Red Men and White

  LITTLE BIG HORN MEDICINE

  Something new was happening among the Crow Indians. A young pretenderhad appeared in the tribe. What this might lead to was unknown alike towhite man and to red; but the old Crow chiefs discussed it in theircouncils, and the soldiers at Fort Custer, and the civilians at theagency twelve miles up the river, and all the white settlers in thevalley discussed it also. Lieutenants Stirling and Haines, of the FirstCavalry, were speculating upon it as they rode one afternoon.

  "Can't tell about Indians," said Stirling. "But I think the Crows aretoo reasonable to go on the war-path."

  "Reasonable!" said Haines. He was young, and new to Indians.

  "Just so. Until you come to his superstitions, the Indian can reason asstraight as you or I. He's perfectly logical."

  "Logical!" echoed Haines again. He held the regulation Eastern view thatthe Indian knows nothing but the three blind appetites.

  "You'd know better," remarked Stirling, "if you'd been fighting 'em forfifteen years. They're as shrewd as AEsop's fables."

  Just then two Indians appeared round a bluff--one old and shabby, theother young and very gaudy--riding side by side.

  "That's Cheschapah," said Stirling. "That's the agitator in all hisfeathers. His father, you see, dresses more conservatively."

  The feathered dandy now did a singular thing. He galloped towards thetwo officers almost as if to bear them down, and, steering much tooclose, flashed by yelling, amid a clatter of gravel.

  "Nice manners," commented Haines. "Seems to have a chip on hisshoulder."

  But Stirling looked thoughtful. "Yes," he muttered, "he has a chip."

  Meanwhile the shabby father was approaching. His face was mild and sad,and he might be seventy. He made a gesture of greeting. "How!" he said,pleasantly, and ambled on his way.

  "Now there you have an object-lesson," said Stirling. "Old Pounded Meathas no chip. The question is, are the fathers or the sons going to runthe Crow Nation?"

  "Why did the young chap have a dog on his saddle?" inquired Haines.

  "I didn't notice it. For his supper, probably--probably he's getting upa dance. He is scheming to be a chief. Says he is a medicine-man, andcan make water boil without fire; but the big men of the tribe take nostock in him--not yet. They've seen soda-water before. But I'm told thiswater-boiling astonishes the young."

  "You say the old chiefs take no stock in him _yet_?"

  "Ah, that's the puzzle. I told you just now Indians could reason."

  "And I was amused."

  "Because you're an Eastern man. I tell you, Haines, if it wasn't mybusiness to shoot Indians I'd study them."

  "You're a crank," said Haines.

  But Stirling was not a crank. He knew that so far from being a mereanimal, the Indian is of a subtlety more ancient than the Sphinx. In hisprimal brain--nearer nature than our own--the directness of a childmingles with the profoundest cunning. He believes easily in powers oflight and darkness, yet is a sceptic all the while. Stirling knew this;but he could not know just when, if ever, the young charlatan Cheschapahwould succeed in cheating the older chiefs; just when, if ever, he wouldstrike the chord of their superstition. Till then they would reason thatthe white man was more comfortable as a friend than as a foe, thatrations and gifts of clothes and farming implements were better thanbattles and prisons. Once their superstition was set alight, these threethousand Crows might suddenly follow Cheschapah to burn and kill anddestroy.

  "How does he manage his soda-water, do you suppose?" inquired Haines.

  "That's mysterious. He has never been known to buy drugs, and he'scareful where he does his trick. He's still a little afraid of hisfather. All Indians are. It's queer where he was going with that dog."

  Hard galloping sounded behind them, and a courier from the Indian agencyovertook and passed them, hurrying to Fort Custer. The officers hurriedtoo, and, arriving, received news and orders. Forty Sioux were reportedup the river coming to visit the Crows. It was peaceable, but untimely.The Sioux agent over at Pine Ridge had given these forty permission togo, without first finding out if it would be convenient to the Crowagent to have them come. It is a rule of the Indian Bureau that if onetribe desire to visit another, the agents of both must consent. Now,most of the Crows were farming and quiet, and it was not wise that avisit from the Sioux and a season of feasting should tempt their heartsand minds away from the tilling of the soil. The visitors must be takencharge of and sent home.

  "Very awkward, though," said Stirling to Haines. He had been ordered totake two troops and arrest the unoffending visitors on their way. "TheSioux will be mad, and the Crows will be madder. What a bungle! and howlike the way we manage Indian affairs!" And so they started.

  Thirty miles away, by a stream towards which Stirling with his commandwas steadily marching through the night, the visitors were gathered.There was a cook-fire and a pot, and a stewing dog leaped in the froth.Old men in blankets and feathers sat near it, listening to youngCheschapah's talk in the flighty lustre of the flames. An old squawacted as interpreter between Crow and Sioux. Round about, at a certaindistance, the figures of the crowd lounged at the edge of the darkness.Two grizzled squaws stirred the pot, spreading a clawed fist to theireyes against the red heat of the coals, while young Cheschapah haranguedthe older chiefs.

  "BOASTING IN INDIAN FASHION"]

  "And more than that, I, Cheschapah, can do," said he, boasting inIndian fashion. "I know how to make the white man's heart soft sohe cannot fight." He paused for effect, but his hearers seemeduninterested. "You have come pretty far to see us," resumed theorator, "and I, and my friend Two Whistles, and my father, PoundedMeat, have come a day to meet you and bring you to our place. I havebrought you a fat dog. I say it is good the Crow and the Sioux shallbe friends. All the Crow chiefs are glad. Pretty Eagle is a big chief,and he will tell you what I tell you. But I am bigger than PrettyEagle. I am a medicine-man."

  He paused again; but the grim old chiefs were looking at the fire, andnot at him. He got a friendly glance from his henchman, Two Whistles,but he heard his father give a grunt.

