John Ermine of the Yellowstone (3 page)

Slowly man after man swung to the ground. Some did not so readily agree, but they were finally argued off their horses. Whereat the big chairman sang out: “The ayes have it. Come on, Mr.
Chick-chick.”

These two rode up the hill and over the mesa, trotting along as they talked. “Now, Chick-chick, I don’t know a heap about Injuns. The most that I have seen of them was over the
sights of a rifle. How are we goin’ at this? Do you
habla
Crow lingo, Señor?”

“No,” replied that much mixed-blooded man, “I no
cumtux
Crow, but I make the hand talk, and I can clean up a
ten-ass Chinook;
all you do is to do
nothing—you no shake hands, you say nothing, until we smoke the pipe, then you say ‘How?’ and shake hands all same white man. You hang on to your gun—suppose they try take
it away—well, den,
icta-nica-ticki,
you shoot! Then we are dead.” Having laid his plan of campaign before his brother in arms, no more was said. History does not relate what was
thought about it.

They arrived in due course among the tepees of a small band of Crows. There were not probably a hundred warriors present, but they were all armed, horsed, and under considerable excitement.
These Crows were at war with all the other tribes of the northern plains, but maintained a truce with the white man. They had very naturally been warned of the unusual storm of horsemen bearing in
their direction, and were apprehensive concerning it. They scowled at the chairman and Mr. Chick-chick, who was an Oregon product, as they drew up. The latter began his hand-language, which was
answered at great length. He did not at once calm the situation, but was finally invited to smoke in the council lodge. The squaws were pulling down the tepees; roping, bundling, screaming,
hustling ponies, children, and dogs about, unsettling the statesmen’s nerves mightily as they passed the pipe. The big chairman began to fancy the Indians he had seen through the sights more
than these he was regarding over the pipe of peace. Chick-chick gesticulated the proposition that the white papoose be brought into the tent, where he could be seen.

The Indians demurred, saying there was no white boy—that all in the camp were Crows. A young warrior from outside broke into their presence, talking in a loud tone. An old chief looked out
through the entrance-flap, across the yellow plains. Turning, he inquired what the white horsemen were doing outside.

He was told that they wanted the white boy; that the two white chiefs among them would take the boy and go in peace, or that the others would come and take him in war. Also, Chick-chick
intimated that he must
klat-a-way.
The Indians made it plain that he was not going to
klat-a-way;
but looking abroad, they became more alarmed and excited by the cordon of whites
about them.

“When the sun is so high,” spoke Chick-chick, pointing, and using the sign language, “if we do not go forth with the boy, the white men will charge and kill all the Crows. One
white boy is not worth that much.”

After more excitement and talk, a youngish woman came, bearing a child in her arms, which was bawling and tear-stained—she vociferating wildly the time. Taking the unmusical youngster by
the arm, the old chief stood him before Chick-chick. The boy was near nine years of age, the men judged, white beyond question, with long, golden hair braided, Indian fashion, down the sides of his
head. He was neatly clothed in dressed buckskins, fringed and beaded, and not naked or half naked, as most Indian boys are in warm weather. It was not possible to tell what his face looked like in
repose, for it was kneaded into grotesque lumps by his cries and wailing.

“He is a Crow; his skin is white, but his heart is Absaroke. It makes us bleed to see him go; our women will mourn all this snow for him, but to save my band I give him to you. Take him.
He is yours.”

Chick-chick lifted the child in his arms, where the small cause of all the turmoil struggled and pulled hair until he was forced to hold him out at arm’s length. Mounting, they withdrew
toward their friends. The council tepee fell in the dirt—a dozen squaws tugging at its voluminous folds. The small hostage was not many yards on his way toward his own kind before the Indian
camp moved off toward the mountains, urging their horses with whip and lance. This movement was accelerated by a great discharging of white men’s guns, who were supposed to be sacrificing the
little white Crow to some unknown passions; whereas, they were merely celebrating the advent of the white child unharmed. He was indeed unharmed as to body, but his feelings had been torn to
shreds. He added his small, shrill protesting yells to the general rejoicing.

Chick-chick, or Chickens, as the miners often called him, had not entered the expedition because of his love for children, or the color of this one in particular; so, at the suggestion of the
chairman, it was turned over to a benevolent saloon-keeper, who had nine notches in his gun, and a woman with whom he abided. “Gold Nugget,” as he was promptly named by the diggers and
freighters, was supposed to need a woman, as it was adjudged that only such a one could induce him to turn off the hot water and cease his yells.

The cavalcade reached town, to find multitudes of dirt-begrimed men thronging the streets waiting for what sensation there was left in the affair. The infant had been overcome by his exertions
and was silent. They sat him on the bar of his godfather’s saloon, while the men shouldered their brawny way through the crowd to have a look at him—the lost white child in the Indian
dress. Many drinks and pistol shots were offered up in his honor, and he having recovered somewhat, resumed his vocal protests. These plaints having silenced the crowd, it was suggested by one man
who was able to restrain his enthusiasm, that the kid ought to be turned over to some woman before he roared his head off.

