CHAPTER XXIII
PIONEER DAYS
Injun and Whitey sat on the veranda of the Bar O Ranch house, withSitting Bull between them. One of Whitey's hands rested on the head ofthe dog, who leered at him lovingly. Now that Whitey was back, Bull wasso full of contentment that it almost gave him indigestion.
"Injun, do you remember the day Bull came?" Whitey asked. "And how Isaid maybe it was a good omen, and there ought to be something doing onthe ranch? Well, there has been something doing--on and off."
"Um," said Injun, looking at Bull, with a gleam of appreciation in hiseye. "Him good med'cine."
Whitey's night ride from the Hanley Ranch had created much favorablecomment in the neighborhood, and Injun had come in for his share ofpraise. Some one called them "the rescuing kids." But Whitey found thatbeing a hero wasn't what it was cracked up to be. When any one praisedhim he was inclined to blush, and that made him sore at himself.
But the extraordinary effect of the affair was the change in Gil Steele.As Bill Jordan said, it had "jarred Gil loose from his meanness." Theresult of this jarring was that Gil presented Whitey with the iron-graycolt, with _a silver-mounted saddle and bridle_. The neighborhood gaspedat that, and gasped again when Gil gave Injun a pair of gold-mountedsix-guns, with an embossed leather cartridge-belt and holsters. You canimagine the figure Injun cut when decorated with these. And he sleptwith them on.
And, pleasing to relate, Gil prospered more when he was generous than hehad when he was mean. In time he became very well off.
Things seemed to be coming Whitey's way, for the school problem wassolved, too. Mr. Sherwood brought this news from the East. John BigMoose was to return. Not that John had been unsuccessful in the Easterncollege; far from that. He had gained the respect and esteem of thestudents. It is true that they called him "Big Chief," but there wasmore affection in the nickname than even the boys suspected.
But John was like many another man--and boy--who, when he gets what hewants, finds that he doesn't want it so much, after all. It was not onlythat John longed for the greater reaches and the free life of the West;he felt a call to return to and to aid his own people. There were plentyof men to teach in colleges; there were few who could help the Indiansas John could.
And he agreed to direct Injun and Whitey's studies until the time camefor them to go away to school, which would not be long.
So, with Henry Dorgan safely in jail awaiting trial, and a vacation inprospect, pending John Big Moose's return, something must be done.Wouldn't do for the boys to sit around twirling their thumbs. They beganto talk about this, or rather Whitey began to talk and Injun to slip ina grunted word now and then; and suddenly Whitey had an idea.
Often on the plains and in the mountains Whitey had thought of thepioneer days of the West; thoughts such as the country arouses in theminds of all boys and of some men. Whitey could close his eyes andimagine that he saw an old wagon train wending its way across theprairie, its line of white-topped schooners drawn by drooping, tiredhorses, its outriding guard of scouts, clad in buckskin, alert,keen-eyed, each with a long rifle resting in the hollow of his arm. Orin the mountains he saw an old, fur-capped trapper crouch behind theshelter of a boulder, his single-shot, heavy-barreled rifle directedtoward an unconscious, lumbering grizzly, the trapper's life hanging onthe accuracy of his one shot. Yes, like all boys Whitey was full ofthese dreams.
"Injun, we'll take a pioneer hunting trip!" he cried.
It took a little time to explain this matter to Injun, but when it wasexplained Injun was keen for the plan, too, for his being Injun didn'tmake him different from any other boy at heart. He was to take his bowand arrows. Whitey would borrow an old-fashioned Springfield rifle, thatbelonged to his father. There would be no Winchester repeaters, nortrout rods with multiplying reels, nor any of the modern weapons forslaying game or fish. It would be a sort of return to the wild.
And here the first trouble arose with Injun; that of leaving hissix-guns behind. It took some time to coax him to do this; to entrustthem to the safe in the ranch house. But, that done, it was necessaryonly to get Mr. Sherwood's permission and to make the preparations. Mr.Sherwood was not in the ranch house, nor in the bunk house, where BillJordan was starting one of his lengthy yarns. Whitey paused there for amoment.
"What I don't know about boys a tongue-tied man could tell in half asecond," Bill was saying.
"A tongue-tied man couldn't tell nothin' in half a second," objectedShorty Palmer.
