Читать книгу Softfoot of Silver Creek - Robert Leighton - Страница 7

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ALMOST before the stars grew dim and the eastern sky was beginning to show light above the pine trees, Fire Steel, the camp crier, was out on the plain beating his drum to awaken the Pawnees and tell them to make ready for the buffalo hunt.

From the surrounding lodges, men and youths swarmed out, like bees from their hives, and ran through the woodland glades down to the creek for their morning swim; and many squaws carried or dragged their children, to bathe them in the quiet pools below the willows.

Softfoot was one of the first to return from the creek. He had dived from a high rock above the rapids and allowed himself to be carried by the icy current over the curving ledge of smooth, green water to plunge like an arrow down into the turbulent, swirling cauldron of foam and spray at the foot of the cascade.

There in the whirling pool among the startled salmon he had splashed and rolled for some joyous minutes before climbing out to shake himself and throw his sheet of tanned elkskin over his wet shoulders and run home through the dim forest trail, where even the birds were not awakened by the soft pad of his moccasined feet.

Suddenly he stopped and turned back a few paces. In the moist ground at the side of a narrow stream he had seen the impression of hoofs. They were not the hoofs of an Indian pony, for they showed the clear marks of forged iron shoes, such as were not used by the Pawnees. They pointed in the direction of Great Bear’s village.

“Why should a paleface be riding through Grey Wolf Forest?” he asked himself as he ran on. “He is not a stranger. He knows his way to our lodges.”

When he reached the camp, blue wisps of fire-smoke were rising into the cool air from the smoke-vents of the teepees. There was busy movement everywhere. The whole village was awake while yet the grass was wet with dew and the sun’s light had not touched the mountain-tops.

Moving forms, clad in bright colours, passed to and fro. Tied near each wigwam there were two or three horses; dogs were barking and people were singing under the painted skin-covers of their lodges.

Everybody was glad that there was to be yet another buffalo hunt. The pack-horses and draught dogs had been kept in camp, close to the teepees. The travois frames were emptied ready to carry in new loads; nothing had been stowed away since the harvest of the last chase had been brought in from the prairie; but the women were sharpening their knives to cut up the expected meat, and they were coiling their ropes of shaganappy with which to pack the red loads and the heavy hides.

The men were looking over their weapons of the chase to see that the bowstrings were right, the arrows straight and strong, with the points not blunted; while those who had guns were cleaning them and providing themselves with powder, bullets and percussion caps.

The boys who were now to make their first hunt were excited. They had imitated their experienced elders in going through the various ceremonies of preparation, praying for good luck, purifying themselves by breathing the scented fumes of burning sweet-grass, combing their long hair and painting their faces.

Morning Bird was very anxious that her son should look his best on so important an occasion. She combed and braided his hair and painted the parting with vermilion. With practised art she had mixed many colours from the juices of herbs and berries, yellow and blue clay and charcoal, and she painted his face and body with great care in lines and curves and rings.

For the hunt he wore no clothing but a breech-clout and his moccasins, and armlets and a necklace of bears’ claws, porcupine quills and brilliant beads.

“What is this?” Morning Bird asked, taking in her fingers a small bag of delicate white ermine skin that hung from his necklace.

“It is my sacred medicine,” he answered her, covering it with his hand. “It came to me in my sleep. You must not see it.”

Enclosed in the ermine skin was the thing that he had taken from his mystery bundle during the night—the thing which was to give him strength and bravery and shield him from harm.

Morning Bird did not question him further but accompanied him out of the lodge to where his buffalo pony, Snow-white, waited. It was not shod and had never been saddled or bridled. He led it away by its long trail-rope of rawhide, one end of which was knotted about the animal’s lower jaw, while the other end dragged loose along the ground, where it might be seized if the rider should be thrown and not too much hurt to snatch at it.

“Ha!” cried Weasel Moccasin as he joined the group of favoured boys who were now for the first time to do the serious work of men in the buffalo surround. “My medicine tells me that to-day I shall have great luck. Softfoot shall not get the better of me this time. I shall pick out the finest bulls in the herd and bring many of them to the ground.”

“It may be that none of us will get near enough to kill,” said Softfoot, caressing his pony’s muzzle. “Mishe-mokwa has said that we are not to put ourselves in danger; but only to watch the men, and learn from them how to manage our ponies. It is bad hunting if our ponies are hurt.”

“That is true,” nodded Red Crow, “and I for one will keep out of danger. I will pick out a swift cow or a bull calf and drive it well away from the herd, so that I may not be too close to the ferocious bulls.”

