While still at meat, the drum, which had been sounding at intervals, suddenly took on a wilder energy, followed immediately by a high, shrill, yelping call, which was instantly augmented by a half-dozen others, all as savage and startling as the sudden burst of howling from a pack of wolves. This clamor fell away into a deep, throbbing chant, only to rise again to the yelping, whimpering cries with which it began.
Every woman stiffened with terror, with wide eyes questioning Curtis.
"What is all that?"
"The opening chorus," he explained, much amused. "A song of the chase."
The dusk was beginning to fall, and the tepees, with their small, sparkling fires close beside, and the shadowy, blanketed forms a.s.sembling slowly, silently, gave a wonderful remoteness and wildness to the scene. To Curtis it was quite like the old-time village. The husky voice of the aged crier seemed like a call from out of the years primeval before the white race with its devastating energy and its killing problems had appeared in the east. The artist in Elsie, now fully awake, dominated the daughter of wealth. "Oh, this is beautiful! I never expected to see anything so primitive."
Knowing that his guests were eager to view it all, Curtis led the way towards the dance-lodge. Elsie was moved to take her place beside him, but checked herself and turned to Lawson, leaving Mrs. Parker to walk at the Captain"s elbow.
To the ears of the city dwellers the uproar was appalling--full of murder and sudden death. As they approached the lodge the frenzied booming of the drum, the wild, yelping howls, the shrill whooping, brought up in their minds all the stories of dreadful deeds they had ever read, and Parker said to Jennie:
"Do you really think the Captain will be able to control them?"
Jennie laughed. "I"m used to this clamor; it"s only their way of singing."
Elsie said: "They must be flourishing b.l.o.o.d.y scalping-knives in there; it is direful."
"Wait and see," said Lawson.
The dance-house was a large octagonal hut built of pine logs, partly roofed with gra.s.s and soil. It was lighted by a leaping fire in the centre, and by four lanterns on the walls, and as Curtis and his party entered, the clamor (in their honor) redoubled. In a first swift glance Elsie apprehended only a confused, jingling, fluttering ma.s.s of color--a chaos of leaping, half-naked forms and a small circle of singers fiercely a.s.saulting a drum which sat on the floor at the right of the door.
Then Red Wolf, calm, stately, courtly, came before them carrying his wand of office and conducted them to seats at the left of the fire, and the girl"s heart ceased to pound so fiercely. Looking back she saw Jennie shaking hands with one of the fiercest of the painted and beplumed dancers, and recognized him as Blue Fox. Turning, she fixed her eyes on a middle-aged man who was dancing as sedately as Washington might have led the minuet, his handsome face calm of line and the clip of his lips genial and placid. Plainly the ferocity did not extend to the dancers; the singers alone seemed to express hate and l.u.s.t and war.
The music suddenly ceased, and in an instant the girl"s mind cleared.
She perceived that the singers were laughing as they rolled their cigarettes, and that the savage warrior dancers were gossiping together as they rested, while all about her sat plump young girls in gay dresses, very conscious of the eyes of the young men. In her early life Elsie had attended a country dance, and her changed impressions of this mad, blood-thirsty revel was indicated in her tone as she said:
"Why, it"s just an old-fashioned country hoe-down."
Curtis laughed. "I congratulate you on your penetration," he mockingly said.
The old men came up to shake hands with the agent, and on being presented to Elsie smiled rea.s.suringly. Their manners were very good, indeed. Several of them gravely made a swift sign which caused Curtis to color and look confused, and when his answering sign caused them all to look at Lawson, Elsie demanded to know what it was all about.
"Do you think you"d better know?" he asked.
"Certainly, I insist on knowing," she added, as he hesitated again.
He looked at her, but a little unsteadily. "They asked if you were my bride, and I replied no, that you came with Lawson."
It was her turn to look confused. "The impudent things!" was all she could find to say at the moment.
Red Wolf called out a few imperative words, the song began with its imitation of the wolves at war as before, then settled into a pounding chant--deep, resonant, and inspiriting. The dancers sprang forth--not all, but a part of them--as though their names had been called, while a curious little bent and withered old man crept in like a gnome and built up the fire till it blazed brightly. As they danced the younger men re-enacted with abrupt, swift, violent, yet graceful gestures the drama of wild life. They trailed game, rescued lost warriors, and defeated enemies.
