“But you,” went on the chief sternly, “are not contented with such things. What are scalps and scalp-takers compared to the strength of a man who can call down the Sky People to help him? Since Standing Bull brought him to us, everything we do is lucky. There is no drought. The young men and the children do not die of sickness. The buffalo come up and stand at the edge of our camp and wait for us to surround and shoot them down. Our war parties have struck the Crows and the Pawnee wolves and brought back horses and scalps, and counted many coups. But this man is not great enough for you to serve! You despise him in your heart while you work with your hands. Do you think that he does not know? I tell you, Young Willow, that he sees the thoughts in your heart as clearly as he sees the paintings on his teepee.”
This speech he delivered in a stern and gloomy voice, and the squaw began to bite her lips nervously.
“I am willing to work for him,” she whined. “All day my hands never stop.”
“There are other women who would work for him,” said the chief. “There are other women who would be glad to live in the presence of such good medicine all day long.”
“All day he never speaks,” she answered in feeble self-defense. “There are many backrests in this lodge. It is a lodge for a great and noble chief to fill with feasting and friends. But he never calls in friends, except Standing Bull or Rising Hawk. He would rather sit on his bed of rye grass and rushes, wrapped in an unpainted robe. Then he takes a flute of juniper wood and makes sad music, like a young man in love. Or he goes down to the river and sits on the banks. The three young warriors who have to be with him to guard him, they stand and yawn and wish to be hunting or on the warpath, but he sits and plays the flute. Or else he takes his pistol from his breast and shoots little birds that fly overhead near him. Even a child would be ashamed of such a life.”
“Can a child take a pistol and shoot little birds out of the air?” asked the chief sharply. “Can any of the warriors do that?”
“No man could do it,” she replied. “It is medicine that kills them with the flash of his pistol. But when does he take the war rifle and go on the warpath?”
“You speak,” said the chief slowly, “like a fool and the daughter of a fool. But you have given me a thought. If he makes sad music on the flute, it is because he has seen some beautiful girl among the Cheyennes. He is in love. Now, Young Willow, learn the name of the girl he has seen, and he shall have her, and you . . . you shall come into my lodge and name the thing you want as a reward. Only learn the name of the girl he wants.”
II
Under a spreading willow on the bank of the river lay White Thunder, his hands beneath his head, his sad eyes looking up through the thin branches, noting how they changed their pattern against the sky as the wind stirred them. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, because, in so doing, he would be forced to see the three who guarded him. Every moon three chosen and proved young warriors were told to watch him day and night. In the day they never left his side except when he entered his teepee. And in the night they slept or watched outside his lodge. The vigilance of the Cheyennes netted Paul Torridon about in the dark and in the daylight, so that he had given up all hope of escape from them. If there were any hope left to him, it was something that he could not visualize, something that would scatter the tribe and by a merciful accident leave him free to return to his kind. Particularly he wished to avoid the attention of these three, because he knew their hearts were burning with anger against him. They had yearned to go off with the hunt, but, since he refused, they were forced to remain idly in camp watching him, instead of flying their horses among the wild buffalo—a sport for a king.
The three were talking, softly. For though they despised him, they held him in awe, also. As a man, he was to them less than nothing. As a communer with the spirits, he was a dreadful power. Now they mentioned a familiar name. Torridon half closed his eyes.
“What do you say of my horse?” he asked.
“I say,” answered a voice, “that the horse would come to you even through a running river.”
Another answered sharply: “And I say that no horse will swim unless it is forced. It would be a strong medicine, for instance, that would make a horse go into that stream. A horse has no hands to push himself away from sharp rocks.”
Torridon thrust himself up on one arm, and shook back the hair from his face. It was quite true that the river beneath them was not a pleasant ford for horses. Men could manage it easily enough, but it was thickly strewn with rocks, and among the rocks the current drove down strongly.
Torridon whistled, and up to him came a black stallion at a sharp trot and, standing before him, actually lowered his fine head and sniffed at the hand of his master as though to inquire his meaning.
The three young braves looked on with hearts that swelled with awe.
“Do you fear the water, Ashur?” asked Torridon in Cheyenne.
He flung out his hand in a little gesture, and that gesture made the horse turn his head toward the river. But so seemingly did Ashur understand the question, so human was that turning of the head to look at the water that the young braves murmured softly to one another.
“You see,” said Torridon, who was not above a little charlatanry from time to time, “that he has no fear of the water. He asks me for what purpose he should go into it, however.”
The young Cheyennes were filled with amazement. “But in what manner did he speak?” asked the eldest, who had taken his scalp in regular battle and therefore was the accepted leader of the little party. “For I did not hear a sound.”
“Tell me,” said the untruthful Torridon, “do you have a sign language?”
“Yes, with which every Indian can speak.”
“Well, then, a horse has signs, also.”
“But a horse has no fingers with which to make signs.”
“He has a tail, however,” said Torridon smoothly, “and also two ears, and a head to nod or shake, and four hoofs to stamp.”
There was a general exclamation of wonder.
“However,” said the scalp-taker a little sullenly, “I still think that no horse would cross that water, except under a whip.”
Torridon pretended to frown. “Do you think,” he asked, “that when I put a spell on a horse it is less than a whip on his back?”
“Even a child,” replied the young warrior truthfully, “may speak about great things.”
“Very well,” said Torridon, “this is a knife that you have admired.”
He took from his belt a really beautiful weapon, the point curving only slightly from the straight, the steel of the finest quality, with the glimmer of a summer blue sky close to the sun. The haft was ornamented with inset beadwork, to roughen the grip. It was a treasure that Torridon had received from a grateful brave to whom he had given good fortune on the warpath, the fortune immediately being proved by the counting of a coup and the capture of five good horses.
“It is true,” said the young Cheyenne, his eyes blazing in his head. “But,” he added, “what have I to offer against it?”
“You have a new rifle,” said Torridon carelessly.
The other sighed. The rifle was a very good one. It was the pride of his young life. However, the knife was a gaudy trinket that inflamed his very heart with lust to own it, and he reassured himself by looking down at the dangerous water.
Besides, a horse was to be persuaded through the midst of that water without the use of a whip or a spur, and with no man on its back to direct it. He nodded as he turned again to Torridon. “Look!” he exclaimed suddenly. And he laid the rifle at the feet of a companion.