"That's just what I mean," Bill said. "There ain't nothin' to tell. Now,'bout a boy bein' civil. You don't often find one, out West here, andwhen you do it's mostly accident; mebbe inherited. 'Course you c'n traina boy t' be p'lite, but you got t' be careful, like in trainin' anyother animal, an' not take th' spunk outa him. Most folks thinks thatwhen a boy's civil he ain't got nothin' else t' recommend him, but'tain't allus so. Now, I knowed a boy, onc't--"
But Whitey fled. He could not afford to wait for Bill's story, whichprobably would take all the morning. He found his father, overcame thatgentleman's objections to the pioneer hunting trip, and Injun and Whiteyhad a busy time gathering the food, weapons, and clothing for theirjourney to the mountains, where the simple life was to be led.
It was shortly after noon when they rode away, the men on the ranchwatching, and perhaps each feeling in his heart a little twinge, asthough he'd like to be a kid again, and up to some such boyish prank.Whitey was on Monty, Injun on his pinto, leading a pack-horse laden withtheir few belongings. From the corral the intelligent eyes of theiron-gray colt regarded them with interest; the colt that was to betrained for racing, and that Whitey hoped to ride in rodeos.
This country was so full of game that all one had to do was to go a milefrom any town, in any direction, to find it. Prairie chickens were mostprolific; the principal game. They were so plentiful that one couldwalk through thousands of them and they would part and allow the hunterto move among them, without taking wing.
Of course, one never would dream of shooting at a bird unless it was onthe wing. The only time that was excusable was when hunting forpartridges among the trees in the foothills. Usually Injun with his bowand arrow would take first shot at the partridge as it perched in thetree branches. If he missed, which he seldom did, Whitey would let gohis shot-gun when the partridge was on the wing. And as Injun seldommissed, Mr. Partridge lost both ways. But this day the shot-gun was athome, so Injun bagged all the partridges they needed for food.
The prairie chickens have a peculiar call. First the hens cry, in ahigh, treble, "Chuck-luck, chuck-a-luck!" and the male replies, in adeep, full sound, "Bomb-bombo-boo!"
In that part of the country there was a rather eccentric character namedCharlie Clark. He had been creased on the head by a bullet sometime,somehow, and he was not exactly all there. And Injun and Whitey used tointerpret the calls of the prairie chicks to:
"Char-lie--Clar-k--Char-lie--Clar-k--Char-lie--Clar-k--" for the hens,and:
"Darn'd ol-fool--" for the males.
And so the boys went on their merry, heedless way. They expected to campin the foothills that night, and had made about ten miles in a leisurelyway, when Injun happened to look back and saw an object approaching themin an uncertain and wobbly but determined manner. Injun's sharp eyessoon identified it as Sitting Bull. The boys were first surprised, thensorry that Bull should have had such a long pursuit, but that did notkeep back Whitey's laughter when Bull staggered up to where they waitedfor him. He sure was a happy dog, and fatigue did not keep him fromshowing it, his method being to twist his body into almost ahalf-circle, wag his stump tail, and prance about gazing delightedly upat the boys.
As a hunting companion he was a frost. Looking at it in that light, andafter deep consideration, Injun spoke. "Him must go back," he said.
"How?" asked Whitey.
More profound thought, and Injun spoke again. "Me take him," he decided.
"Oh," said Whitey, "and I wait up in the mountains alone. Perhaps youwouldn't mind sen
ding me daily or hourly reports of Bull's conditionwhile he is recovering from the fatigue of his journey." Injun didn'tknow whether this was sarcasm, or if he was being kidded, and he didn'tcare. His was a serious mind that was not easily turned to lightthoughts. "No," said Whitey, "he goes with us, I can't bear todisappoint him." And perhaps Injun was better satisfied at thisdecision, though he did not express himself.
So the journey was resumed. For a time Whitey would carry Bull. When hetired, Injun would carry Bull awhile. When Injun tired, Bull wouldwaddle a way. It was a strange way for a dog to go hunting.
As we are soon to part from Injun and Whitey, there is one more thing Ifeel that I should tell you about them. In a way I don't like to tellit, in another way I feel that I ought to tell it and--anyway, I'm_going_ to tell it and to call it: