19 Surprised

Pike’s prediction about the wolves came true. We would see one slinking about the grove occasionally, but they never came in packs and we had no fear of them. After the wolf-fight, time was very heavy on our hands for a few days until we began to find occupations for ourselves. Every man followed the natural bent of his mind. There were colonies of beavers along the streams, and Pike made traps which were rude in construction, but nevertheless he captured many of these cunning animals. Pike cached or buried the hides.

“Some fur traders might happen along here some day,” he said, “an’ a pack ov fifty or sixty beaver hides is wuth nigh onto a thousan’ dollars back in St. Louis.”

Pike also made bows and arrows which we learned to use with a fair degree of skill in order to save our powder and lead. In reality we had plenty of jerked meat to last us the winter through, but we wanted fresh meat now and then, and Pike managed to tumble over several deer with his bows and arrows.

With a great deal of trouble and paring with his hunting-knife, Starboard Sam scraped out a rude wooden shell which looked something like a fiddle. He fitted this up with four strings made of the dried tendons of the deer, and we were astonished at the music he got out of it. He played some of his old sea ditties in a manner that seemed very pleasant to us who could get nothing better.

Bonneau built a kind of bake-oven of stones beside our house and installed himself as cook. I helped Pike usually, while Henry was tale-spinner for the party and whiled away many an evening for us.

We covered the inside walls of our hut with the hides of the buffalo and the deer, which addition greatly increased its comfort as well as its appearance, for the nights were now growing very cold. Pike was talking continually about the snow and said we must expect it soon. One evening as Starboard Sam was playing his fiddle I looked out of the door, thinking I had heard the noise of a wild animal, and something light and moist struck me in the face. It was a whisk of snow, the first of the season. The next morning the ground was white.

When the snow came we appreciated the warmth and comfort of our little cabin to their full extent. We could not build a fire in it, but we had such an abundance of long glossy furs that we could wrap up in them and keep as snug as a bug in a rug. Our fear of Indians had passed completely. Pike thought if anybody were to find us it would more likely be the Rocky Mountain fur-hunters. But we did not anticipate a visit even from the latter.

On the whole, we did not have much cause for complaint. The little valley from which we had been driven by the Indians would have been a cosier place, but we were doing very well where we were.

In this interval we had some leisure to think over our adventures. Pike often talked with me about my narrow escape the night the arrow had been fired at me and the somewhat mysterious circumstances connected with the death of two of our companions. He said in all his experience of the plains, extending over a period of many years, he knew nothing like it. But bothering over it did not bring us any nearer to a solution, and at last we gave it up as a bad job.

The snow which I have mentioned had melted, and I was out with Pike hunting deer with the bow and arrow. I had not been successful on that trip, and Pike had a joke at my expense. I resolved that I would do better, and the next day, leaving my rifle at the cabin, I took my bow and sheaf of arrows and went out to hunt the deer, which, as well as elk, were plentiful in our vicinity.

The timber followed the course of the little river, none ever growing more than a few hundred yards from it. I went up the stream and tramped along for a long time, but found no game. I was inclined to give up the hunt for that day and return to the cabin, when I saw an elk among the trees. It was a noble stag, and instantly I was afire with the ardor of the chase. To slay such an animal as he with the primitive weapons I carried would indeed be a hunter’s triumph.

The wind was in my favor, and I set out to stalk the deer. I lay down on the ground and pulled myself slowly along, stopping at short intervals to rest. I thought that if I got within fair range I could bag the stag. My arrows were stone-headed, but the bow was well made and I had a strong arm to draw it

The stag was pulling at the dry twigs of a bush, and came within range before he suspected an enemy. Then I fitted the arrow to the string and it whizzed from my bow. By a wonderful piece of luck it went straight and true to the mark and pierced the heart of the stag. He took two or three mighty leaps forward, then collapsed to the earth and breathed his last.

I rushed up full of triumph and bent over to see where my arrow had entered. I heard an ejaculation behind me, and was about to whirl around when there was a stunning crash, stars twinkled before my eyes and I fell senseless.

The next thing of which I was conscious was a dull, throbbing pain in my head. I endeavored to put my hand to it, but I found that I could not move a finger. I wondered dimly why it was, but my brain and nerves were so languid that it was a quarter of an hour before I opened my eyes. I could see nothing at first, but when I became used to the semi-darkness I saw a wall of skin, buffalo hide it might be. I thought at first I was in our cabin, but looking again, I knew that the piece was unfamiliar.