  That enraged him. "I am a medicine-man," he repeated, defiantly. "I havebeen in the big hole in the mountains where the river goes, and spokenthere with the old man who makes the thunder. I talked with him as onechief to another. I am going to kill all the white men."

  At this old Pounded Meat looked at his son angrily, but the son was notafraid of his father just then. "I can make medicine to bring the rain,"he continued. "I can make water boil when it is cold. With this I canstrike the white man blind when he is so far that his eyes do not showhis face."

  He swept out from his blanket an old cavalry sabre painted scarlet.Young Two Whistles made a movement of awe, but Pounded Meat said, "Myson's tongue has grown longer than his sword."

  Laughter sounded among the old chiefs. Cheschapah turned his impudentyet somewhat visionary face upon his father. "What do you know ofmedicine?" said he. "Two sorts of Indians are among the Crows to-day,"he continued to the chiefs. "One sort are the fathers, and the sons arethe other. The young warriors are not afraid of the white man. The oldplant corn with the squaws. Is this the way with the Sioux?"

  "With the Sioux," remarked a grim visitor, "no one fears the white man.But the young warriors do not talk much in council."

  Pounded Meat put out his hand gently, as if in remonstrance. Otherpeople must not chide his son.

  "You say you can make water boil with no fire?" pursued the Sioux, whowas named Young-man-afraid-of-his-horses, and had been young once.

  Pounded Meat came between. "My son is a good man," said he. "These wordsof his are not made in the heart, but are head words you need not count.Cheschapah does not like peace. He has heard us sing our wars and theenemies we have killed, and he remembers that he has no deeds, beingyoung. When he thinks of this sometimes he talks words without sense.But my son is a good man."

  The father again extended his hand, which trembled a little. The Siouxhad listened, looking at him
with respect, and forgetful of Cheschapah,who now stood before them with a cup of cold water.

  "You shall see," he said, "who it is that talks words without sense."

  Two Whistles and the young bucks crowded to watch, but the old men satwhere they were. As Cheschapah stood relishing his audience, PoundedMeat stepped up suddenly and upset the cup. He went to the stream andrefilled it himself. "Now make it boil," said he.

  Cheschapah smiled, and as he spread his hand quickly over the cup, thewater foamed up.

  "Huh!" said Two Whistles, startled.

  The medicine-man quickly seized his moment. "What does Pounded Meatknow of my medicine?" said he. "The dog is cooked. Let the dance begin."

  The drums set up their dull, blunt beating, and the crowd of young andless important bucks came from the outer circle nearer to the council.Cheschapah set the pot in the midst of the flat camp, to be the centreof the dance. None of the old chiefs said more to him, but sat apartwith the empty cup, having words among themselves. The flame reared highinto the dark, and showed the rock wall towering close, and at its feetthe light lay red on the streaming water. The young Sioux stripped nakedof their blankets, hanging them in a screen against the wind from thejaws of the canon, with more constant shouts as the drumming beatlouder, and strokes of echo fell from the black cliffs. The figurestwinkled across each other in the glare, drifting and alert, till thedog-dance shaped itself into twelve dancers with a united sway of bodyand arms, one and another singing his song against the lifted sound ofthe drums. The twelve sank crouching in simulated hunt for an enemy backand forth over the same space, swinging together.

  Presently they sprang with a shout upon their feet, for they had takenthe enemy. Cheschapah, leading the line closer to the central pot, begana new figure, dancing the pursuit of the bear. This went faster; andafter the bear was taken, followed the elk-hunt, and a new sway andcrouch of the twelve gesturing bodies. The thudding drums wereceaseless; and as the dance went always faster and always nearer the dogpot, the steady blows of sound inflamed the dancers; their chestsheaved, and their arms and bodies swung alike as the excited crew filedand circled closer to the pot, following Cheschapah, and shoutinguncontrollably. They came to firing pistols and slashing the air withknives, when suddenly Cheschapah caught up a piece of steaming dog fromthe pot, gave it to his best friend, and the dance was done. Thedripping figures sat quietly, shining and smooth with sweat, eatingtheir dog-flesh in the ardent light of the fire and the cool splendor ofthe moon. By-and-by they lay in their blankets to sleep at ease.

  The elder chiefs had looked with distrust at Cheschapah as he led thedance; now that the entertainment was over, they rose with gravity to goto their beds.

  "It is good for the Sioux and the Crows to be friends," said PoundedMeat to Young-man-afraid-of-his-horses. "But we want no war with thewhite man. It is a few young men who say that war is good now."

  "We have not come for war," replied the Sioux. "We have come to eat muchmeat together, and remember that day when war was good on the LittleHorn, and our warriors killed Yellow Hair and all his soldiers."

  Pounded Meat came to where he and Cheschapah had their blankets.

  "We shall have war," said the confident son to his father. "My medicineis good."

  "Peace is also pretty good," said Pounded Meat. "Get new thoughts. Myson, do you not care any more for my words?"

  Cheschapah did not reply.

  "I have lived a long while. Yet one man may be wrong. But all cannot be.The other chiefs say what I say. The white men are too strong."

  "They would not be too strong if the old men were not cowards."

  "Have done," said the father, sternly. "If you are a medicine-man, donot talk like a light fool."

  The Indian has an "honor thy father" deep in his religion too, andCheschapah was silent. But after he was asleep, Pounded Meat laybrooding. He felt himself dishonored, and his son to be an evil in thetribe. With these sore notions keeping him awake, he saw the night waneinto gray, and then he heard the distant snort of a horse. He looked,and started from his blankets, for the soldiers had come, and he ran towake the sleeping Indians. Frightened, and ignorant why they should besurrounded, the Sioux leaped to their feet; and Stirling, from where hesat on his horse, saw their rushing, frantic figures.

  "Go quick, Kinney," he said to the interpreter, "and tell them it'speace, or they'll be firing on us."

