Читать книгу Winged Arrow's Medicine; Or, The Massacre at Fort Phil Kearney - Castlemon Harry - Страница 5

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Guy often said that he did not see why it was that he and the savage should advance to meet each other in that cool and collected manner. If the Indian had friends who were concealed behind the swells and he was simply trying to get him further away from the Fort so that they could surround and capture him, he saw no signs to indicate it. He never looked behind him at all. He came on as though he had no suspicion, and Guy, not to be outdone by his savage confederate, came on in the same way. He had a great curiosity to see a real live Indian in his war paint, but as he drew nearer he discovered that there were no signs of paint about this Indian. It was a whiter face than people of his tribe usually boast of, and Guy thought that he was smiling in a good-natured sort of way. A few steps more and he was aware of it; and furthermore he discovered that his savage friend, if that was the name to be applied to him, was a boy but little older than himself. As soon as he approached within speaking distance he raised his hand to his bonnet with a military flourish and said, in perfect English:—

"How do you do, sir?"

Guy raised his hand to his cap, but he could not say anything in reply. The idea of being spoken to in such a manner was enough to upset him completely. He had been wondering how he would communicate with the savage and running over in his mind the various signs he had learned from the guides, signs which he could use whenever he met an Indian who did not understand his language; but to be addressed in finished English was rather more than he had bargained for. The Indian evidently enjoyed his perplexity, for after looking at him a moment or two he inquired:—

"Do you not think you are running a great risk in coming out here to shoot those little birds, while there are Sioux all around you ready to take your scalp?"

"Who are you?" said Guy, getting the better of his astonishment at last.

"I am Winged Arrow, at your service," replied the Indian.

"Yes; but I don't know any more about you than I did before," returned Guy. "You are not an Indian?"

"A full-blooded one," was the response; and the savage proved that he had been among the soldiers just long enough to learn their ways, for he lifted his right leg and placed it across the horn of his saddle. "Perhaps my English bothers you."

"Well, yes; I confess that that has something to do with it," said Guy, growing more at his ease. "Where have you been to learn so much?"

"I have been at Carlisle. I was a student there for eight years."

"Oh," said Guy, his astonishment being immensely relieved. "But you did not stay there long enough to wash the red out of you."

"It would take more than eight years to do that. I learned the white man's ways, but I could not forget that I was an Indian. What do you fellows want out here anyway? The prairie is broad, and why could you not build a road somewhere else?"

Having got over his astonishment, Guy turned to make a note of the savage and his accoutrements. This was the first Indian he had ever seen close at hand, but as far as he had read or seen at a distance his trappings were all of the savage order. His moccasins, leggings, and hunting shirt, as well as the gaudily ornamented bonnet which he wore upon his head, were all of some squaw's handiwork. There was only one thing about him that looked any way civilized,—his hair was cut short in regular school-boy fashion. His face would have been a study if Guy had had the opportunity to give it a good looking-over. It was a noble face, and one that could hardly be expected to be found among men or boys of his tribe. How such a face as that should become distorted by passion was something Guy could not understand. The Indian certainly had no weapons about him. If he had, they kept company with Guy's Derringer—safely out of sight.

From the Indian,—or Winged Arrow, he called himself,—Guy turned his attention to his horse; for a horse was something he greatly admired. It was a small horse of sorrel color, but there was a look about him which drew his attention and which he greatly delighted in. The animal stood peaceable enough, but his head was erect, his eyes flashed continually as he glanced around the horizon, and he snuffed as often as he turned toward the Fort, as if he felt the presence of an enemy there. Guy was satisfied at last to turn his attention to Winged Arrow and hear what else he had to say.

"This land belongs to Congress," began Guy.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but Congress never had a right or never will have a right to own one foot of this ground," said the Indian, speaking with some animation. "It belongs to us, and we are bound to defend it."

"Did we not make a treaty with some of your big men to have the right of way through this country?" said Guy.

"But why did you not take the sense of the nation on it? Red Cloud is a 'big man,' and he is decidedly opposed to it. You have taken one reservation after another from us and the Indian has nothing left. We propose to do as any brave people would do—fight for this country as long as there is a man left. This home is all we have, and we will not give it up until we are whipped. This is the sixth time you have made us promises, and not one of them has been fulfilled."

