It was no wonder that with these thoughts in his mind he went on the journey with a depressed heart. All the way his words were few, but the warriors followed without a sign of discontent until they came over the lower hills and at last looked down on Fort Kendry.
Then they assembled together and Red Shirt, chief of the followers of the big leader, spoke for the rest. “Have you come for white scalps, Standing Bull?” he asked with much gravity.
“You, perhaps, never have taken one?” said Standing Bull pleasantly. For the entire tribe knew about the long-tressed scalp that hung in the lodge of Red Shirt.
“Because of that scalp I took,” said Red Shirt frankly, “I cannot ride into a trading post without fear. For the white men never forget. Because of that scalp, many Cheyennes have died, and now I know that it is better to fight with the Crows or the Blackfeet or the Dakotas, even, than to fight with the white men.”
The rest of the men listened in silence that agreed totally with their spokesman, and Standing Bull saw that he would have a good deal of explaining to do.
He said cheerfully: “I, too, my brothers, know that the white men are dangerous. I have not brought you here to take scalps, but to do something still more important. I shall tell you simply, now that you have come to the place where the thing must be done.”
He made a pause and swept his hand toward the fort. The rambling group of unpainted walls, some stone built, all rough and carelessly made, the ramshackle roofs, the twisting fence lines, made a very study in confusion. But at the tops of the walls of the fort itself they could see the little round mouths of the cannons that made such miraculous noise and killed at such a miraculous distance.
With equal awe and hate the band looked down upon this stronghold of the white skins.
“We do not love these people,” said Standing Bull, “but one man with a white skin has done much for the Cheyennes. I speak of White Thunder.”
A unanimous grunt of agreement greeted this remark.
“Now, my brothers,” said Standing Bull, “we wish to keep White Thunder among us, I am sure. We never have known hunger since he came. He can bring the rain from heaven, and he can turn the bullets of the enemy in battle. He can bring ghosts to protect us and to send our bullets straight into the hearts of our foes. To keep him, we have our young braves guard him. That is hard work. Besides, someday he may find a way to trick our cleverest young men and to escape.”
“That is true,” said the youngest of the party, a keen stripling of twenty years. “When I guarded him, I trembled with fear. I would as soon try to hold the naked lightning in my hand as to keep White Thunder from doing what he wanted to do.”
“But,” said Standing Bull, “if once we can make him happy among us, all will be well. And that can be managed, I think. Here in Fort Kendry is the thing that he wants. It is not horses or money or buffalo robes. It is a squaw. There is a girl here who he loves. Because she is not with him, his heart is sick. Now I, my brothers, hope to catch that girl and take her back to him. You see that our business is not so dangerous as the taking of white scalps.”
Red Shirt exclaimed impatiently: “I, Standing Bull, know the white men, and I know that they put more value on their women than they do on their scalps!”
Standing Bull scowled at this opposition. He said at length, bitterly: “I shall take the chief risk. I cannot make you help me. But if you stay here, I shall go down alone and bring the girl away, or die in that work. I am trying to do something for all the people of the Cheyennes. Who will help me? Let us bring the girl to White Thunder, and he will stay with us as contentedly as a bird in a nest.”
They stared at him, hardly able to believe. Red Shirt suggested that there were pretty maidens among the Cheyennes. But Standing Bull waved him to scorn.
“White Thunder,” he explained, “does not think like a man, but like a foolish boy that is sick. We, like parents, must try to please him. Because the boy has been given power.”
This simple reasoning appeared conclusive. One and all agreed that they would do their best. If they succeeded, even though they returned without scalps or horses, certainly they would be gloriously received by the Cheyennes. So they loosed their reins and went on toward the fort.
X
Once before, Standing Bull had gone to Fort Kendry. But though he had come there in the daylight, he had done his work in the night and escaped again under cover of the dark. He had no fear that he would be recognized now, or suspected of any evil intention. To mask the real purpose of his journey, he had seen to it that some of the extra horses were loaded with buffalo robes of good quality. To all intents, they would appear like a small band of warriors who had come in to trade and get what they could. In the meantime, they would look around them for the girl.
They hardly had come into the village before they were welcomed. The more important traders had their quarters within the fort itself, where they worked for the fur company. But in the village were independents that picked up a little business here and there from just such small parties as these. As the Cheyennes entered, wrapped to the eyes in their robes, their long rifles balanced across the pommels of their saddles, first one and then another agent greeted them fluently in their own tongue and tempted them with bottles of whiskey. Both of these, Standing Bull passed by, but a third man he followed into his booth and looked at the display of goods. There were beads of all kinds, together with hatchets, knives, tobacco, tea, sugar, coffee, flour, calico, clothes, and ribbons of many colors, blankets, and a hundred little foolish trinkets. Standing Bull himself was enchanted by the appearance of some little bells that, as the agent pointed out, could be tied in the mane of the horse, or in the hair of the warrior.
“So,” said Standing Bull to Red Shirt, “a brave would be known before he was seen. His friends would be glad. He would walk with music.” And he jangled the bells.
But Red Shirt was entirely absorbed in the contemplation of a jug of whiskey; the pungent fragrance of it already was in his nostrils.
However, nothing would be done, no matter what the temptation, until Standing Bull gave the signal, and certainly he would not give such a signal on this day. The number of the robes was small, barely large enough to excuse their offering in trade, after so long a journey to present them. On the first day there should be no trafficking. Indeed, if possible, Standing Bull intended to get his party away from the fort before the warriors had tasted the unnerving fire of the whiskey. One bottle of that would be enough to start a debauch that would ruin all plans.
In the midst of all this confusion, while the trader and his boy were panting with eagerness for plunder, another form appeared, a tall and magnificently made frontiersman, garbed in the finest of deerskin, heavily beaded, with his long, blond hair flowing down about his shoulders. A pistol in one side of his belt balanced a heavy knife that was in front, and in his hands he carried a long, heavy rifle, using it as lightly as though it were a walking staff. He went straight to Standing Bull and raised a hand in greeting.
“Hau!” grunted the Cheyenne in response.