  Kinney rode forward alone, with one hand raised; and seeing that sign,they paused, and crept nearer, like crafty rabbits, while the sun roseand turned the place pink. And then came the parley, and the longexplanation; and Stirling thanked his stars to see they were going toallow themselves to be peaceably arrested. Bullets you get used to; butafter the firing's done, you must justify it to important personages wholive comfortably in Eastern towns and have never seen an Indian in theirlives, and are rancid with philanthropy and ignorance.

  Stirling would sooner have faced Sioux than sentimentalists, and he wasfervently grateful to these savages for coming with him quietly withoutobliging him to shoot them. Cheschapah was not behaving so amiably; andrecognizing him, Stirling understood about the dog. The medicine-man,with his faithful Two Whistles, was endeavoring to excite the prisonersas they were marched down the river to the Crow Agency.

  Stirling sent for Kinney. "Send that rascal away," he said. "I'll nothave him bothering here."

  The interpreter obeyed, but with a singular smile to himself. When hehad ordered Cheschapah away, he rode so as to overhear Stirling andHaines talking. When they speculated about the soda-water, Kinney smiledagain. He was a quiet sort of man. The people in the valley admired hisbusiness head. He supplied grain and steers to Fort Custer, and used tosay that business was always slow in time of peace.

  By evening Stirling had brought his prisoners to the agency, and therewas the lieutenant of Indian police of the Sioux come over from PineRidge to bring them home. There was restlessness in the air as nightfell round the prisoners and their guard. It was Cheschapah's hour, andthe young Crows listened while he declaimed against the white man forthwarting their hospitality. The strong chain of sentinels was kept busypreventing these hosts from breaking through to fraternize with theirguests. Cheschapah did not care that the old Crow chiefs would notlisten. When Pretty Eagle remarked laconically that peace was good, theagitator laughed; he was gaining a faction, and the faction was feelingits oats. Accordingly, next morning, though the prisoners were meek onbeing started home by Stirling with twenty soldiers, and the majority ofthe Crows were meek at seeing them thus started, this was not all.Cheschapah, with a yelling swarm of his young friends, began to buzzabout the column as it marched up the river. All had rifles.

  "It's an interesting state of affairs," said Stirling to Haines. "Thereare at least fifty of these devils at our heels now, and more coming.We've got twenty men. Haines, your Indian experiences may begin quiteearly in your career."

  "Yes, especially if our prisoners take to kicking."

  "Well, to compensate for spoiling their dinner-party, the agent gavethem some rations and his parting blessing. It may suffice."

  The line of march had been taken up by ten men in advance, followed inthe usual straggling fashion by the prisoners, and the rear-guard wascomposed of the other ten soldiers under Stirling and Haines. With themrode the chief of the Crow police and the lieutenant of the Sioux. Thislittle band was, of course, far separated from the advance-guard, and itlistened to the young Crow bucks yelling at its heels. They yelled inEnglish. Every Indian knows at least two English words; they arepungent, and far from complimentary.

  "It's got to stop here," said Stirling, as they came to a ford known asReno's Crossing. "They've got to be kept on this side."

  "Can it be done without gunpowder?" Haines asked.

  "If a shot is fired now, my friend, it's war, and a court of inquiry inWashington for you and me, if we're not buried here. Sergeant, you willtake five men and see the column is kept moving. The rest remain withme. The prisoners mus
t be got across and away from their friends."

  The fording began, and the two officers went over to the east bank tosee that the instructions were carried out.

  "See that?" observed Stirling. As the last of the rear-guard steppedinto the stream, the shore they were leaving filled instantly with theCrows. "Every man jack of them is armed. And here's an interestingdevelopment," he continued.

  It was Cheschapah riding out into the water, and with him Two Whistles.The rear guard passed up the trail, and the little knot of men with theofficers stood halted on the bank. There were nine--the two Indianpolice, the two lieutenants, and five long muscular boys of K troop ofthe First Cavalry. They remained on the bank, looking at the thickpainted swarm that yelled across the ford.

  "Bet you there's a hundred," remarked Haines.

  "You forget I never gamble," murmured Stirling. Two of the five longboys overheard this, and grinned at each other, which Stirling noted;and he loved them. It was curious to mark the two shores: the featheredmultitude and its yells and its fifty yards of rifles that fronted asmall spot of white men sitting easily in the saddle, and the clear,pleasant water speeding between. Cheschapah and Two Whistles cametauntingly towards this spot, and the mass of Crows on the other sidedrew forward a little.

  "You tell them," said Stirling to the chief of the Crow police, "thatthey must go back."

  Cheschapah came nearer, by way of obedience.

  "Take them over, then," the officer ordered.

  "HIS HORSE DREW CLOSE, SHOVING THE HORSE OF THEMEDICINE-MAN"]

  The chief of Crow police rode to Cheschapah, speaking and pointing.His horse drew close, shoving the horse of the medicine-man, who nowlaunched an insult that with Indians calls for blood. He struck theman's horse with his whip, and at that a volume of yells chorussedfrom the other bank.

  "Looks like the court of inquiry," remarked Stirling. "Don't shoot,boys," he commanded aloud.

  The amazed Sioux policeman gasped. "You not shoot?" he said. "But he hitthat man's horse--all the same hit your horse, all the same hit you."

  "Right. Quite right," growled Stirling. "All the same hit Uncle Sam. Butwe soldier devils have orders to temporize." His eye rested hard andserious on the party in the water as he went on speaking with jocularunconcern. "Tem-po-rize, Johnny," said he. "You savvy temporize?"

  "Ump! Me no savvy."

  "Bully for you, Johnny. Too many syllables. Well, now! he's hit thathorse again. One more for the court of inquiry. Steady, men! There's TwoWhistles switching now. They ought to call that lad Young Dog Tray. Andthere's a chap in paint fooling with his gun. If any more do that--it'svery catching--Yes, we're going to have a circus. Attention! Now what'sthat, do you suppose?"

  An apparition, an old chief, came suddenly on the other bank, pushingthrough the crowd, grizzled and little and lean, among the smooth,full-limbed young blood. They turned and saw him, and slunk from thetones of his voice and the light in his ancient eye. They swerved andmelted among the cottonwoods, so that the ford's edge grew bare ofdusky bodies and looked sandy and green again. Cheschapah saw thewrinkled figure coming, and his face sank tame. He stood uncertain inthe stream, seeing his banded companions gone and the few white soldiersfirm on the bank. The old chief rode to him through the water, his facebrightened with a last flare of command.

  "Make your medicine!" he said. "Why are the white men not blind? Is themedicine bad to-day?" And he whipped his son's horse to the right, andto the left he slashed the horse of Two Whistles, and, whirling theleather quirt, drove them cowed before him and out of the stream, withnever a look or word to the white men. He crossed the sandy margin, andas a man drives steers to the corral, striking spurs to his horse andfollowing the frightened animals close when they would twist aside, sodid old Pounded Meat herd his son down the valley.

  "Useful old man," remarked Stirling; "and brings up his childrencarefully. Let's get these prisoners along."

  "How rural the river looks now!" Haines said, as they left the desertedbank.

  So the Sioux went home in peace, the lieutenants, with their command oftwenty, returned to the post, and all white people felt much obliged toPounded Meat for his act of timely parental discipline--all except onewhite person.

  Sol Kinney sauntered into the agency store one evening. "I want tenpounds of sugar," said he, "and navy plug as usual. And say, I'll takeanother bottle of the Seltzer fizz salts. Since I quit whiskey," heexplained, "my liver's poorly."

  He returned with his purchase to his cabin, and set a lamp in thewindow. Presently the door opened noiselessly, and Cheschapah came in.

  "Maybe you got that now?" he said, in English.

  The interpreter fumbled among bottles of liniment and vaseline, and fromamong these household remedies brought the blue one he had just bought.Cheschapah watched him like a child, following his steps round thecabin. Kinney tore a half-page from an old Sunday _World_, and poured alittle heap of salts into it. The Indian touched the heap timidly withhis finger. "Maybe no good," he suggested.

  "Heap good!" said the interpreter, throwing a pinch into a glass. WhenCheschapah saw the water effervesce, he folded his newspaper with thesalt into a tight lump, stuck the talisman into his clothes, anddeparted, leaving Mr. Kinney well content. He was doing his best tonourish the sinews of war, for business in the country wasdiscouragingly slack.

  Now the Crows were a tribe that had never warred with us, but only withother tribes; they had been valiant enough to steal our cattle, butsufficiently discreet to stop there; and Kinney realized that he haduphill work before him. His dearest hopes hung upon Cheschapah, in whomhe thought he saw a development. From being a mere humbug, the youngIndian seemed to be getting a belief in himself as something genuinelyout of the common. His success in creating a party had greatly increasedhis conceit, and he walked with a strut, and his face was more unsettledand visionary than ever. One clear sign of his mental change was that heno longer respected his father at all, though the lonely old man lookedat him often with what in one of our race would have been tenderness.Cheschapah had been secretly maturing a plot ever since his humiliationat the crossing, and now he was ready. With his lump of newspapercarefully treasured, he came to Two Whistles.

  "Now we go," he said. "We shall fight with the Piegans. I will make bigmedicine, so that we shall get many of their horses and women. ThenPretty Eagle will be afraid to go against me in the council. PoundedMeat whipped my horse. Pounded Meat can cut his hay without Cheschapah,since he is so strong."

  But little Two Whistles wavered. "I will stay here," he ventured to sayto the prophet.

  "Does Two Whistles think I cannot do what I say?"

  "I think you make good medicine."

  "You are afraid of the Piegans."

  "No, I am not afraid. I have hay the white man will pay me for. If I go,he will not pay me. If I had a father, I would not leave him." He spokepleadingly, and his prophet bore him down by ridicule. Two Whistlesbelieved, but he did not want to lose the money the agent was to pay forhis hay. And so, not so much because he believed as because he wasafraid, he resigned his personal desires.

  The next morning the whole band had disappeared with Cheschapah. Theagent was taken aback at this marked challenge to his authority--ofcourse they had gone without permission--and even the old Crow chiefsheld a council.

  Pretty Eagle resorted to sarcasm. "He has taken his friends to the oldman who makes the thunder," he said. But others did not feel sarcastic,and one observed, "Cheschapah knows more than we know."

  "Let him make rain, then," said Pretty Eagle. "Let him make the whiteman's heart soft."

  The situation was assisted by a step of the careful Kinney. He took aprivate journey to Junction City, through which place he expectedCheschapah to return, and there he made arrangements to have as muchwhiskey furnished to the Indian and his friends as they should ask for.It was certainly a good stroke of business. The victorious raiders didreturn that way, and Junction City was most hospitable to their thirst.The valley of the
Big Horn was resonant with their homeward yells. Theyswept up the river, and the agent heard them coming, and he locked hisdoor immediately. He listened to their descent upon his fold, and hepeeped out and saw them ride round the tightly shut buildings in theirwar-paint and the pride of utter success. They had taken booty from thePiegans, and now, knocking at the store, they demanded ammunition,proclaiming at the same time in English that Cheschapah was a big man,and knew a "big heap medicine." The agent told them from inside thatthey could not have any ammunition. He also informed them that he knewwho they were, and that they were under arrest. This touched theirprimitive sense of the incongruous. On the buoyancy of the whiskey theyrode round and round the store containing the agent, and then rushedaway, firing shots at the buildings and shots in the air, and sogloriously home among their tribe, while the agent sent a courierpacking to Fort Custer.

