Samuel Brett, however, was not alarmed. He had lived all his days in the midst of danger. That which is too well known is apt to be taken too lightly.
To be sure, when he went to bed that night he saw that the door was well secured, and that his rifle and two pistols were at hand nearby him. But after that he slept profoundly, and the rumble of his snoring filled the house.
The night grew wilder and wilder.
Before morning, the Cheyennes in their clearing had been forced up from their blankets, and they huddled around a newly built fire, removing to the shelter of the trees. It was only a mock shelter. The heavy rain, driven far in through the foliage by the whip of the wind, came sluicing down upon them in quantities. Over their heads the storm yelled and roared, and the day came slowly upon them.
They prepared a meal of a few mouthfuls. When it was eaten, they smoked a pipe with some difficulties. And then Standing Bull asked for dreams.
Yellow Man was the only one who could oblige. He declared he had dreamed that he was back in the Cheyenne village, and that, in the middle of the night, he had stepped outside his lodge. Suddenly the night had become terribly dark. All was blackness. A wind hooted in his ears like an owl. And when he stumbled back toward the lodge, it was gone. He ran here and there. He could find nothing, though his teepee stood in the center of the camp.
At last a star began to shine. He found that he was alone in the midst of a great plain. Nothing was near him. There was no village in sight. It was as though the wind had blown him to a great distance. He dropped to the ground, thereby hoping to see something against the horizon. Something he did see. It was a tree standing on a hill. The star was right behind it, and, indeed, the star was in the middle of it. From the distant heavens, straight through that tree or ghost of a tree, the star was shining.
This was the dream of Yellow Man. Let anyone who could interpret it.
This strange story was received in silence. But when Yellow Man left the circle, a little later, Red Shirt remarked with a grunt: “My blood is cold, brothers, and I think that when we come to the lodge of Yellow Man, we will find the women and the children wailing in it.”
There was no further comment, but all the braves had the same gloomy thought. Red Shirt insisted that this was a token that they should give up the attempt that they had in mind. Even if peace was not made with Roger Lincoln, it would be best to try nothing more, but to make the best and quickest way back to the village on the prairie.
Standing Bull answered, logically enough, that a dream in which a village disappeared and a star shone through the ghost of a tree might mean a great deal to Yellow Man, but it hardly had significance for the rest of the party or their work. He had made up his mind. They would attempt what they had come for.
That day, the storm still held, growing momently more violent. They could hear the roaring of the river, swollen with a great voice. And during the day, they went down to trade off their buffalo robes. Under the keen eye of Standing Bull and against his express admonition, they did not dare to take whiskey in exchange. And in the evening they went back to their camping grounds with a load of ammunition, a few knives, many trinkets and beads.
When the darkness came on, Standing Bull made his further preparations. Two of the men were to keep the bulk of the horses at the edge of the woods, prepared to rush them into the prairie on a moment’s notice. The remaining four, and Standing Bull himself, were to go back with chosen ponies—and one extra mount—to the vicinity of the house of Samuel Brett.
There, a pair of the warriors would keep the animals at the edge of the trees, taking what care they could that the ponies should not neigh or make any noise of tramping or fighting. Then, accompanied by Red Shirt and Rushing Wind—especially chosen for this purpose by Standing Bull as being the keenest of the band that accompanied him—the leader would go toward the house and try to take the girl from it, in silence if he could, by force and slaughter of the rest of the household if necessary.
The others listened to the plan in silence. They saw that it was desperately bold. The explosion of a gun and a single shot would be enough to bring out the rest of the settlers, gun in hand. But not one of the braves would draw back from his leader in such a time of need. Certainly Rushing Wind and Red Shirt did not know fear.
All was done as had been planned, the horses were established under the trees that stood nearest to the house, and then Standing Bull began to approach, taking the lead, as was his right and his duty.
He went forward, crouching, shifting from bush to rock, and rock to bush, and gradually working his way closer. He had covered most of the distance when there was a snarl and then a furious barking just before him.
He heard the rush of a dog through the darkness!
XIV
There was no better watchdog in the world than that borrowed man-killer that now was lunging at the Indian. His was a crossed breed. He was mastiff, boar hound, and wolf, mixed discreetly. He had the cutting power of a wolf, the wind of a hound, and the grip of a mastiff, together with the heart of the latter dog. He was as good as half a dozen armed guards to keep off strollers and the overcurious, because men do not like to face the danger of a dog bite. The bite may only break the skin, but the broken skin is apt to lead to hydrophobia. Who can tell?
Standing Bull never had seen that dog before. He did not need to see him clearly, however, to realize what was coming. The monster charged through the whipping rain. Straight at him came the dog, with a savage, brutal intaken breath of satisfaction.
At the last instant the Cheyenne twisted on his side. A snake could not have moved more quickly. The dog shot past, trying in vain to check its impetus, and, as it went on, Standing Bull drove his hunting knife through the heart of the creature.
There was no sound. The dog fell limply, and Standing Bull wiped off the blade of the knife, listening intently as he did so.
Nothing stirred in the house. He could only trust that the sudden cessation of the growling of the big animal would not rouse suspicions in the house. And so far nothing indicated that they were on their watch. They had consigned their safety into the keeping of one power. That power now was removed, and Standing Bull felt that perhaps swift success would crown his work.
His two attending shadows drew close to him. They did not congratulate him on the deed he had just performed, but congratulation did not need to be spoken. Standing Bull felt that the very air was electric with the admiration of his friends.
Therefore he went on swiftly to the door. It was the one weak point of the house, being thin and, as already noted, full of cracks. It was the hope of Standing Bull that a little work with a sharp knife might so enlarge one of the cracks that he could reach the latch bar and open the door without more ado.
He worked rapidly, but with the greatest care. Even the squeak of a heavily pressed knife in wet wood might be enough to catch the ear of a sleeper and undo all that had been accomplished up to this point.
Presently, when the soft wood had yielded sufficiently, he thrust the point of the blade through the crack and worked it upward. It clicked on iron, the iron stirred, and with a slight creak of the hinges, the door sagged inward.
Big Standing Bull crouched on the threshold, his heart thundering in his breast like a charge of wild buffalo. But still nothing stirred in the interior. Neither the breath of fresh air entering, full of the dampness of the rain, nor the sound of the door turning on the hinges had been enough to disturb the slumberers—or were they waiting among the shadows all this while, smiling to themselves, their guns ready as soon as the door, like the mouth of a trap, had admitted sufficient victims?