Acting on this suggestion, the saloon-keeper’s female friend was given charge. Taking him to her little house back of the saloon, the child found milk and bread and feminine caresses to
calm him until he slept. It was publicly proclaimed by the nine-notch saloon-keeper that the first man who passed the door of the kid’s domicile would be number ten to his gun. This
pronunciamiento insured much needed repose to Gold Nugget during the night.

In the morning he was partially recovered from fears and tears. The women patted his face, fed him to bursting, fingered the beautiful plaits of his yellow hair, and otherwise showed that they
had not surrendered all their feminine sensibilities to their tumultuous lives. They spoke to him in pleading voices, and he gurgled up his words of reply in the unknown tongue. The
saloon-keeper’s theory that it would be a good thing to set him up on the bar some more in order to keep trade, was voted both inhuman and impracticable by the women. Later in the day a young
man managed to get on the youngster’s blind side, when by blandishments he beguiled him on to his pony in front of him. Thus he rode slowly through the streets, to the delight of the people,
who responded to Gold Nugget’s progress by volley and yell. This again frightened him, and he clung desperately to his new friend, who by waving his arm stilled the tempest of Virginia
City’s welcome, whereat the young man shouted, “Say—do you think this kid is runnin’ for sheriff?”

The Gulch voted the newcomer the greatest thing that ever happened; took him into partnership, speculated on his previous career, and drank his health. Above all they drank his health. Unitedly
they drank to his weird past—his interesting present, and to his future life and happiness, far into the night. It was good for business, said the saloon-keepers one to another.

On one of the same mountain winds which had heralded his coming was borne down the Gulch next morning the tragic words, “The kid has gone!”

“Gone?” said the miners; “gone whar?”

Alder promptly dropped its pick, buckled on its artillery, and assembled before the nine-notch man. “Where has the kid gone?” it demanded.

His woman stood beside the bar, wild-eyed and dishevelled. “I don’t know, gentlemen—I don’t have an idea. He was playing by the door of my shack last evening. I went in
the house for a minute, and when I came out he was gone. I yelled, and men came, but we could not find him hide or hair.”

“If any man has got that kid away from me—mind you this now—he will see me through the smoke,” spoke nine-notch, as he rolled his eye malevolently for a possible
reply.

Long search and inquiry failed to clear matters. The tracks around the house shed no new light. The men wound their way to their cabins up and down the Gulch, only answering inquiries by,
“The kid is gone.”

CHAPTER TWO

W
HITE
W
EASEL

F
OR MANY DAYS THE
A
BSAROKE TROTTED AND
bumped along, ceaselessly beating their ponies’ sides with their heels, and lashing
with their elk-horn whips. With their packs and travoix they could not move fast, but they made up for this by long hours of industrious ploding. An Indian is never struck without striking back,
and his counter always comes when not expected. They wanted to manœuvre their women and children, so that many hills and broad valleys would lie between them and their vengeance when it
should be taken. Through the deep cañons, among the dark pine trees, out across the bold table-lands, through the rivers of the mountains, wound the long cavalcade, making its way to the
chosen valley of Crowland, where their warriors mustered in numbers to secure them from all thought of fear of the white men.

The braves burned for vengeance on the white fools who dug in the Gulch they were leaving behind, but the yellow-eyed people were all brothers. To strike the slaves of the gravel-pits would be
to make trouble with the river-men, who brought up the powder and guns in boats every green-grass. The tribal policy was against such a rupture. The Crows, or Sparrowhawks as they called
themselves, were already encompassed by their enemies, and only able by the most desperate endeavors to hold their own hunting-grounds against the Blackfeet, Sioux, and Cheyennes. Theirs was the
pick and choosing of the northern plains. Neither too hot nor too cold, well watered and thickly grassed on the plains, swarming with buffalo, while in the winter they could retire to the upper
valleys of the Big Horn River, where they were shut in by the impassable snow-clad mountains from foreign horse thieves, and where the nutritious salt-weed kept their ponies in condition. Like all
good lands, they could only be held by a strong and brave people, who were made to fight constantly for what they held. The powder and guns could only be had from the white traders, so they made a
virtue of necessity and held their hand.

Before many days the squaw Ba-cher-hish-a rode among the lodges with little White Weasel sitting behind her, dry-eyed and content.

Alder had lost Gold Nugget, but the Indians had White Weasel—so things were mended.

His foster-mother—the one from whom the chief had taken him—had stayed behind the retreating camp, stealing about unseen. She wore the wolfskin over her back, and in those days no
one paid any attention to a wolf. In the dusk of evening she had lain near the shack where her boy was housed, and at the first opportunity she had seized him and fled. He did not cry out when her
warning hiss struck native tones on his ear. Mounting her pony, she had gained the scouts, which lay back on the Indian trail. The hat-weavers (white men) should know White Weasel no more.