I tried to move my hands and failed again. Then I knew they were bound, for there was a sharp pain at my wrists where the thong was biting into the flesh. I squirmed about a little, but I only made my bones ache, and I ceased the effort

As my mind became clearer I realized that something very unusual had befallen me. The shooting of the stag, the blow from behind, and the fall all came back to me. My mind ran over these things several times, but when it came to the fall it stopped, There was no memory of anything after that.

These thoughts made my head ache with great severity and brought me no nearer to a knowledge of what had happened to me. I had closed my eyes again when I heard a light step beside me and a voice said in very good English:

“Has the white boy’s mind returned to him? Does he see and hear again?”

I opened my eyes and saw an Indian standing beside me. He was tall and very erect. His face was calm and inscrutable, but it did not seem to be wholly unfamiliar. I could not at first recall where I had seen it, and I stared at the Indian. He smiled gently, and then I knew.

“Onomo!” I exclaimed, “the friendly Pawnee whom we saw at Fort Leavenworth with Colonel Griscom!”

The Indian smiled again.

“Where am I? And what has happened to me!” I exclaimed

“Hush,” said Onomo, “the white boy must not speak so loud. He is in the hands of his enemies. He is a prisoner of the Pawnees, who are on the warpath!”

“And what are you doing here?” I asked.

“Though Onomo is the friend of the whites, who have taught him their ways,” he replied with dignity, “the lodges of his people are not closed against him. He comes to the red men, who are his brethren, when he pleases, and leaves when he pleases.”

“Tell me how the whole thing happened—my capture, I mean?” I asked.

Onomo smiled again.

“It was very simple,” he said. “The white boy was stealing up on a stag. He watched the stag only, and saw nothing else. But some of our warriors were near, and when the white boy stood over the fallen stag in triumph, they stole up behind him and felled him to the earth with a blow from the flat of a tomahawk. They did not wish to kill him then.”

The “then” grated upon me very unpleasantly.

“So they want to kill me yet?” I asked.

“The red men are on the warpath,” said Onomo, gravely. “They seek scalps, not prisoners.”

“But you will help me, Onomo, won’t you?” I exclaimed, eagerly. “You have lived with the white people! You are our friend! Can you not assist me to escape?”

“Onomo will do all he can,” he said, in his grave way, “but the white boy is bound and closely watched. The tepees of the warriors surround him, and even if his hand and body were loosened he could not get away.”

I was in a very bad position, and I saw it clearly, but I still had some confidence in the help of Onomo, who seemed so calm and so masterful.

“Can’t you loosen these thongs on my wrists a little?” I asked. “They are eating through the flesh to the bone.”

Onomo bent down to do as I asked, and I noticed what looked like a burnt line across the left side of his forehead. Such marks are usually made by a bullet. I did not remember that the scar was there when I saw him at Fort Leavenworth.

“You have been doing some fighting yourself,” I said, “for I see you have been barked by a bullet.”

“It was an accident,” said Onomo, in a tone which implied that he did not care to say anything more about it. He loosened the thongs somewhat, and I was able to turn over and get a better view of my surroundings. I was lying on a buffalo robe in a small skin tepee. A thong around my waist was tied to a stake driven in the ground

The thought of my brother and my friends now came to me, and this brought a new and great anxiety.

“Am I the only prisoner?” I asked. “Has any other been taken, or—or—killed?”

“You are the only one,” said Onomo. “The warriors would have stolen upon the others and taken their scalps, but the big white hunter, who has the ears of the deer and the courage of the grizzly bear, learned they were coming. He and all the others are now in the cabin, ready to fight for their lives,”

“Your warriors will never get them out of the cabin, either,” I said; “for he shoots very straight and very far.”

Onomo shook his head and again smiled,

“The Pawnees know the ways of the wilderness,” he said, “and they will find a path into the cabin of the white hunter and his friends.”

“Not while Pike lives and can aim his rifle!” I said emphatically.

Onomo went out presently, saying he would get me something to eat and drink. He returned quickly with some jerked buffalo meat and a gourd of water, and unbound my hands long enough for me to dispose of them. The food and water greatly refreshed me, and my head ceased to ache. There was some clotted blood in my hair, but Onomo assured me the wound was nothing but a bruise that would heal up in a few days. Then he rebound my wrists, saying he was compelled to do so or the warriors would become very suspicious of him. He said, however, that they had allowed him to look after my wants. I felt very grateful to him for this, and said so.

“Onomo is very glad when he can be of service to any of his white friends,” he said, and went out smiling his peculiar, gentle smile.