  The young bucks who had not gone on the raid to the Piegans thronged tohear the story, and the warriors told it here and there, walking intheir feathers among a knot of friends, who listened with gayexclamations of pleasure and envy. Great was Cheschapah, who had doneall this! And one and another told exactly and at length how he had seenthe cold water rise into foam beneath the medicine-man's hand; it couldnot be told too often; not every companion of Cheschapah's had beenaccorded the privilege of witnessing this miracle, and each narrator inhis circle became a wonder himself to the bold boyish faces thatsurrounded him. And after the miracle he told how the Piegans had beenlike a flock of birds before the medicine-man. Cheschapah himself passedamong the groups, alone and aloof; he spoke to none, and he looked atnone, and he noted how their voices fell to whispers as he passed; hisear caught the magic words of praise and awe; he felt the gaze ofadmiration follow him away, and a mist rose like incense in his brain.He wandered among the scattered tepees, and, turning, came along thesame paths again, that he might once more overhear his worshippers.Great was Cheschapah! His heart beat, a throb of power passed throughhis body, and "Great is Cheschapah!" said he, aloud; for the fumes ofhallucination wherewith he had drugged others had begun to make himdrunk also. He sought a tepee where the wife of another chief was alone,and at his light call she stood at the entrance and heard him longerthan she had ever listened to him before. But she withstood thetemptation that was strong in the young chief's looks and words. She didnot speak much, but laughed unsteadily, and, shaking her head withaverted eyes, left him, and went where several women were together, andsat among them.

  Cheschapah told his victory to the council, with many sentences abouthimself, and how his medicine had fended all hurt from the Crows. Theelder chiefs sat cold.

  "Ump!" said one, at the close of the oration, and "Heh!" remarkedanother. The sounds were of assent without surprise.

  "It is good," said Pretty Eagle. His voice seemed to enrage Cheschapah.

  "Heh! it is always pretty good!" remarked Spotted Horse.

  "I have done this too," said Pounded Meat to his son, simply. "Once,twice, three times. The Crows have always been better warriors than thePiegans."

  "Have you made water boil like me?" Cheschapah said.

  "I am not a medicine-man," replied his father. "But I have taken horsesand squaws from the Piegans. You make good medicine, maybe; but a cup ofwater will not kill many white men. Can you make the river boil? LetCheschapah make bigger medicine, so the white man shall fear him as wellas the Piegans, whose hearts are well known to us."

  Cheschapah scowled. "Pounded Meat shall have this," said he. "I willmake medicine to-morrow, old fool!"

  "Drive him from the council!" said Pretty Eagle.

  "Let him stay," said Pounded Meat. "His bad talk was not to the council,but to me, and I do not count it."

  But the medicine-man left the presence of the chiefs, and came to thecabin of Kinney.

  "Hello!" said the white man. "Sit down."

  "You got that?" said the Indian, standing.

  "More water medicine? I guess so. Take a seat."

  "No, not boil any more. You got that other?"

  "That other, eh? Well, now, you're not going to blind them yet? What'syour hurry?"

  "Yes. Make blind to-morrow. Me great chief!"

  A slight uneasiness passed across the bantering face of Kinney. HisSeltzer salts performed what he promised, but he had mentioned anothermiracle, and he did not want his dupe to find him out until a war wasthoroughly set agoing. He looked at the young Indian, noticing his eyes.

  "What's the matter with you, anyway, Cheschapah?"

  "Me great chief!" The raised voice trembled with unearthly conviction.

  "Well, I guess you are. I guess you've got pretty far along," said thefrontier cynic. He tilted his chair back and smiled at the child whoseprimitive brain he had tampered with so easily. The child stood lookingat him with intent black eyes. "Better wait, Cheschapah. Come again.Medicine heap better after a while."

  The Indian's quick ear caught the insincerity without understanding it."You give me that quick!" he said, suddenly terrible.

  "Oh, all right, Cheschapah. You know more medicine than me."

  "Yes, I know more."

  The white man brought a pot of scarlet paint, and the Indian's staringeyes contracted. Kinney took the battered cavalry sabre in his hand, andset its point in the earth floor of the cabin. "Stand back," he said, inmysterious tones, and Cheschapah shrank from the impending sorcery. NowKinney had been to school once, in his Eastern childhood, and there hadcommitted to memory portions of Shakespeare, Mrs. Hemans, and otherpoets out of a Reader. He had never forgotten a single word of any ofthem, and it now occurred to him that for the purposes of an incantationit would be both entertaining for himself and impressive to Cheschapahif he should recite "The Battle of Hohenlinden." He was drawing squaresand circles with the point of the sabre.

  "No," he said to himself, "that piece won't do. He knows too muchEnglish. Some of them words might strike him as bein' too usual, andhe'd start to kill me, and spoil the whole thing. 'Munich' and'chivalry' are snortin', but 'sun was low' ain't worth a damn. Iguess--"

  He stopped guessing, for the noon recess at school came in his mind,like a picture, and with it certain old-time preliminaries to the gameof tag.

  "'Eeny, meeny, money, my,'"

  said Kinney, tapping himself, the sabre, the paint-pot, and Cheschapahin turn, one for each word. The incantation was begun. He held the sabresolemnly upright, while Cheschapah tried to control his excitedbreathing where he stood flattened against the wall.

  "'Butter, leather, boney, stry; Hare-bit, frost-neck, Harrico, barrico, whee, why, whoa, whack!'

  "You're it, Cheschapah." After that the weapon was given its fresh coatof paint, and Cheschapah went away with his new miracle in the dark.

  "He is it," mused Kinney, grave, but inwardly lively. He was one ofthose sincere artists who need no popular commendation. "And whoever hedoes catch, it won't be me," he concluded. He felt pretty sure therewould be war now.

