Stately, gentle, soft of voice, beautiful of face, and mighty of hand, he looked the type of some Homeric hero. There was no cloud of trouble on his brow. His eye was as clear as the clearest heavens.
Yet beneath all this there was the heart of a child. It began to work in him now that he heard the lying reply of Standing Bull. His lips trembled and then compressed. His breast swelled. An almost uncontrollable passion enthralled Roger Lincoln, and the Cheyennes drew a little closer together, overawed and frightened.
“I have been to the Cheyennes a good friend,” said Roger Lincoln. “There are many in your tribe who know that I never have harmed them. Your own chief, High Wolf, remembers a day on the waters of the Little Bender when the Crows were closing around him and there was no hope of help. On that day he was glad that Roger Lincoln was his friend and a friend to the Cheyennes. I split the Crows as a child splits a twig. They ran away, and the Cheyennes followed them and took a great many scalps. There were other days of which I could speak. I have kept the Cheyennes from trouble whenever I was near them. I respected them and thought that they were men and truth speakers. When they came to a trading post where I was, I saw that the traders did not cheat them. I used to stand up in the councils of the white men and say that no matter what they thought of the other red men of the plains, the Cheyennes were real men and brave men and that they spoke the truth.
“Because I thought all these things, today I was willing to do more than is just. My dearest friend is among your lodges. You keep him there. His heart is breaking. What wrong had he done you or any other Indian? He was young and had harmed no one. He was my friend. I have no other friend half so dear to me as this White Thunder. But you stole him and kept him, after he had done good to one of you. I do not want to name the warrior whose life he saved on the island at the forking of the river. I would not like to say that any man would be so base as to betray the friend who saved him. And yet this is what happened.
“I did not want to talk of these things. Instead, I offered to make a bargain with you. I offered you a ransom. What do you do when a most hated enemy is taken in battle? If his friends offer you horses and guns, you take them and set him free. But you did not take White Thunder in battle. You tricked him into coming to your camp and, after that, you surrounded him with guards. You threatened to kill him if he did not work great medicine for you. And all that I say is true. Now you will not take such a ransom as never was offered to Cheyennes before.
“You forgot the wrong you have done to White Thunder. Instead of keeping him, you should cover him with presents. You should give him whole herds of horses, and then you should set him free.
“Or when Roger Lincoln asks, because of the good I have done for you, you should set White Thunder free even if he had killed one of your chiefs. But he has killed no one and he has done you no harm. Only out of the wickedness of your hearts you are keeping him to be a slave to you, to bring rain to your crops and make medicine against the other Indians.
“Now, I tell you that you will come to a day when you will groan at the thought of White Thunder. You will tremble when his name is mentioned. You will wish that you had starved of hunger without corn rather than that he should have been kept in the tribe like a prisoner.
“I tell you this, and, when I speak, it is not the whistling of the wind. I have been your friend. Now I am your friend no longer. From the moment that you leave Fort Kendry I am your enemy, and you shall pay for the evil that is in you. This is my token of what I will do and of how much I hate you!”
There was a big chopping block nearby and in it was stuck a splitting axe—an old and rusted blade with a wide bevel, useless for felling trees but acting like a wedge to tear open sections for firewood. This axe the frontiersman caught up. His childish fury had reached its climax, and with fury in his eye he swung the axe and cast it from him. With one hand he had wielded its heavy mass and it spun lightly away and drove its blade into a post of the corral. So heavy was the shock that the whole fence trembled. And the bright eyes of the Cheyennes flashed at one another.
That blow would have driven the axe head well nigh through the body of a warrior.
“Go!” said Roger Lincoln, and before the wave of his hand the Indians drew back.
They filed through the store. They reached the street and turned down it, still walking one behind the other, their muffling robes high about their faces. They took their horses with them to the edge of the town and there they sat down in a clearing in a circle.
Standing Bull took out a pipe bowl of red catlinite. This he filled with tobacco, mixed with dried, powdered bark to make it burn freely and give pungency to the taste. He fitted in the long stem and lighted the mixture. He blew a puff to the earth spirits. He blew a puff to the cardinal points. Then he held up the pipe to the Great Spirit and chanted slowly a sacred song that, rudely translated, ran somewhat as follows:
Heammawihio, lord of the air,
We are not even master of the ground.
But we are your children, and we are in trouble.
In this last line the entire band joined, singing like a chorus, singing heavily.
Heammawihio, your way is the way of the eagle.
Our way is the way of the prairie dog, creeping in holes.
But we are your children, and we are in trouble.
Heammawihio, your eye sees all things and all thoughts.
But even in the sunlight our eyes are darkened.
But we are your children, and we are in trouble.
Heammawihio, for your enemies you keep
the polished spears of the lightning.
And we have nothing but our weak hands
with which to strike.
But we are your children, and we are in trouble.
Give us good council, open our minds, be pitiful.
We have no words or thoughts, except to pray to you.
But we are your children, and we are in trouble.
Between the verses of this solemn song, Standing Bull had smoked a few pulls from his pipe. Now it was handed around the circle. Each man smoked. Each man was silent. When the pipe was empty, the ashes were knocked from the bowl, and then the council began. Standing Bull invited all to speak who had an idea that might be of service in their present difficulty.
Red Shirt was eloquent at once. His thought was of immediate and complete surrender. From White Thunder, as he said, the Cheyennes had received many services. They could make no repayment for the rain he had brought to them, the Dakota scalps that he had placed in their lodges, or the members of the tribe who he had saved from sickness. It was fitting, therefore, that they should set the white man free. The additional argument was that of Roger Lincoln’s enmity. Certainly they should set White Thunder free at any rate. In addition, they had great treasures offered to them by Roger Lincoln. And, beyond this, there was now thrown into the scale the terrible hostility of this famous warrior. It would be far better at once to return to Roger Lincoln and propose amity. He, Red Shirt, had hardly been able to keep his tongue quiet when he had heard the magnificent proposals of the white hunter refused.