A RIFLE TEST
The others left us, though presently, by the stir of feet around the teepee, I knew that new guards had been posted there. In the meantime questions ran like water out of Sitting Wolf’s lips. I answered them all. When he finally asked me what strange power had brought me safely through the lines of the Pawnees and into their village, I told him the story. He listened to it, smiling and nodding.
“I have done nothing,” he said, “to be worth the love of such a brother, but, before I die, I shall find a way.”
I asked him about Bald Eagle and the fight. He told me practically what I had already heard, but with a good many more details. The war party with which Bald Eagle had overtaken them, it seemed, was nearly a hundred men fewer than the Sioux, but all the Pawnees were armed with excellent rifles, and they shot amazingly straight. The fight had not lasted five minutes before the Sioux broke and were herded back to the hill where they entrenched themselves to make a last stand. It had been a wretched slaughter from the first.
“How do they come to shoot so straight?” I asked.
“They practice with the guns all day. I hear the noises,” he said. “And Bald Eagle teaches them to fight on foot, so that their guns shoot straighter.”
I asked him, then, if Bald Eagle were not a white man. He said that he did not know. The skin of the great chief was red, but that it might have been dyed. He himself had had the same thought. At least he was sure that Bald Eagle was not a Pawnee, because he spoke the language haltingly. When he asked the tribesmen, however, they maintained a resolute silence about their war leader. In person he said that Bald Eagle was a huge man with a great, savage face - two men in one, was the way Sitting Wolf put it. I remembered the volume of that rolling bass voice and believed it. He told me, too, that Bald Eagle never mixed with the tribe ordinarily, but sent out Dark Water with his commands. Only when a war party was ready, he put himself at their head. The Pawnees swore that he remained by himself so much because the Great Spirit was constantly in communion with him.
It was Bald Eagle who had saved him when a knife was at his throat. And he said that the great chief was said never to slaughter the young if he could avoid it. So we chatted on until the night came. Food was brought to us. Still we talked until very late, and the evening noises in the Indian village grew less. Then I decided to depart. I told Sitting Wolf that I should never rest until I had captured men of such importance among the Pawnees that Bald Eagle would be glad to trade me Sitting Wolf in exchange. The youngster gave me a dozen messages for his family, then I turned to the entrance of the teepee and walked out - to find two guns leveled at my breast.
Such treachery amazed me. And yet, after all, I was a prize not to be passed over lightly. When I demanded what it meant, the young braves grinned mockingly at me, and I went back into the teepee to think the thing over. Sitting Wolf was in an agony of sorrow because this had come on me for his sake. He wanted me to cut his bonds, then he would arm himself with my knife, and we both could rush out at them and try to cut our way through the camp. It was very brave, but very foolish, talk, and it did not tempt me for a moment. A man like Bald Eagle would never close his hand upon a nettle that he could not hold. So I told the boy the only thing to do was to wait for the morning and see what would happen. I told him I had not the slightest doubt as to my safety. Such a chief as Bald Eagle would not allow me to be murdered after I had come to him of my own free will, bringing in safely one of his best warriors.
That served to convince Sitting Wolf. After he had gone to sleep that night, I sat there awake, chewing the stem of my pipe and wondering what deviltry lay before me. Finally I dozed off, and in the morning I found old Dark Water standing in the entrance to the teepee, looking down at me as blandly as you please.
I merely said: “I have had a Pawnee sleep, friend, but it is not as good as a Pawnee scalp.”
He nodded as though he understood my feelings exactly and even sympathized with them.
“Bald Eagle is very sad,” said the scoundrel. “He wishes to send Black Bear safely home to his people, but the Pawnees are angry. They say that many warriors of their blood have died with the bullets of Black Bear in their hearts. Therefore, they will not let him go before a great price has been paid.”
Sitting Wolf growled deep in his throat. I swallowed my emotions. There is no use quarreling with a man who has a knife at your breast. I said quietly: “Very well.. .what is the price to be?”
Dark Water heaved a sigh. I suppose he had been prepared to listen to a torrent of abuse.
“You are to take your rifle and come with me.”
I wondered what my rifle could have to do with my price, unless the idiots really thought it was charmed. I was taken along with a party of twenty or thirty warriors who acted as a bodyguard. Practically the entire tribe accompanied us at a distance, most of the men with arms. I could see the cause of the fighting successes of Bald Eagle at a glance. More than discipline and good, daring generalship, these fellows had secured excellent rifles, and, what was more, I could see that they were kept in good condition. The Pawnees had been taught to handle their guns as though they were sacred things. Altogether, they made a striking appearance, and I decided on the spot that I never wanted to meet these Pawnees on terms of equal numbers, not with the Sioux or any other Indians at my back. The more I saw of the work of Bald Eagle, the more I wanted to see the old villain face to face.
We had gone into the prairie near the village, and there I found, tethered to pegs in the ground, three skinny old horses, down-headed, ragged of mane and tail, their backbones and their ribs thrusting out through the skin, but still clinging to life by a miracle. Dark Water pointed them out to me and told me in a few words why I had been brought there. It was known that if a bullet grazed the neck of a horse close to the ears, just nicking the spinal cord, the animal could be stunned. I had heard of that method being used to catch wild horses. But I had also heard that for every one that was stunned, a hundred more were killed outright, and several hundred more were missed altogether. Dark Water finished this part of his little speech and then went on to another part that was still more interesting to me.
“The Pawnees sigh,” he said, “when they think of Black Bear leaving them in safety and going back to the Dakotas to bring them on our trail. They say that Black Bear has done enough for one life, and that it is time for him to rest.” It was a diplomatic way for the ruffians to hint that they thought of sending a bullet through my head. The chief went on: “Bald Eagle has a great need of a man who can do what men talk of but never perform… throw a horse senseless on the prairie but not take his life with the touch of a bullet. If Black Bear could do this thing, Bald Eagle would find a use for him and afterward set him free.”
Nothing could have been plainer. Some wild horse had caught the eye of the chief. He had tried to catch the horse in vain. Now he wanted to use the last desperate expedient that would either catch or kill it. It sounded very much more like an Indian’s desire than a white man’s. I changed my mind about Bald Eagle for the hundredth time.
“Bald Eagle,” I said, “wishes to have stronger wings. Dark Water, if I should be able to get them for him, will he set free both Sitting Wolf and me?”
Dark Water favored me with a strange smile. “The old men say that no man shall ever sit on the back of the horse Bald Eagle has seen. But if you, Black Bear, should catch him, Bald Eagle will set you and Sitting Wolf free. And here,” he concluded, “are three horses.”
He waved toward them and stepped back. The other warriors drew away from me, and I saw that I was expected to try my hand on these wretched nags. I lay down on my side, found a comfortable elbow rest, and tucked the butt of the rifle into the hollow of my shoulder. Then I drew my bead on the nearest horse. I aimed high up on the back of the neck. A long aim is a useless thing - after an instant of holding on a target, even the strongest hand begins to waver. The moment I had my goal in the sight, I fired, and the horse dropped. A dozen warriors rushed out to the spot and lifted its head. It dropped back with an audible, loose thump. They felt its heart - then they stood up and waved their hands. I had failed, for the horse was dead.