  Dawn showed the summoned troops near the agency at the corral, standingto horse. Cheschapah gathered his hostiles along the brow of the ridgein the rear of the agency buildings, and the two forces watched eachother across the intervening four hundred yards.

  "There they are," said the agent, jumping about. "Shoot them, colonel;shoot them!"

  "You can't do that, you know," said the officer, "without an order fromthe President, or an overt act from the Indians."

  So nothing happened, and Cheschapah told his friends the white men werealready afraid of him. He saw more troops arrive, water their horses inthe river, form line outside the corral, and dismount. He made ready atthis movement, and all Indian on-lookers scattered from the expectedfight. Yet the white man stayed quiet. It was issue day, but no familiesremained after drawing their rations. They had had no dance the nightbefore, as was usual, and they did not linger a moment now, but came anddeparted with their beef and flour at once.

  "I have done all this," said Cheschapah to Two Whistles.

&nbs
p; "Cheschapah is a great man," assented the friend and follower. He hadgone at once to his hay-field on his return from the Piegans, but someone had broken the little Indian's fence, and cattle were wandering inwhat remained of his crop.

  "Our nation knows I will make a war, and therefore they do not stayhere," said the medicine-man, caring nothing what Two Whistles mighthave suffered. "And now they will see that the white soldiers dare notfight with Cheschapah. The sun is high now, but they have not movedbecause I have stopped them. Do you not see it is my medicine?"

  "We see it." It was the voice of the people.

  But a chief spoke. "Maybe they wait for us to come."

  Cheschapah answered. "Their eyes shall be made sick. I will ride amongthem, but they will not know it." He galloped away alone, and lifted hisred sword as he sped along the ridge of the hills, showing against thesky. Below at the corral the white soldiers waited ready, and heard himchanting his war song through the silence of the day. He turned in along curve, and came in near the watching troops and through the agency,and then, made bolder by their motionless figures and guns held idle, heturned again and flew, singing, along close to the line, so they saw hiseyes; and a few that had been talking low as they stood side by sidefell silent at the spectacle. They could not shoot until some Indianshould shoot. They watched him and the gray pony pass and return to thehostiles on the hill. Then they saw the hostiles melt away like magic.Their prophet had told them to go to their tepees and wait for the greatrain he would now bring. It was noon, and the sky utterly blue over thebright valley. The sun rode a space nearer the west, and the thick blackclouds assembled in the mountains and descended; their shadow floodedthe valley with a lake of slatish blue, and presently the suddentorrents sluiced down with flashes and the ample thunder of Montana.Thus not alone the law against our soldiers firing the first shot in anIndian excitement, but now also the elements coincided to help themedicine-man's destiny.

  Cheschapah sat in a tepee with his father, and as the rain splashedheavily on the earth the old man gazed at the young one.

  "Why do you tremble, my son? You have made the white soldier's heartsoft," said Pounded Meat. "You are indeed a great man, my son."

  Cheschapah rose. "Do not call me your son," said he. "That is a lie."He went out into the fury of the rain, lifting his face against thedrops, and exultingly calling out at each glare of the lightning. Hewent to Pretty Eagle's young squaw, who held off from him no longer, butgot on a horse, and the two rode into the mountains. Before the sun hadset, the sky was again utterly blue, and a cool scent rose everywhere inthe shining valley.

  The Crows came out of their tepees, and there were the white soldiersobeying orders and going away. They watched the column slowly moveacross the flat land below the bluffs, where the road led down the rivertwelve miles to the post.

  "They are afraid," said new converts. "Cheschapah's rain has made theirhearts soft."

  "They have not all gone," said Pretty Eagle. "Maybe he did not makeenough rain." But even Pretty Eagle began to be shaken, and he heardseveral of his brother chiefs during the next few days openly declarefor the medicine-man. Cheschapah with his woman came from the mountains,and Pretty Eagle did not dare to harm him. Then another coincidencefollowed that was certainly most reassuring to the war party. Some ofthem had no meat, and told Cheschapah they were hungry. With consummateaudacity he informed them he would give them plenty at once. On the sameday another timely electric storm occurred up the river, and six steerswere struck by lightning.

  When the officers at Fort Custer heard of this they became serious.

  "If this was not the nineteenth century," said Haines, "I should beginto think the elements were deliberately against us."

  "It's very careless of the weather," said Stirling. "Very inconsiderate,at such a juncture."

  Yet nothing more dangerous than red-tape happened for a while. There wasan expensive quantity of investigation from Washington, and this gavethe hostiles time to increase both in faith and numbers.

  Among the excited Crows only a few wise old men held out. As forCheschapah himself, ambition and success had brought him to the weirdenthusiasm of a fanatic. He was still a charlatan, but a charlatan whobelieved utterly in his star. He moved among his people with growingmystery, and his hapless adjutant, Two Whistles, rode with him, slavedfor him, abandoned the plans he had for making himself a farm, and,desiring peace in his heart, weakly cast his lot with war. Then one daythere came an order from the agent to all the Indians: they were to comein by a certain fixed day. The department commander had assembled sixhundred troops at the post, and these moved up the river and went intocamp. The usually empty ridges, and the bottom where the road ran,filled with white and red men. Half a mile to the north of thebuildings, on the first rise from the river, lay the cavalry, and someinfantry above them with a howitzer, while across the level, threehundred yards opposite, along the river-bank, was the main Indian camp.Even the hostiles had obeyed the agent's order, and came in close to thetroops, totally unlike hostiles in general; for Cheschapah had told themhe would protect them with his medicine, and they shouted and sang allthrough this last night. The women joined with harsh cries andshriekings, and a scalp-dance went on, besides lesser commotions andgatherings, with the throbbing of drums everywhere. Through thesleepless din ran the barking of a hundred dogs, that herded and hurriedin crowds of twenty at a time, meeting, crossing from fire to fire amongthe tepees. Their yelps rose to the high bench of land, summoning ahorde of coyotes. These cringing nomads gathered from the desert in atramp army, and, skulking down the bluffs, sat in their outer darknessand ceaselessly howled their long, shrill greeting to the dogs that satin the circle of light. The general sent scouts to find the nature ofthe dance and hubbub, and these brought word it was peaceful; and in themorning another scout summoned the elder chiefs to a talk with thefriend who had come from the Great Father at Washington to see them andfind if their hearts were good.

