Altsheler, Joseph - [Great West 01]

by The Great Sioux Trail (lit)

  Inmutanka, who undoubtedly had a kind heart, pointed to a heap of buffalo robes in the corner, and Will threw himself upon them. All the enormous ex- haustion of such a tremendous journey suddenly be- came cumulative and he slept until Inmutanka awoke trim a full fifteen hours later. Then he discovered that the old Indian really knew a little English, though he had hidden the fact before.

  "You eat," he said, and gave him fish, venison and some bread of Indian corn, which Will ate with the huge appetite of the young and strong.

  "Now you work," said Inmutanka, when he had fin- ished.

  Will stared at him, and then he remembered Hera- ka's words of the day before that he was a slave. He was assailed by a sickening sensation but he pulled him- self together bravely, and, having become a wise youth, he resolved that he would not make his fate worse by vain resistance.

  "All right," he said, "what am I to do?"

  "You be pony herd now."

  "Well, that isn't so bad."

  Inmutanka led the way across the creek, or rather river, and Will saw that the herd on the meadows was quite large, numbering at least a thousand ponies, and

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  also many large American horses, captured or stolen. They grazed at will on the deep grass, but small In- dian boys carrying sticks watched them continually.

  "You take your place here with boys/' said Inmu- tanka, "and see that ponies don't run up and down valley."

  He gave him a stick and left him with the little Sioux lads. Will considered the task extremely light, certainly not one that had a savor of slavery, but he soon found that he was surrounded by pests. The In- dian boys began to torment him, slipping up behind him, pulling his hair and then darting away again, throwing stones or clods of earth at him, and seeking to drive ponies upon him.

  Will's heart was suffused with anger. They were younger and smaller than he, but they had an infinite power to vex or cause pain. Nevertheless he clung to his resolution. He refused to show anger, and while ft was by no means his disposition to turn one cheek when the other was smitten, he exhibited a patience of which he had not believed himself capable. He also showed a power that they did not possess. When some of the younger and friskier ponies sought to break away from the main herd and race up the river he soothed them by voice and touch and turned them back in such an amazing manner that the Indian boys brought some of the older warriors to observe his magic with horses.

  Will saw the men watching, but he pretended not to notice. Nevertheless he felt that fate, after playing him so many bad tricks, was now doing him a good

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  turn. He would exploit his power with animals to the utmost. Indians were always impressed with an un- usual display of ability of any kind, and they felt that its possessor was endowed with magic. He walked freely among the ponies, which would have turned their heels on the Indian lads, and stroked their manes and noses.

  The warriors went away without saying anything. The Indian boys returned to the village shortly after noon, but their place was taken by a fresh band, while Will remained on duty. Nor was he allowed to leave until long after twilight, when, surprised to find how weary he was, he dragged his feet to the tepee of In- mutanka, where he had venison, pemmican and water.

  "Not so bad," he said to the old Indian. "I believe I'm a good herd for ponies, though I'd rather do it riding than walking."

  "To-morrow you scrape hides with squaws," said Inmutanka.

  Will was disappointed, but he recalled that after the threat of Heraka he should not expect to get off with such an easy task as the continual herding of ponies. Scraping hides would be terribly wearying and it would be a humiliation to put him with the old squaws. Nevertheless his heart was light. The fate of the white captive too often was speedy and horrible torture and death. He felt that the longer they were delayed, less was the likelihood that he would ever have to suffer them at all.

  He was awakened at dawn, and as soon as he had eaten he was put to his task. Fresh buffalo hides were

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  stretched tightly and staked upon the ground, the inner side up, and he and a dozen old squaws began the labor of scraping from them the last particles of flesh with small knives of bone.

  He cut his hands, his back ached, the perspiration streamed from his face, and the squaws, far more ex- pert than he, jeered at him continually. Warriors also passed and uttered contemptuous words in an unknown language. But Will, clinging to his resolution, pre- tended to take no notice. Long before the day was over every bone in him was aching and his hands were bleeding, but he made no complaint. When he re- turned to the tepee Inmutanka put a lotion on his hands.

  "It good for you, but must not tell," he said.

  "I wouldn't dream of telling," said Will fervently. "God bless you, Inmutanka. If there's any finer doc- tor than you anywhere in the world I never heard of him."

  But he had to go back to the task of scraping the skins early in the morning, and for a week he labored at it, until he thought his back would never straighten out again. He recalled that first day with the pony herd. The labor there was heaven compared with that which he was now doing. Perhaps he had been wrong to show his power with animals: If he had pretended to be awkward and ignorant with horses they might have kept him there.

  He made no sign, nor did he give any hint to In- mutanka that he would like a change. He judged, too, that he had inspired a certain degree of respect and

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  liking in the old Indian who put such effective ointment on his hands every night that at the end of a week all the cuts and bruises were healed. Moreover, he had learned how to use the bone scrapers with a sufficient degree of skill not to cut himself.