Guy Preston could not say anything in reply, for he knew that Winged Arrow told him the truth. The Indian then went on to tell of some of those treaties and the way the white man had broken faith with them; and he repeated them as though he were reading from a book. He had the words of Spotted Tail, a chief of the Brule Indians, almost by heart. He said that word came from the Great Father that the white men wanted to "borrow" the right of way from the Indians, and that the promises so made would last fifty years; but it was not true. The next treaty they made was with General Sherman, and they were told that the promises would last for twenty-five years; but it also was not true. The General said that the Indian should have all the land from the White River to the Missouri, cattle, oxen, and wagons to haul logs with, and that they should have $15 as an annuity; but it was false. The white man never came with the goods in his hand to let the Indian see how much he was going to get for the land he was told to give up, for then their hearts would be glad; but they got the land and forgot all their promises. Winged Arrow's heart was in the matter and for an hour he kept talking, while Guy could only sit still and listen.

"But it seems to me that you are making a big mistake," said he at last, when he saw a chance to crowd a word in edgewise. "What do you want to kill the soldiers for? They are not to blame because somebody has broken faith with you."

"I know that very well," said the Indian, straightening himself up on his horse and raising his hand above his head. "But don't you know that the soldiers are the bulwarks of civilization? The settlers would not come here if it were not for the soldiers. The most of us know that we are going to be whipped in the long run."

"You do know it? Then what have you those clothes on for?"

"Because I am bound to go down with the rest. I would not give a cent to live here on this prairie unless we could live as we were before."

Guy did not know what reply to make to this. He thought it would be a long time before Winged Arrow and others like him could live as they used to do before the whites came in. There was the buffalo. There was a time when the land all around them was fairly black with the countless throngs, but they had all been slaughtered by the hands of the buffalo hunters, either for their hides or just to make a "record," and no power on earth could bring those throngs back again. Winged Arrow should have seen that, so Guy reasoned with himself, and he did not hesitate to tell him so.

"The buffalo are gone, or rather are going as fast as they can, and you have to give up hunting them and follow the white man's road hereafter," said he earnestly.

"That will never be," said Winged Arrow; and his voice fell almost to a whisper. "There was a time when we thought we could kill all the white men and then the buffalo would increase; but those of us who have been to the nation's capital know that the thing is just impossible. When the buffalo goes the Indian will go. We are doomed."

Guy Preston had been pretty well aware of that fact for a long time, but this was the first intimation he had ever had of it from an Indian. Winged Arrow seemed to realize it, and his voice grew husky and faint whenever he spoke of it.

"Ah! Those were happy days," said he, looking out over the prairie, as if in the distance he could see the vision he was conjuring up. "Of course I don't remember it, for I was not born then; but I have heard my father tell of it, and I can almost see the things as they happened then. The people obeyed the chief, hunted the buffalo, and were happy."

"Yes"; said Guy. "You were happy when you were on the warpath. You Indians were always fighting."

"Of course. That was fate. The weaker had to give way to the stronger, and that is just what we are doing now. The Indian believes that there are two spirits that rule mortal man, the Good spirit and the Bad. The Good spirit is all the time working for us. He brings us everything that makes man happy. He brings us good weather, plenty of game, and success over our enemies. The Bad spirit is just the reverse. He brings sickness, drives away the game, and makes us miserable in every way he knows how. He has for a time taken advantage of the Good spirit, and that is just what he is doing for us now. Some day the Good spirit will turn around and get the advantage of HIM, but that will be long after my day."

"What do you think will happen then?" asked Guy, who was much interested in what the Indian said to him.

"When that happens you will see a glorious day for the Sioux Indians," said Winged Arrow, growing animated. "The whites will be driven away from this country forever, I don't know just how it will be done, but it will surely happen; the buffalo will come back, and the Sioux will be monarch of all he surveys."

"I will not live to see that day," said Guy.

"Neither will I; but it is going to take place as sure as the world stands. But I didn't come out here to teach you my religion. You are Methodist or Episcopalian, and probably you will die that way. I came out to warn you."

"To warn me?" echoed Guy. "What about?"

"That there is going to be a massacre here in a few days, and I want you to keep out of it."

"You just bet that I will keep out of it, if I can; but if I should be ordered to be in it—then what?"

"Why, then, there is no help for you. I shall do the same; but you may rest assured that I shall not shoot close to any palefaces. I saw a good many whites while I was gone, and I can't bear to think of seeing them come to their death."

"Come to their death? Is it going to happen out here on the plains?"

For the first time Winged Arrow straightened around on his horse and looked behind him. There was something so stealthy in his movements that Guy almost involuntarily slipped his right hand to his hip pocket and laid hold of his Derringer.