  "Our hearts are good," said Pretty Eagle. "We do not want war. If youwant Cheschapah, we will drive him out from the Crows to you."

  "There are other young chiefs with bad hearts," said the commissioner,naming the ringleaders that were known. He made a speech, but PrettyEagle grew sullen. "It is well," said the commissioner; "you will nothelp me to make things smooth, and now I step aside and the war chiefwill talk."

  "If you want any other chiefs," said Pretty Eagle, "come and take them."

  "Pretty Eagle shall have an hour and a half to think on my words," saidthe general. "I have plenty of men behind me to make my words good. Youmust send me all those Indians who fired at the agency."

  The Crow chiefs returned to the council, which was apart from the warparty's camp; and Cheschapah walked in among them, and after him,slowly, old Pounded Meat, to learn how the conference had gone.

  "You have made a long talk with the white man," said Cheschapah. "Talkis pretty good for old men. I and the young chiefs will fight now andkill our enemies."

  "Cheschapah," said Pounded Meat, "if your medicine is good, it may bethe young chiefs will kill our enemies to-day. But there are other daysto come, and after them still others; there are many, many days. My son,the years are a long road. The life of one man is not long, but enoughto learn this thing truly: the white man will always return. There was aday on this river when the dead soldiers of Yellow Hair lay in hills,and the squaws of the Sioux warriors climbed among them with theirknives. What do the Sioux warriors do now when they meet the white manon this river? Their hearts are on the ground, and they go home likechildren when the white man says, 'You shall not visit your friends.' Myson, I thought war was good once. I have kept you from the arrows of ourenemies on many trails when you were so little that my blankets wereenough for both. Your mother was not here any more, and the chiefslaughed because I carried you. Oh, my son, I have seen the hearts of theSioux broken by the white man, and I do not think war is good."

  "The talk of Pounded Meat is very good," said Pretty Eagle. "IfChescha
pah were wise like his father, this trouble would not have cometo the Crows. But we could not give the white chief so many of ourchiefs that he asked for to-day."

  Cheschapah laughed. "Did he ask for so many? He wanted only Cheschapah,who is not wise like Pounded Meat."

  "You would have been given to him," said Pretty Eagle.

  "Did Pretty Eagle tell the white chief that? Did he say he would giveCheschapah? How would he give me? In one hand, or two? Or would the oldwarrior take me to the white man's camp on the horse his young squawleft?"

  Pretty Eagle raised his rifle, and Pounded Meat, quick as a boy, seizedthe barrel and pointed it up among the poles of the tepee, where thequiet black fire smoke was oozing out into the air. "Have you lived solong," said Pounded Meat to his ancient comrade, "and do this in thecouncil?" His wrinkled head and hands shook, the sudden strength lefthim, and the rifle fell free.

  "Let Pretty Eagle shoot," said Cheschapah, looking at the council. Hestood calm, and the seated chiefs turned their grim eyes upon him.Certainty was in his face, and doubt in theirs. "Let him send his bulletfive times--ten times. Then I will go and let the white soldiers shootat me until they all lie dead."

  "It is heavy for me," began Pounded Meat, "that my friend should be theenemy of my son."

  "Tell that lie no more," said Cheschapah. "You are not my father. I havemade the white man blind, and I have softened his heart with the rain. Iwill call the rain to-day." He raised his red sword, and there was amovement among the sitting figures. "The clouds will come from myfather's place, where I have talked with him as one chief to another. Mymother went into the mountains to gather berries. She was young, and thethunder-maker saw her face. He brought the black clouds, so her feetturned from home, and she walked where the river goes into the greatwalls of the mountain, and that day she was stricken fruitful by thelightning. You are not the father of Cheschapah." He dealt Pounded Meata blow, and the old man fell. But the council sat still until the soundof Cheschapah's galloping horse died away. They were ready now to riskeverything. Their scepticism was conquered.

  The medicine-man galloped to his camp of hostiles, and, seeing him, theyyelled and quickly finished plaiting their horses' tails. Cheschapah hadaccomplished his wish; he had become the prophet of all the Crows, andhe led the armies of the faithful. Each man stripped his blanket off andpainted his body for the fight. The forms slipped in and out of thebrush, buckling their cartridge-belts, bringing their ponies, while manyfamilies struck their tepees and moved up nearer the agency. The sparehorses were run across the river into the hills, and through the yellingthat shifted and swept like flames along the wind the hostiles madeready and gathered, their crowds quivering with motion, and changingplace and shape as more mounted Indians appeared.

  "Are the holes dug deep as I marked them on the earth?" said Cheschapahto Two Whistles. "That is good. We shall soon have to go into them fromthe great rain I will bring. Make these strong, to stay as we ride. Theyare good medicine, and with them the white soldiers will not see you anymore than they saw me when I rode among them that day."

  He had strips and capes of red flannel, and he and Two Whistles fastenedthem to their painted bodies.

  "You will let me go with you?" said Two Whistles.

  "You are my best friend," said Cheschapah, "and to-day I will take you.You shall see my great medicine when I make the white man's eyes growsick."

  The two rode forward, and one hundred and fifty followed them, burstingfrom their tepees like an explosion, and rushing along quickly inskirmish-line. Two Whistles rode beside his speeding prophet, and sawthe red sword waving near his face, and the sun in the great still sky,and the swimming, fleeting earth. His superstition and the fierce rideput him in a sort of trance.