  But he was still a daily subject of derision for the warriors, women and children. It was the little In- dian boys who annoyed him most, often trying to thrust splinters into his arms or legs, although he in- variably pushed them away. He never struck any of them, however, and he saw that his forbearance was beginning to win from the warriors, at least, a certain degree of toleration.

  When the scraping of the skins was finished he was set to work with some of the old men making lances. These were formidable weapons, at least twelve feet long, an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, ending in a two-edged blade made of flint, elk horn or bone, and five or six inches in length. The wood, constitut- ing the body of the lance, had to be sc raped down with great care, and the prisoner toiled over them for many days.

  Then he began to make shields from the hide that grew on the neck of the buffalo, where it was thickest. When it was denuded of hair the hide was a full quar- ter of an inch through. Then it was cut in a circle two or two and a half feet in diameter and two of the circles were joined together, making a thickness of a full half inch. Dried thoroughly the shield became almost as hard as iron, and the bullet of the old-fashioned rifle would not penetrate it.

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  He also helped to make bows, the favorite wood being of osage orange, although pine, oak, elm, elder and many other kinds were used, and he was one of the toilers, too, at the making of arrows. Mounted on his wiry pony with his strong shield, his long lance, his powerful bow and quiver of arrows, the Sioux was a formidable warrior, and Will understood how he had won the overlordship of such a vast area.

  A month, in which he was subjected to the most un- remitting toil, passed, yet his spirit and body triumphed over it, and both grew stronger. He felt now as if he could endure anything and he knew that he would be called upon to endure much.

  His youth and his plastic nature caused him to imi- tate to a certain extent, and almost unconsciously, the manners and customs of those around him. He became stoical, he pretended to an indifference which often he did not feel, and he never spoke of the friends who had disappeared so suddenly from his life, even to old In- mut
anka. The "doctor," as Will called him, was im- proving his English by practice, and Will in return was learning Sioux fast both from Inmutanka and from the people in the village. He knew the names of many ani- mals. The buffalo was Pteha, the bear was Warankxi, the badger, Roka ; the deer, Tarinca ; the wolf, Xunk- tokeca.

  One can get along with a surprisingly small vocabu- lary, and one also learns fast when he is surrounded by people who do not speak his own language. In six weeks Will had quite a smattering of the Sioux tongue. He still lived in the lodge of Inmutanka, who was in-

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  variably kind and helpful, and Will soon had a gen- uine liking for the good old doctor. It pleased him to wait upon Inmutanka as if he were a son.

  It was, on the whole, well for the lad that he was compelled to work, because after the day's labors were over and he had eaten his supper, he fell asleep from exhaustion, and slept without dreams. Thus he was not able to think as much as he would have done about his present condition, the great quest that he had been compelled to abandon, and those whom he had lost. Yet he could not believe, despite what Heraka had said, that Boyd, Brady and the Little Giant were lost. But he had many bitter moments. Often the humilia- tions were almost greater than he could bear, and it seemed that his quest was over forever.

  These thoughts came most at night, but renewed courage would always reappear in the morning. He was too young, too strong, to feel permanent despair, and his body was growing so tough and enduring that, in his belief, if a time to escape ever came, he would be equal to it. But it was obvious that no such time was at hand. There were several hundred pairs of eyes in the village and he knew that every pair above five years of age watched him. Nothing that he did escaped their attention. Somebody was always near him, and, if he attempted flight, the alarm would be given before he went ten yards, and the whole village would come swarming upon him. So he wisely made no such trial, and seemed to settle down into a sort of content.

  He saw no more then of Heraka, who had evidently 277

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  gone away to the great war with the white men, But he saw a good deal of the chief of the village, an old man named Xingudan, which in Sioux meant the Fox. Xingudan's face was seamed with years, though his tall figure was not bent, and Will soon learned that his name had been earned. Xingudan, though he seldom went on the war path now, was full of craft and guile and cunning. The village under his rule was orderly and more far-seeing than Indians usually are.

  The Sioux began to strengthen their lodges and to accumulate stores of pemmican. The maize in sev- eral small, sheltered fields farther down the valley was gathered carefully. The boys brought in bushels of nuts, and Will admired the industry and ability of Xingudan. It was evident that winter was com- ing, although the touch as yet was only that of autumn.

  It was a magnificent autumn that the lad witnessed. The foliage in the mountains glowed in the deepest and most intense colors that he had ever seen, reds, yellows, browns and shades between. Far up on the slopes he saw great splotches of color blazing in scarlet, and far beyond them in the north the white crests of dim and towering mountains. He was strengthened in his be- lief that he was far to the north of the fighting line, although his conclusion was based only upon his own observations. No Indian, not even a child, had ever spoken to him a word to indicate where he was. He inferred that silence upon that point had been en- joined and that old Xingudan would punish severely any infraction of the law. Even Inmutanka, so kind

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  in other respects, would never give forth a word of information.