Before they mounted they were told to lay their quivers on the ground. Heavy Head, a veteran buffalo runner, was to examine their arrows and see that they were well feathered, well pointed and duly marked.

Weasel Moccasin and Softfoot had placed their quivers side by side on the grass when Little Antelope, one of the younger boys, saw the chief coming out of his council lodge, attended by many warriors and mystery men. With the chief walked a tall, bearded stranger, dressed in buckskins and wearing a wide, felt hat.

“It is a white man!” exclaimed Little Antelope in surprise. “Come, let us go and look at him! Never before have I seen a paleface. See, he has a gun! He is showing it to Mishe-mokwa. He is perhaps coming on the buffalo hunt.”

“His gun is broken,” said Softfoot, who knew nothing of the mechanism of a breech-loading rifle. “And he is putting the bullets in at the wrong end!”

“Where does he come from—this white man?” questioned Red Crow. “I think he is an enemy.”

“He rode into our camp when the Pawnees were still asleep,” explained Softfoot. “He is alone. He would not come alone if he were an enemy. That is his horse—Long Hair is leading it. It is a beautiful horse—taller than any of ours. I want to see how he mounts. Aye! look! look!”

The stranger had raised a spurred foot to his stirrup and was quickly seated in his saddle with the bridle in his hand and his gun in the crook of his arm. To the Indian boys he looked very tall and splendid with his broad shoulders and upright figure. Even from a distance they could see that his eyes were not so dark as the eyes of the Pawnees, and, with quick recognition of this peculiarity, Softfoot said:

“Let us name him Blue Eye, for his eyes are like the moonlit sky.”

Great Bear, Three Stars, Talks-with-the-Buffalo, and other warriors, had also mounted. They all carried muzzle-loading guns, and wore their bright-coloured blankets and medicine bonnets. The chief and Blue Eye rode side by side, talking like friends. The others formed in Indian file, following across the plain, each leading a second pony that would be used in the hunt. The six boys ran back, snatched up their bows and quivers, and leapt excitedly to their ponies’ backs, taking places where they could find them in the long procession of riders.

As they rode out from the wide circle of lodges to enter the prairie trail, they turned and waved their hands to the watching crowds of women and children. Then they strung their bows to be ready for action. It was not until afterwards, when he was in the midst of the buffaloes, that Softfoot discovered that the arrows in his quiver were not his own, that they bore Weasel Moccasin’s marks. They had been changed. But by whom? And why?

The warriors rode slowly through the woodland, and when they came into the open some turned to the eastward and others to the west, forming two separate companies along the ridge of the hill to encircle the hunting-ground.

By this time the sun was rising, flooding the prairie with yellow light. The grass sparkled with dew, and thin shreds of grey mist drifted and melted. The sweet, wild whistle of the meadow lark rang out from the knolls, and the skylark and the white-winged blackbird filled the air with their rich notes. Now and then a jack-rabbit or a kit fox was startled from its bed in the grama grass, or a family of antelopes, alarmed by the horsemen, would race to the safety of the hill-tops.

Through the rising mist the brown, hairy shapes of many buffaloes could be seen scattered over the level land like cattle in a pasture. The great shaggy bulls were cropping the grass on the outskirts of the herd, as if guarding the cows and calves that were still at rest, unconscious of the dark line that was slowly creeping round them.

Neither bulls nor cows took any notice of the prowling scavenger wolves that were the usual attendants upon every buffalo herd, following them in their migrations to pick off the weak or injured stragglers or to feast upon the stripped carcases discarded by the Indians. But as the tightening ring of horsemen began to close in, the alert sentinel bulls lifted their shaggy heads, sniffed with suspicion at the tainted air, caught sight of the mysterious enemy and sounded the alarm in a long-drawn bellow.

The younger bulls and the cows with their yellow calves began to rush about in aimless panic, gathering at first in detached groups and then crowding together in a compact mass until the veteran bulls took leadership and started them off in a headlong stampede with heads lowered and tails lifted high. Their roaring was like the roll of thunder. The earth trembled under the heavy tread of their hoofs.

The Pawnees rode round and round in their unbroken circle. Three Stars, who was the captain of the hunt, saw that he could not successfully deal with so large a herd, and he allowed many to escape before he gave the signal which released all restraint.

Yelling their wild hunting cries, the Indians dashed forward to the assault, each intent upon being the first to come within striking range of their huge victims. It was a desperately dangerous game. No hunting has ever been so perilous and exciting; for the buffalo is a terrible antagonist, swift of foot, resistless in attack, vicious in defence, and backed by a strength which could only be avoided by that cunning which has always given man the mastery over the brute.