  "The medicine is beginning!" shouted Cheschapah; and at that TwoWhistles saw the day grow large with terrible shining, and heard hisown voice calling and could not stop it. They left the hundred andfifty behind, he knew not where or when. He saw the line of troopsahead change to separate waiting shapes of men, and their legs andarms become plain; then all the guns took clear form in lines ofsteady glitter. He seemed suddenly alone far ahead of the band, butthe voice of Cheschapah spoke close by his ear through the singingwind, and he repeated each word without understanding; he was watchingthe ground rush by, lest it might rise against his face, and all thewhile he felt his horse's motion under him, smooth and perpetual.Something weighed against his leg, and there was Cheschapah he hadforgotten, always there at his side, veering him around somewhere. Butthere was no red sword waving. Then the white men must be blindalready, wherever they were, and Cheschapah, the only thing he couldsee, sat leaning one hand on his horse's rump firing a pistol. Theground came swimming towards his eyes always, smooth and wide like agray flood, but Two Whistles knew that Cheschapah would not let itsweep him away. He saw a horse without a rider floated out of bluesmoke, and floated in again with a cracking noise; white soldiersmoved in a row across his eyes, very small and clear, and brokeinto a blurred eddy of shapes which the flood swept away clean andempty. Then a dead white man came by on the quick flood. Two Whistlessaw the yellow stripe on his sleeve; but he was gone, and there wasnothing but sky and blaze, with Cheschapah's head-dress in the middle.The horse's even motion continued beneath him, when suddenly thehead-dress fell out of Two Whistles' sight, and the earth returned.They were in brush, with his horse standing and breathing, and a deadhorse on the ground with Cheschapah, and smoke and moving peopleeverywhere outside. He saw Cheschapah run from the dead horse and jumpon a gray pony and go. Somehow he was on the ground too, looking at ared sword lying beside his face. He stared at it a long while, thentook it in his hand, still staring; all at once he rose and broke itsavagely, and fell again. His faith was shivered to pieces like glass.But he got on his horse, and the horse moved away. He was looking atthe blood running on his body. The horse moved always, and TwoWhistles followed with his eye a little deeper gush of blood along acrease in his painted skin, noticed the flannel, and remembering thelie of his prophet, instantly began tearing the red rags from hisbody, and flinging them to the ground with cries of scorn. Presentlyhe heard some voices, and soon one voice much nearer, and saw he hadcome to a new place, where there were white soldiers looking at himquietly. One was riding up and telling him to give up his pistol. TwoWhistles got off and stood behind his horse, looking at the pistol.The white soldier came quite near, and at his voice Two Whistles movedslowly out from behind the horse, and listened to the cool words asthe soldier repeated his command. The Indian was pointing his pistoluncertainly, and he looked at the soldier's coat and buttons, and thestraps on the shoulders, and the bright steel sabre, and the whiteman's blue eyes; then Two Whistles looked at his own naked, clottedbody, and, turning the pistol against himself, fired it into hisbreast.

  THE CHARGE]

  Far away up the river, on the right of the line, a lieutenant with twomen was wading across after some hostiles that had been skirmishing withhis troop. The hostiles had fallen back after some hot shooting, and haddispersed among the brush and tepees on the farther shore, picking uptheir dead, as Indians do. It was interesting work, this splashingbreast-high through a river into a concealed hornets'-nest, and thelieutenant thought a little on his unfinished plans and duties in life;he noted one dead Indian left on the shore, and went steadfastly inamong the half-seen tepees, rummaging and beating in the thick brush tobe sure no hornets remained. Finding them gone, and their dead spiritedaway, he came back on the bank to the one dead Indian, who had a finehead-dress, and was still ribanded with gay red streamers of flannel,and was worth all the rest of the dead put together, and much more. Thehead lay in the water, and one hand held the rope of the gray pony, whostood quiet and uninterested over his fallen rider. They began carryingthe prize across to the other bank, where many had now collected, amongothers Kinney and the lieutenant's captain, who subsequently said, "Ifound the body of Cheschapah;" and, indeed, it was a very good thing tobe able to say.

  "THE H
EAD LAY IN THE WATER"]

  "This busts the war," said Kinney to the captain, as the body wasbeing lifted over the Little Horn. "They know he's killed, and they'veall quit. I was up by the tepees near the agency just now, and Icould see the hostiles jamming back home for dear life. They waschucking their rifles to the squaws, and jumping in the river--ha!ha!--to wash off their war-paint, and each ---- ---- would crawl outand sit innercint in the family blanket his squaw had ready. If youwas to go there now, cap'n, you'd find just a lot of harmless Injunseatin' supper like all the year round. Let me help you, boys, withthat carcass."

  Kinney gave a hand to the lieutenant and men of G troop, First UnitedStates Cavalry, and they lifted Cheschapah up the bank. In the tiltedposition of the body the cartridge-belt slid a little, and a lump ofnewspaper fell into the stream. Kinney watched it open and float awaywith a momentary effervescence. The dead medicine-man was laid betweenthe white and red camps, that all might see he could be killed likeother people; and this wholesome discovery brought the Crows to terms atonce. Pretty Eagle had displayed a flag of truce, and now he surrenderedthe guilty chiefs whose hearts had been bad. Every one came where thedead prophet lay to get a look at him. For a space of hours Pretty Eagleand the many other Crows he had deceived rode by in single file,striking him with their whips; after them came a young squaw, and shealso lashed the upturned face.

  This night was untroubled at the agency, and both camps and the valleylay quiet in the peaceful dark. Only Pounded Meat, alone on the top of ahill, mourned for his son; and his wailing voice sounded through thesilence until the new day came. Then the general had him stopped andbrought in, for it might be that the old man's noise would unsettle theCrows again.