The Westerners
XII
THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS
It is not the purpose of this story to describe the battle of theLittle Big Horn in detail. That has been done many times. There islittle about it that is remarkable, excepting always the heroism of themen who fought so desperately. The scene itself must have beenimpressive, as viewed by the non-combatants of the Indians from thebluffs near at hand--the swirl of brown about the melting patch ofblue. After Custer fell, the savages turned eagerly down the valley toattack Reno, leaving the dead as they lay. Lafond did not accompanythem. The sight had aroused certain reflections in his breast, and hewished to work the thing out.
After sunset, he went alone and on foot over to the battlefield. Thetroopers lay as they had fallen--first, Calhoun's company in line, withits officers in place; then Keogh's; finally, on the knoll, theremnant, scattered irregularly among the dead of their enemies. In thecold light their faces shone white and still, even yet instinct withthe eagerness of battle; an eagerness which death had transmuted fromflesh to marble. Near the centre lay Custer, his long yellow hairframing his face, his hands crossed on his breast. He alone wasunmutilated, save by the shot that had taken his life.
The half-breed did not hesitate on the outer circle of the combat, butpicked his way among the corpses until he stood on the summit of thelittle knoll. Then he folded his arms and looked steadily down on thewhite man's inscrutable face.
Whatever might be Lafond's intellectual or moral deficiencies, lack ofperspicacity was not among them. Through the red glory of thisapparent victory, the most sweeping ever accomplished by the plainsIndians, he saw clearly the imminence of final defeat. The dead manbefore him lay smiling, and Lafond perceived that he smiled because hesaw his people arising to avenge him. The beat of the muster drumcalling the avengers to the frontier now sounded in prophecy to hishearing, and the echoes of the last battle shot merged into the clangof an iron civilization, which was destined to push these exultingvictors dispassionately aside. It was a striking picture of light andof shadow--this dark, savage figure silhouetted against the softenedbrightness of the sky, this bright-haired warrior lying bathed in theglorification of a Western night; the white man humiliated, defeated,slain, but seeing with closed eyes that at which he smiled with deepcontent; the savage, proud in success, triumphant, victor, butperceiving somehow, in the very evidences of his achievement, thatwhich made him knit his brows. How little was this great victoryagainst the background of the people whom it had outraged, and yet howmightily it would stir that people when once it became known!
Michail Lafond the savage stood before the body of Custer the fallen,for an hour, moving not one muscle all the time. At the end of thehour Michail Lafond the civilized turned slowly away, and walkedthoughtfully toward the lodges on the other bank of the Little Big HornRiver. The sight of a brave man, who had died as he lived, hadreformed Lafond, but whether moralists would have approved of thereformation is to be doubted.
The night ran well along toward morning. The squaws, who had beenplundering and mutilating the dead, had long since returned to hear thereport of the warriors who had gone to attack Reno. The attack hadfailed, but the fight had been desperate and the losses on both sidesheavy. Six of Custer's command, captured alive, were burned to death.At last, the entire camp, with the exception of the women sentinels,had gone to rest. Toward daybreak, even these became drowsy.
Lafond arose quietly. He gathered a few necessaries into a pack,placed them outside the doorway of the lodge, hesitated a moment, andthen returned. His two squaws slept, as usual, one each side of thelittle girl. Lafond lifted the child carefully in order that he mightnot awaken her guardians or herself, and wrapped her closely in hisblanket. At the doorway he again hesitated. Then, chuckling grimly,he deposited the child by the bundle he had already prepared, andreturning, took down from the tent pole the string of scalps which wentto show how successful and how savage a warrior he had been. By thelight of the stars he selected one of these and laid it carefullybetween the two sleeping women. It was the scalp of the little girl'smother. Then he rehung the string on the tent pole, and went outsideimmensely pleased with his bit of humor.
It was his good-by to the wild life. From that time on he dwelt in thetowns, where in a very few years his name became known as standing fora shrewdness in management, a keenness in seizing opportunities, and aninflexibility of purpose rarely to be met with among his Anglo-Saxoncompetitors. His present objective point, however, was the SpottedTail Agency, which was, from the valley of the Little Big Horn, anaffair of five days. Michail Lafond did it in four; or at least at theend of the fourth he was within a few miles of the agency buildings.By the evening of the third day, he had transformed both himself andthe little girl into an appearance of civilization, reclothing her inthe garments she had worn at the time of her capture, and himself in acomplete outfit which he had collected piece by piece on that lastnight with the savages. The change was truly astonishing.
