tious fear, lay fully open to this last appeal to his pride.

He picked up the pipe and puffed stolidly on it twice.

"The enemies of my brother shall die," said he.

Before the formal conference of that evening, Michal Lafond had arranged to carry out his side of the bargain. He had done this very simply. After the conversation in the lodge he had gone to Lone Wolf.

"The stranger is Rain-in-the-Face, of the Uncpapas," said he. "He is pleased with our warriors and he wishes to lead them against the great white war chief near the Big Horn. There are also strangers in Pah-sap-pah whom it is the will of Gitche Manitou that Rain-in-the-Face should destroy, and he desires your help."

Lone Wolf was delighted. That so famous a warrior should choose his band was honor enough to repay any effort.

In all this transaction, the offices of Michal Lafond could easily have been dispensed with. If Lone Wolf had gone to Rain-in-the-Face and said, "Behold, here are my young men. Lead them," the latter would have accepted the tender with joy. If, on the other hand, the stranger had merely announced his ident.i.ty to Lone Wolf, that chieftain would gladly have furnished him with everything he needed. But each was in the dark as to one fact, of which Lafond had knowledge.

Rain-in-the-Face did not suspect how his imprisonment had increased his importance, nor did he know that the deep content which brooded over Lone Wolf's camp was only apparent, and had been carefully fostered by Lafond. Nor did Lone Wolf recognize Rain-in-the-Face, nor realize how anxious the youth was for an escort to uphold his pride. It was by seeing little things of this sort, and acting upon them, that the half-breed had gained so much influence.

Four days later, Lone Wolf's camp swept northwestward toward the Big Horn Mountain. On the 25th of June, Rain-in-the-Face confronted General Custer, on a knoll near the river of the Little Big Horn. A great battle was all but over, and the few remaining troopers, their last cartridges gone, were fighting desperately with sabres.

The savage shot the white man through the heart.

X

THE PRICE OF A CLAIM

All through this time of dread and danger, of plot and counterplot and intrigue, of brooding war and half-awakened pillage, the doctor went on peacefully collecting his funny little statistics, utterly oblivious to everything but their acc.u.mulation and arrangement. Every morning of the warmer months he went out into the hills for the day. There he would grub about among his ledges and leads, pecking away at the rocks with his little hand pick, filling his canvas bags, jotting down notes and statistics in his notebook.

During its progress he was blind to everything but his work. One day, as he walked along the top of a ridge, a huge bear rose up in his path.

The doctor politely lifted his hat and pa.s.sed to one side. The decline of the sun alone he noticed. When the shadow of Harney crept out to him he turned toward home. As he neared the log cabin his placid eyes fairly beamed through his spectacles. When he came in sight of it he ran forward, his specimen bags swinging heavily against his legs, caught up the child stumbling to meet him and carried her, laughing and struggling, to the woman in the doorway. Then they had supper all together--bacon, or perhaps game, with vegetables from the garden, and corn bread. Occasionally they had white bread and coffee, and always fresh water from the cold mountain creek. After supper the doctor went outdoors to arrange his specimens and plot out his notes as long as the daylight lasted. His wife moved about inside softly. After a time she brought out the little girl in her nightdress to be kissed. So the twilight neared, and the long day was done.

As the yellow glow crept down, she came outdoors too, and sat pensively looking over the peaks of the lower mountains to the distant Cheyenne and the prairies. Beyond them was the East. There were cities and books and other women and the beat of human life in the air. Here was a still, lonely grandeur that even the wind in the pines did not relieve.

The doctor finally had to put aside his work for lack of light, and sat at her feet leaning against the logs of the cabin. She looked down on his little figure, his round shoulders, his forehead even now abstract and wrinkled with speculation, his kindly blue eyes, his sensitive mouth, and then she softly reached out and took his hand. The two sat there until the moon rose over the Bad Lands. Then they went inside.

In moments such as this the woman lived.

In winter time the doctor sat near the fireplace, writing by the candlelight on his great book. She was in the shadow, looking at him with tenderness, smiling wearily at the eager quivering of his chin, and rocking gently back and forth. The little girl played demurely on the floor within the circle of firelight, her curls falling down on her forehead. She piled up her blocks, and occasionally, as one would fall, she would look up in deprecation of her mother's hush. The golden heads of the mother and child were like sunshine before the dark walls of the cabin. Against them the firelight gleamed. Outside, the thin, light snow drifted fitfully by the pane. The doctor wrote. The woman watched in patience. The child played.

As spring came on, the doctor got out into the hills again.

One day he came back and found the woman murdered and the child gone.

The cabin was ransacked from one end to the other, but no attempt had been made to fire it.

The doctor put his specimen bags methodically in their places, and then sat down by his dead wife.

At evening some pa.s.sing miners found him there holding her hand. With some difficulty, and by the exercise of a gentle force, they persuaded him to rise, after which they tenderly laid the body on a couch, concealing as best they might the red tonsure where the scalp had been.

They set the cabin in order and cooked supper from the provisions in their wagon. The doctor ate and drank in silence, making no sign when the men spoke to him.

After supper he went outside and began to arrange his specimens. When darkness fell he came in, stood undecided for a moment, and then lay down on a bear-skin, Jim's gift, and slept.

The men looked at one another in a puzzled way, conversing in low tones. Soon they too rolled themselves up and went to sleep on the floor.

Early in the morning Jim Buckley came down the gulch with part of a deer. The men told him the news hurriedly, between mouthfuls of coffee. Jim looked at the dead woman with a hardening of the mouth and a softening of the eyes; then he went out and for the first time took the doctor's hand.

When they had finished breakfast, the men made a rough bier of willow branches plaited, on which they gently laid the body. Two went down to the soft earth by the creek bottom and began to dig. The others followed with their burden, which they laid beside the growing excavation, and then stood with bared heads, waiting for the diggers.

The doctor would not come. After a little persuasion they left him sitting on the ground, leaning against the logs of the cabin, looking out over the bluffs of the Cheyenne to the east.

The men in the trench worked rapidly and skilfully, one loosening the gravel with his pick, the other shovelling it out on the gra.s.s.

Suddenly the latter stopped in the act of tossing a shovelful. He pushed his stubby forefinger in among the gravel for a moment and drew out an irregular bit of metal. It was gold.

They buried the young wife elsewhere, and staked out the claim, and others, lying along the creek.

So Prue slept quietly at last. Her little life was drab-colored in spite of the lights of adventure and drama that had played over it. It contained a great love and a great sacrifice. So little of the gold would have made her happy, and yet all the wealth of these new placers could not have saved her at the last!

A rider dashed up to them at the cabin, bringing news of the outbreak.

It was directed to the towns of the North, and had only brushed Spanish Gulch on its destroying way. The men camped on the site of the new placer. They built cradles and pumped water down from Spanish Creek, so that in a little time the gulch contained quite a town. The first discovery is known as the Doctor's Claim, and so you can find it recorded in the records of Pennington County to-day. It turned out to be very rich.

And as for the doctor--he died.