  As the autumn deepened, the lad's mind underwent another strange change, or perhaps it was not so strange at all. Youth must adapt itself, and he began to feel a certain sympathy and friendliness with the young Sioux of his own age. He also began to see wild life at its best, that is, under the circumstances most favorable to happiness.

  The village was full of food, the hunting had never been better, and the forest had yielded an uncommon quantity of fruits and nuts. All the primitive wants were satisfied, and there was no sickness. After dark the youths of the village roamed about, playing and skylarking like so many white lads of their own age, but the girls as soon as the twilight came remained close in the lodges. Will saw a kind of happiness he had never looked upon before, a happiness that was wholly of the moment, untroubled by any thoughts of the future, and therefore without alloy. He saw that the primitive man when his stomach was full, and the shelter was good could have absolute physical joy. Strangely enough he found himself taking an interest in these pleasures, and by and by he began to share in them to a minor degree.

  The river afforded a fine stretch of water, and the Indians had large canoes which they now used freely for purposes of sport. These boats were made of strong rawhide, generally about thirty feet long, al- though one was a full fifty feet, and they also had sev- eral boats shaped like huge bowls, made with a frame

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  of wicker and covering it, the strongest buffalo hide, sewed together with unbreakable rawhide strings. They called these round boats watta tatankaha, which Will learnt meant in English bull boats. Just such boats as these were used on the Tigris, and the Eu- phrates, the oldest of rivers known to civilized man.

  The first sign of relenting toward the captive lad was when he was allowed to withdraw from the hard work of strengthening a lodge to take a place alone in one of the bull boats and navigate it with a paddle down the river, at a place where it had a depth past fording. The stream was swift here and, despite his knowledge of ordinary curves, the round craft over- turned with him before he had gone twenty feet, amid shouts of laughter from the Sioux gathered on either bank.

  The water flowing down from the mountains was very cold, but Will scorned to cry for help. He was a powerful swimmer and he struck out boldly for the round boat, which was floating ahead. He had held on to the paddle all the while and, by a desperate struggle, he managed to right his craft and pull him- self into it again. He was so much immersed in his physical struggle that he did not know the Indian children were pelting him with sticks and clods of earth, and were shouting in amusement and derision. But the warriors were grave and silent.

  Another struggle and the round boat overturned again. But he held on to the paddle and recovered it a second time. A new and desperate contest between him and the boat followed, but in the end he was

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  victor and paddled it both down and up-stream in a fairly steady manner. Then he brought it into the landing where he was received in a respectful silence.

  In his struggles to succeed Will had taken little notice of the coldness of the waters, but when he went back to the lodge he had a severe chill, followed by a high fever. Then old Inmutanka proved himself the doctor that Will called him by using a remedy that either killed or cured.

  Inmutanka gave the lad a sweat bath. He made a heap of stones and built a big fire upon them, feeding it until their heat was very great. Then he scraped away the fuel and put up a framework made of poles, covered with layers of skins. These layers were six or seven feet above the stones. Will was placed in a skin hammock under the layers and suspended about two feet above the hot stones. Water was then poured on these, until a dense steam arose. When Inmutanka thought that Will had stood it as long as he could, he withdrew him from the hot steam bath, although medi- cine men sometimes left their patients in too long, allowing them to be scalded to death.

  In Will's case it was cure, not kill. The fever quickly disappeared from his system and though it left him very weak he recovered so rapidly that in a few days he was as strong as ever, in fact, stronger, because all the impurities had been steamed out of his system, and the new blood generated was better than the old. He learned, too, from Inmutanka that he had won respect in the village by his courage and tenacity, and that many were in
favor of lightening

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  his labors, although the Fox was as stern as ever.

  Will was still compelled to realize that he was a slave ; that he, a white lad, the heir of untold centuries of civilization and culture, was the slave of a people who, despite all their courage and other virtues, were savages. They stood where, in many respects, his ancestors had stood ten or twenty thousand years ago. Again and again, the thought was so bitter that he felt like making a run for freedom and ending it all on the Indian spear. But the thought would change, and with it came the hope that some day or other the moment of escape would appear, and there was a lurk- ing feeling, too, that his present life was not wholly unpleasant, or, at least, there were compensations.

  An increased strength came with the rapid recovery from his illness. Beyond any question he had grown in both height and breadth since he had been in the mountains, and his muscles were as hard as iron. Not one of the Indian youths could exert as much direct strength as he, or endure as much.

  His patience, which was now largely the result of calculation and will, began to have its visible effect upon the people. There is nothing that an Indian admires more than stoicism. The fortitude that can endure pain without a groan is to him the highest of attributes. Will had never complained, no matter how great his hardships or labors, and gradually they began to look upon him as one of their own. His face was tanned heavily by continuous exposure to all kinds of weather, his original garments were worn out, and he was now clad wholly in deerskins. A casual ob-

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