In the morning we were up at daybreak, as the whole camp began to stir. Standing Bear’s squaws gave us breakfast, and then we ventured out of the teepee. The first thing we saw, on a hillock outside of the village, was a Cheyenne, sitting on his horse like a copper statue, waiting. Waiting for us, of course. The moment we left the Sioux, the wolves would be after us. Morris and I stared at that rascal and then at one another. We did not need to speak, but we decided silently at that moment that nothing but sheer physical force should drive us out of the village.
We received a good deal of attention and quite a bit of admiration. Afterward we understood why. The Cheyennes, in telling their reasons for wanting us, had described the night attack on them, and that description put us down as great warriors in spite of our youth. We were allowed to go where we pleased, and we put ourselves out to be agreeable, smiling and nodding whenever anyone looked at us. I asked Morris if we were safe now, and he said that he did not know. One could never tell what would come into the heads of Indians, whether they were Sioux or others. What most impressed me was the immense cheerfulness in that little town. There was a continual babble of voices, and there was a great air of industry. That was given by the women, of course. Your real Sioux warrior knows that work is beneath him. He supplies the food and does the fighting. As for the disagreeable duties that must be performed about the teepee every day, he does not even notice them.
When the mid-morning sun grew hot, almost the entire lot of young braves and boys went down to the river that flowed near the village. We dived in with the rest, where the current flowed wide through a little lake. The water was warm and clear; the bottom was sprinkled with shining pebbles and great golden drifts of sand. It was very pleasant to drift down the stream, then turn and fight one’s way up again. I soon saw that I was the worst swimmer in the lot. Morris was magnificent in the water, as he was on the land. His long, powerful strokes carried him along with the foam bubbling around his big shoulders. But for actual speed Morris could not compare with even the worst of the Indians. Boys and men, they glided along like watersnakes. They seemed almost as fast under the surface as on top, and they were repeatedly going down for pebbles and coming up laughing with a prize, only to throw it away again when, out of the water, it appeared as merely a dull rock.
In the midst of the fun, a gleaming, copper shadow slid along under me. I was caught suddenly by the neck, and down I went. I struck out with my fists, but the water dulled the force of my blows. I had only a confused impression of a bronze-skinned monster, dragging me down. When I was almost choked, he released me, and I came gasping and spitting to the surface with the laughter and the mockery sounding far and faint through the roaring in my ears.
Just as my head began to clear, the attacker shot through the water again and dumped me under the surface once more. I was furious because he was making a fool of me. This time, when I came up to the surface, I had sense enough to head in for the shore. By the time I had reached the shallows, the big fellow was after me once more, but now I could turn on him with a firm footing to hold me up. That made a different story of it at once.
I grappled him, and, although he was a full-grown warrior, he was nothing in my hands. My grip was twice his. In addition, he knew little of wrestling, because the Indians show little science in that art. So, after a brief flurry, I had him lying on his face in the water, struggling and kicking in vain. Not until he began to grow weak did I let him out. Then he was so far gone that I had to drag him ashore. He lay for a time on his back, gasping and coughing. Then he got up and went slowly back into the village. I looked about, expecting a little applause, but everyone was very sober. Morris came up to me at once.
“Go ashore,” he said as he came by. “You’ve made a fool of yourself, and maybe you’ve put us bom in danger again.”
“What have I done?” I asked. “Was I to get myself half drowned without hitting back?”
“Play is play among the Sioux, and nobody ever dreams of making a fight out of a game.”
I could see that he was rather disgusted with me. But I saw nothing wrong in what I had done until Standing Bear himself came over the horizon and made for me, riding Morris’s beautiful gray mare. He pulled up in front of us, but he addressed Morris, not me. He spoke to us in very good English, the rascal, though I had not dreamed that he understood a word of the language.
“A wise chief,” he said, “keeps his young men in order. Spotted Buck” - that was the name of the young brave who had had the tussle with me - “is very sad and is stringing his bow. The Cheyennes have gone. The trails from this city are easy to follow, friend.”
Morris nodded, then he answered: “This young man,” he said, pointing to me, “is very simple. He knows how to fight, but not how to play. He is not a beaver at home in the water. He is a badger. He is very sorry about Spotted Buck and wishes to smoke a pipe with him. Besides, he says that Standing Bear is his father, and he wishes to give his father a knife which cuts leather as the sun cuts through ice. It has an edge that never turns.”
With that, he reached out and took my hunting knife out of its sheath and gave the handle into the palm of Standing Bear. The chief weighed it for a moment with a blank face. Then he flipped back his hand and shot the knife down. It was buried to the hilt in the hard ground and remained there, humming. Then Standing Bear turned his back on us and rode away.
“You see?” Morris said. “You’ve managed to get us thrown out of the camp by your infernal fighting. Great heavens, Lew, were your hands given to you for nothing but tussling?”
I was sorry we were in such a scrape, but I was glad to have that knife back, and I reached for it.
Morris caught me by the shoulder and jerked me upright. “You idiot,” he said. “After giving a thing away, do you think you can take it back again? Standing Bear will probably send a squaw after that knife pretty soon, and, if he finds that it is gone, he’ll probably turn us out of the village at once.”
“He has as good as done that already,” I suggested.
“Not at all. He rode away without ordering us off, because he was in doubt.”
“What will happen now? Some other buck will happen along and pick up that knife.”
“Certainly not. You see no one in sight, but you can be sure that at least a dozen people have seen that knife. It will stay there, fixed in the dirt, unless Standing Bear decides to send for it. Now come along with me.”
He led me back to Standing Bear’s teepee, but, when we went to enter, a big brave was standing there with a bow and some arrows ready. He did not speak to us, and we did not speak to him, but we simply drifted away. Words were quite unnecessary.
“And now?” I said.
“Do your own guessing,” said Morris. “I’m not a mind reader. They may be waiting until night to throw us out of the camp and then send a scalping party on our trail, or they may be waiting for Spotted Buck to take his chance at you. In that case, heaven help Spotted Buck.. .and us after you’ve sent a bullet through his poor, misguided head. Of course, he has to try to kill you if he can. Otherwise, he has lost his honor.”
That was the beginning of a wretched day. We went back to the river’s edge and remained there under a willow until late in the afternoon. Then we came back into the village, but no one saw us. We stopped in front of a teepee where two squaws were cooking and made signs that we were hungry, but they paid not the slightest attention to us.
“I understand now,” said Morris. “Standing Bear took my horse, and, therefore, he can’t very well have our throats cut and our scalps taken at his front door. First, he’ll starve us out. When we’ve left the village, he’ll let the young braves do what they want with us. Well, it will be a sorry day for these Sioux when they corner the pair of us.”