He came to see me again later in the day, and told something about the Indian party. He said there were about fifty warriors, with ponies and tepees. They had been killing buffaloes further up the stream, when they learned of the presence of the whites. I heard with much joy that an attack on the cabin had been repulsed that morning, with a loss of two warriors. Onomo added that the Indians were much infuriated at their defeat, and he hinted about a desire some of them had to put me to the torture at once in revenge. I knew the nature of the Indians of the plains, and the horrible cruelties they inflicted upon their captured enemies, but my blood ran in a chill current back to my heart at the idea of torture.

“Surely you can prevent this, Onomo,” I exclaimed. “You have enough influence with them.”

“Onomo will do all he can for his friend the white boy,” he said briefly.

Then he went away and left me to alarming reflections. My own fate naturally was uppermost in my mind, but my thoughts wandered also to the little party in the cabin. Would they be able to hold out under Pike’s brave and skillful leadership? I believed they could defend the place against all attacks, unless the Indians devised some ingenious trick to rout them. The cabin could be approached from the rear over the slope of the hill, against which it jutted. The Indians even could crawl upon the roof without danger to themselves. But they would be no better off there than the wolves were. They might break a hole through, but it would be in the face of almost certain death, and they would scarcely dare such a risk as that. The greatest danger to the defenders would be in the expenditure of their ammunition. Fortunately, the Indians did not know how their supply had been diminished.

It was agony to lie there, bound and helpless, while Henry and the others were fighting for life. I strained at the thongs on my wrist, but succeeded only in cutting the flesh anew, and after awhile I lay quiet, exhausted in body and fevered in mind. How I lamented the carelessness that had enabled the Indians to capture me so easily! All they had to do was to walk up behind me and take me just as if I were a little child.

My complete ignorance of everything that was passing outside was not the least of my ills. You have often heard that waiting is one of the hardest of all things to do. But I fancy that no one can understand what it really is until he is in the situation in which I was placed, bound and helpless, with death by torture before me.

The hours dragged on as slow as eternity. The semi-dusk in the little tepee gave place to darkness, and I knew that night had come on. I had nothing else by which to measure time. In spite of my situation I began to get hungry again, and was wondering if Onomo would come again now with food and water when the flap of the tepee was raised and two men, one of whom carried a blazing torch, pushed in.

The light dazzled my eyes, and for a few moments I could not see the features of the warriors. I expected to find that one of them was Onomo, but as soon as I was able to use my eyes to good purpose again I found that both were strangers. They were elderly men, and I inferred from their dress and manner that they were chiefs. I did not like their faces at all, for they were seamed with scars and looked very ferocious. They did not appear to be the kind of men who would show mercy to a prisoner.

The two warriors looked at me in silence, and I began to wonder what their purpose might be, when Onomo entered. I had resolved to bear myself bravely. So I took no notice of Onomo, but met the gaze of the two warriors with a stare that I believed to be as steady as their own.

One of the warriors talked earnestly with Onomo. Then Onomo said to me:

“They want you to tell them all about the cabin in which your friends are. Is there any weak point about it which will enable them to capture it without heavy loss of life?”

“They must have a strange opinion of me!” I exclaimed, indignantly. “Do they think I would give them such information as that?”

“But they say if you do it they will be merciful with you,” said Onomo. “They will take the cabin, anyhow. Your refusal will not save your friends, while it will injure yourself.”

I am glad that I never hesitated for a moment when Onomo put the matter to me in that insinuating way. Pike had often talked to me about the treachery of Indians, and I replied with heat:

“They may burn me at the stake, or do what they will with me, but I will never knowingly do anything that will help to put my friends in their hands.”

“Consider it well,” said Onomo, “for if you refuse, my influence may be powerless to serve you.”

“I care not,” I said. “My mind is quite made up. It is not worth while to talk to me about such a thing.”

I turned my face as far away from them as I could as an emphatic sign of my refusal. The chiefs talked for some time, and Onomo’s voice, much smoother and mellower than the others, joined theirs at intervals. By and by the two warriors went out. When they had gone Onomo said to me in a gentle and sorrowful voice:

“The white boy will regret that he has refused to do what the warriors asked him to do. His refusal only makes his own situation the worse.”

“Don’t speak to me about it again, Onomo,” I said, energetically. “I am white, and I could not do such a thing. But I thank you, Onomo, for all that you have done for me and all that you would do for me if you could.”

I was sorry that I had used the word “white,” which might imply that Onomo, being a red man, would do what I held to be treason. But it had slipped out, and, besides, he did not seem to notice it.

He brought me food and water again, and after I had partaken of them he readjusted my thongs and went away.

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