“You have among your people,” I said, “a great chief and a wise man, Bald Eagle.”
“Yes, his wisdom is as wide as the sky.”
“And he has in his teepee a prisoner taken from the Sioux?”
A savage satisfaction gleamed in his eye again. “The brother of Black Bear is with him,” he admitted.
“Can you take me to the lodge of Bald Eagle?”
He stared at me a moment, as though I had asked him if he could take me to the gates of death.
“You shall ride freely with me,” I assured him, “and you shall not die. There are no scalps at the belt of Black Bear, and no scalps dry in his lodge. He cannot stop to take the trophies. He touches his rifle, and the prairies are covered with the dead of the Pawnees.”
I blush a little as I write this down, but, after all, that was exactly what I said, and a man had to blow his horn a little among the Indians or he would be put down as a person of little note. Two Feather swallowed this brag without winking an eye.
I went on: “Two Feather shall not die. He shall have the promise of Black Bear, whose word is never broken, that, if he leads Black Bear safely to the lodge of Bald Eagle, all will be well, and we shall part like brothers.”
There was a sudden softening of those hard features as hope came tardily back to him. But, instead of answering, he turned his back on me and trotted his horse slowly across the prairie - slowly, with just one quiver of the naked muscles between his shoulders, as if just there he expected the bullet to plow its way to his heart. However, I jogged my horse after him. In this way we kept on for a long time, until the sun slipped under the edge of the prairie. A moment later, before the darkness dropped around us, still in the bright afterglow, we came in view of a village. Two Feather halted and pointed before him.
“It is Bald Eagle,” he said.
I assure you that brought my heart up into my mouth. Here, there, and yonder, were three men on horseback, keeping guard. Certainly Bald Eagle, like a good captain, took no chances of being surprised. His sentinels were always on watch.
“Ride by my side,” I said, “into the city and to the entrance of his teepee.”
He gave me one look, again as though he wondered why a young man chose to throw away his life. Then he went on, and I trotted my horse beside him. We reached a sentinel.
“Black Bear and Two Feather,” said the Pawnee, “come to the teepee of Bald Eagle.”
It brought a shout of wonder from the young brave. He rode up close and stared at me as though he were seeing the devil in person, then he shot down into the village. After that, we rode through a jumbled mass of people. The braves stalked out, wrapped in their blankets, to watch me pass. The women and the children kept up a rattle of comment as I went through their ranks. We came in front of a sort of double teepee, taller and twice as broad as any I had ever seen before. Two young braves stood before the entrance. Two Feather spoke to them softly and rapidly. Presently one of them disappeared into the teepee and came out again after a moment, leading with him an old, bent Indian with the ugliest face that ever saw the sun.
“Bald Eagle,” he said, “rests after much thinking and sends Dark Water to speak with Black Bear.”
“Dark Water,” I said, “Black Bear is not a child. Neither is he a woman. He is not answered by two men, but by one. Go back to Bald Eagle and tell him.”
The old chief shook his head.
“Black Bear,” he said, “is a great warrior. He has filled the teepees of the Pawnees with tears and with weeping. He has covered the ground with our dead. The Great Spirit has given to him a charmed rifle that cannot miss. But Bald Eagle never speaks twice. The Great Spirit is in him, also. I dare not go back to him, warrior. But I am his other tongue. Speak to me and I shall listen.”
He was a smooth old demon, there was no denying that. He spoke like a reverend councilor, and to hear a tribute like this from such a chief made very easy listening. I began to feel that I was quite a person, after all. I was beginning to grow uneasy, too. The various notes of muttered wonder and admiration at the effrontery with which I had dared to ride in among them were beginning to include new sounds. Relatives of warriors who had fallen in the charge on Standing Bear’s village were joining the crowd, and one old woman was crying out repeatedly that only my scalp, hanging in her lodge, could comfort her heart for the loss of her dead son.
I saw that it would not do to stand too much on my dignity. I said: “Dark Water, pleasant words fall from the lips of old men like rain from the black clouds. Hear me, then, and carry my message to Bald Eagle. I, Black Bear, have taken in battle a great warrior of the Pawnees, Two Feather. His heart was strong, but the claws of Black Bear were lightning in his eyes. He was blinded and could not see. But his scalp is not at my belt. He has ridden back to the teepee which he left today. Let him stay there. Let his sons be glad and let his squaws make offering at the next feast of the sun. All this is well. Therefore, give me the young boy, Sitting Wolf, to take back to my people, the Sioux, that there may be peace between the Dakotas and the Pawnees, for friendship is better than war.”
Dark Water turned into the tent. I heard the stir of his voice. I heard the rumbling of a deep bass, making answer. That was Bald Eagle, I had no doubt, and even the distant sound of his voice filled me with dread and a certain cold uneasiness at the pit of the stomach such as I had not felt since I left the shack of Uncle Abner Dorset. Then Dark Water came again.
He said: “Bald Eagle has spoken to his heart, and his heart says that Two Feather is a brave man and a great warrior… he is the arrow on the bow string, the knife ready to strike. But Sitting Wolf is the son of a chief and the nephew of a great chief. While he is in the teepee of Bald Eagle, Standing Bear will not come nor will his people come. Their knives and their arrows will be blunt against the Pawnees.”
It was a tremendous blow to me, but, at the same time, I could not help admiring the craft of Bald Eagle. I was also more suspicious than ever that he was white, for his diplomacy did not have the ring of the true Indian way about it.
“A life has been offered for a life,” I said. “If there is still a difference, the horses of the Sioux are many and fleet as the wind, and they have guns that shoot straight and beaded moccasins and buffalo robes by the thousand. They will give what the great Bald Eagle asks for the sake of Sitting Wolf, who is only a boy.”
Dark Water shook his head.
“Bald Eagle has spoken,” he said.
I saw that there was nothing to be gained, and my heart ached for the poor youngster imprisoned among these devils. So I said: “Let me see Sitting Wolf. Let me know that he is among you. Or else I may return to Standing Bear and tell him that his nephew is dead. Then he will come with his warriors. Black Bear shall ride with him with a rifle that cannot help but kill, and Rising Sun shall ride with him and blind the eyes of the Pawnees. Many men shall die.”
There was a murmur through the crowd. Dark Water turned into the teepee and was gone for some time while the young men jostled around me, staring and whispering to one another. Then the old chief came out again. “It is well,” he said. “Let my brother, Black Bear, follow.”
I dismounted and went through the crowd at the heels of Dark Water until we came to the next teepee where, at a word from him, two braves who stood guard stepped aside for us to enter.
I found myself in a small teepee in the center of which a few embers glowed, and at one side, sitting on a buffalo robe, was Sitting Wolf, with his hands tied behind his back. He drew himself up when he saw us enter, and, the moment his eyes found my face, he uttered a cry of joy and leaped to his feet.