"You see it proceeds with decorum," said Curtis to Elsie and Mrs.
Parker, as the dancers returned to their seats. "They enjoy it just as white people enjoy a cotillion, and, barring the noise of the singers, it is quite as formal and harmless."
A little boy in full dancing costume now came on with the rest, and the visitors exclaimed in delight of his grace and dignity. He could not have been more than six years of age. His companion, an old man of seventy, was a good deal of a wag, and danced in comic-wise to make the on-lookers laugh.
Parker was fairly hooking his chin over Curtis"s shoulder to hear every word uttered and to see all that went on, and Curtis was in the midst of an explanation of the significance of the drama of the dance, when a short, st.u.r.dy, bow-legged Tetong, dressed in a policeman"s uniform, pushed his way in at the door and thrust a letter at his agent"s hand.
Instantly every eye was fixed on Curtis"s bent head as he opened the letter. The dancers took their seats, whispering and muttering, the drum ceased, and the singers, turned into bronze figures, stared solemnly. A nervous chill ran though Elsie"s blood and Parker turned pale and cold.
"What"s up--what"s up?" he asked, hurriedly. "This is a creepy pause."
Lawson laid a hand on his arm and shut down on it like a vice.
Red Wolf brought a lantern and held it at the Captain"s shoulder.
Jennie, leaning over, caught the words, "There"s been a row over on the Willow--"
Curtis calmly folded the paper, nodded and smiled his thanks to Red Wolf, and then lifting his hand he signed to the policeman, in full view of all the dancers:
"Go back and tell Wilson to issue just the same amount of flour this week that he did last, and that Red Wolf wants a new mowing-machine for his people. You need not return till morning." Then, turning to Red Wolf, he said: "Go on with the dance; my friends are much pleased."
The tension instantly gave way, every one being deceived but Jennie, who understood the situation and tried to help on the deception, but her round face was plainly anxious.
Elsie, as she ceased to wonder concerning the forms and regulations of the dance, grew absorbed in the swirling forms, the harsh clashing of colors, the short, shrill cries, the gleam of round and polished limbs, the haughty fling of tall head-dresses, and the lightness of the small and beautifully modelled feet drumming upon the ground; but most of all she was moved by the aloofness of expression on the faces of many of the dancers. For the most part they seemed to dream--to revisit the past--especially the old men. Their lips were sad, their eyes pensive--singularly so--and mentally the girl said: "I must paint my next portrait of this quality--an old man dreaming of the olden time. I wonder if they really were happy in those days--happier than our civilization can make them?" and thoughts came to her which shook her confidence in the city and the mart. For the first time in her life she doubted the sanct.i.ty of the steam-engine and the ore-crusher.
As they took their seats from time to time the older men smoked their long pipes; only the young men rolled their cigarettes. To them the past was a child"s recollection, not the irrevocable dream of age. They were the links between the old and the new.
As the time came to go, Curtis rose and addressed his people in signs.
"We are glad to be here," he said. "All my friends are pleased. My heart is joyous when you dance. I do not forbid it. Sometimes Washington tells me to do something, and I must obey. They say you must not dance the war-dance any more, and so I must forbid it. This dance was pleasant--it is not bad. My heart is made warm to be with you. I am visiting all my people, and I must go to-morrow. Do not quarrel with the white man. Be patient, and Washington will do you good."
Each promise was greeted by the old men with cries of: "Ay! Ay!" and the drummers thumped the drums most furiously in applause. And so the agent said, "Good-night," and withdrew.
XVIII
ELSIE"S ANCIENT LOVE AFFAIR
As they walked back to their camp Jennie took her brother"s arm:
"What is it, George?"
"I must return to the agency."
"That means we must all go?"
"I suppose so. The settlers seemed determined to make trouble. They have had another row with Gray Man"s band, and shots have been fired.
Fortunately no one was hurt. We must leave here early. Say nothing to any of our guests till we are safely on the way home."
Elsie, walking with Lawson, was very pensive. "I begin to understand why Captain Curtis is made Indian agent. He understands these people, sympathizes with them."
"No one better, and if the department can retain him six years he will have the Tetongs comfortably housed and on the road to independence and self-respect."