His last camp in the open was pitched within sight of the Spotted Tailreservation. The darkness was almost at hand. He had fed himself andthe child, had put the latter to rest under one blanket and was justabout to wrap himself in the other, when he became aware of a prairieschooner swaying leisurely across the plains in his direction. He atonce sat up again. Every man was to him an object of suspicion.
Not until the wagon had halted within a few feet of him could hedistinguish the occupant. Then he perceived that the latter was agentle-faced, silver-haired individual of mild aspect, dressed decentlybut strangely, and possessed of introspective blue eyes, which heturned dreamily on Lafond.
"May I camp here?" he inquired deprecatingly.
The half-breed considered.
"I s'pose so," he said without enthusiasm.
The old man descended and uncoupled his two animals. After he hadpicketed them, he returned, and, extracting from the wagon body thematerials for a meal, he proceeded to make himself at home overLafond's fire.
"I never did like to camp alone," he confided to the latter.
Lafond watched him intently. No further words were exchanged until thestranger had finished his supper and had restored his kit to the wagon.Then the younger man offered the hospitality of the plains.
"Yo' smok'?" he inquired, tendering his tobacco.
"Thank you, no," replied the old man with a tone of breeding whichLafond felt but could not define.
The half-breed could not make out the newcomer, and the conversationfailed to enlighten him. That was an epoch when all the world turnedto the West; but it was a practical world. There one might in timemeet all sorts and conditions of men, from the English lord to theturbulent Fenian; from the New York exquisite fallen on hard times tothe "bad man" who had never been east of the Mississippi. One neverbetrayed surprise at anything one might bring ashore from this flotsamand jetsam of the human race. But all these odds and ends were atleast made of tough material, strong enough to run wherever a rapidcurrent might dash them, capable of supporting hard knocks against oneanother or the obstructions in the way; while this placid old manseemed to Lafond like a crystal vessel, of rare quality, perhaps, butnone the less fragile. At the last he asked bluntly, "What do youhere?"
The old man fell silent for a minute or two and gazed into the coals ofthe dying fire.
"My name is Durand," he said at last, with an infinitude of sorrow inthe tones of his voice. "I am an entomologist. I am here to getspecimens--butterflies; but it is not here that I belong. My place iselsewhere, and that I know. But it is not in my country, and----" hebroke off. Lafond looked on curiously, for the dreamy haze had fadedfrom the speaker's eyes. "My friend," Durand went on, "there are timeswhen one cares not to see the face of man except in the bosom of thegreat nature. I do not know that you understand that. It is with thebitterness of a wrong that such knowledge comes, and with it comes thehate of cities and of the things men do. Some men have had their willof me, and I am come to the wilde
rness. They called it revenge todrive me here."
"Revenge! But you still live!" repeated Lafond in wonder.
"And is it that you think the taking of life is revenge?" cried Durand,with sudden energy. "They who take their revenge in killing areactually the merciful ones, and they cheat no one but themselves."
"Yes?" asked Lafond, his soul in the question.
The other turned in surprise at his companion's vehemence. He saw astolid; dark-skinned man gazing impassively into the fire.
"They are fools," went on Durand bitterly, after a moment; "just fools.These others were of more ingenuity; they knew what would hurt, whatwould avenge them better than the killing."
"I do not understand," said the half-breed, feeling his way slowly, forthe fear of damming this flow of confidence. He looked away, for hiseye glowed, though his voice was steady. "W'at is it? If one kills,if one takes that life, w'at is worse?"
"Worse, worse?" cried Durand, flinging his hands impotently upward. "Athousand things!" He suddenly became calm, and turned to Lafond withimpressive forefinger. "Listen, my friend. Life is a little thing.Anyone can take it who has a gun, or a knife, or even a stone. But thetrue revenge is in finding out what it is that each man prizes themost, and then taking it from him. And that requires power! power!power!
"Few there are who have not something they prize more than life," headded gloomily. The fire died from his eye. He became once again thetimid old butterfly hunter, pushing blindly out into the wilderness,wondering at himself for thus exposing an old wound to a chance passer;and yet perhaps feeling in some dim fashion--so inscrutable are theinstincts of these half-childish natures--that in so doing he wasfollowing for a moment the lines of greater destinies than his own.
And certainly, long after the dipper had swung below the pole star,Lafond sat staring into the ashes of the fire, just as four days sincehe had stared into the ashes of a brave and chivalrous life. In hishistory there were the two crucial hours--one after the greatest battleof the plains; the other after a dozen sentences exchanged with ahalf-crazy old entomologist. From the potent reflections induced bythese one hundred and twenty minutes it resulted that Michail Lafondbecame civilized and a seeker for wealth in the development of theyoung country. In wealth he saw power; in power the ability to give ortake away.
The depriving each man of that which he prizes the most!