THE CAPTURE OF THE MAN
The east was saffron and pale-blue as Crow and the agent drove out of the corral and up the road to the south. Two Horns was the driver. Crow alone was armed, and he wore but his official revolver. Maynard had been purposely left out of the expedition, for Curtis did not wish to seem to question in the slightest degree the obedience of his people. He preferred to go unarmed and without handcuffs or rope, as a friend and adviser, not as an officer of the law.
The morning was deliciously cool, with a gentle wind sliding down from the high peaks, which were already glowing with the morning"s pink and yellow. From some of the tepees in Grayman"s camp smoke was already rising, and a few old women could be seen pottering about the cooking lodges, while the morning chorus of the dogs and coyotes thickened.
There was an elemental charm in it all which helped the young soldier to shake off his depression.
Pa.s.sing rapidly through the two villages, Two Horns turned to the left and entered upon a road which climbed diagonally up the side of a long, low ridge. This involved plodding, and by the time they reached the summit the sun met them full-fronted. In the smaller valley, which lay between this ridge and the foot-hills, a rough trail led towards the mountains. This way Two Horns took, driving rapidly and silently, and soon entered the pines and pinons which form the lower fringe of the vast and splendid robe of green which covers the middle heights of the Rocky Mountains.
After an hour of sharp driving, with scarcely a word or gesture, Crow turned and said: "Cut Finger there. Black Wolf, his tepee."
The trail here took a sharp curve to the left to avoid a piece of stony ground, and from a little transverse ridge Curtis could look down on a small, temporary village, the band of Black Wolf, who had located here to cut hay on the marsh.
"We must surprise him if we can," said Curtis to Crow. "We must not shoot. I will talk to him. If he c.o.c.ks his gun kill him; but I don"t think he will want to fight."
The lads could be heard singing their plaintive songs as they climbed the hills for their ponies. Smoke was rising from each lodge, and children, dogs, and hens were outdoing each other in cheerful uproar as Two Horns drove up to where Black Wolf stood, an old man with thin, gray hair, shielding his eyes with the scant shadow of his bony wrist.
"Ho, agent!" he cried. "Why do you come to see us so early?"
"Is Cut Finger here?"
"Yes; he is in there." He pointed to a tepee near.
"Be silent!" commanded Curtis, as he alighted swiftly, but without apparent haste or excitement. Crow instantly followed him, alert and resolute. As they entered the tepee Cut Finger, still half asleep on his willow hammock, instinctively reached for his rifle, which lay beneath him on the ground, dangerous as a half-awakened rattlesnake.
Curtis put his foot on the weapon, and said, pleasantly: "Good-morning, Cut Finger; you sleep late."
The young man sat up and blinked stupidly, while Crow took the gun from beneath the agent"s foot.
Curtis signed to Black Wolf. "This boy has killed a herder and I have come for him. You knew of his deed."
"I have heard of it," the old man replied, with a gesture.
"It is such men who bring trouble on the tribe," pursued Curtis. "They must be punished. Cut Finger must go with me down to the agency. He must not make more trouble."
The news of the agent"s mission brought every soul hurrying to the tent, for Cut Finger had said, "I will fight the soldiers if they come."
Curtis heard them coming and said: "Crow, tell all these people outside that Cut Finger has done a bad thing and must be punished. That unless such men are cast out by the Tetongs they will always be in trouble."
Crow lifted up his big, resounding voice and recounted what the agent had said, and added: "You shall see we will take this man. I, Crow, have said it. It will be foolish for any one to resist."
The agent, sitting before Cut Finger, addressed him in signs. "I am your friend, I am sorry for you. I am sorry for any man who does wrong and suffers punishment; but you have injured your people, you made the white man very angry; he came ready to shoot--you saw how I turned him away.
I said: "I will find the man who shot the herder. I will bring him--I do not want any one else to suffer." Then you proclaimed yourself. You said: "I alone did this thing." Then you went on the hill to fight--I cannot allow that. No more blood will be shed. I will not lie; I have come to take you. You will be punished; you must go with me to the white man"s strong-house."
A whimpering cry arose, a cry which ended in a sighing moan of heart-piercing, uncontrollable agony, and Curtis, turning his face, saw the wife of Cut Finger looking at him from her blanket on the opposite side of the tepee. A shout of warning from Crow made him leap to his feet and turn.
Cut Finger confronted him, his eyes glowing with desperate resolution.
"_Sit down!_" commanded the Captain, using his fist in the sign, with a powerful gesture. The fugitive could not endure his chief"s eyes; he sank back on his couch and sat trembling.
"If you touch the Little Father I will kill you," said Crow, gruffly, as he stood with drawn revolver in his hand. "I, Crow, have said it!"
Black Wolf was looking on with lowering brow. "He says the white man was driving his sheep on our land."
"So he was," replied Curtis, "but it is bad for the Tetongs when a white man is killed. It is better to come and tell me. When a redman kills a white man the white men say: "Let us kill _all_ the Tetongs--spare no one." Cut Finger said he was ready to die. Well, then, let him go with me, and I will make his punishment as light as I can. I am his friend--a friend to every Tetong. I will tell the war chief at Pinon City how it was, and he will say Cut Finger was not alone to blame--the white man was also to blame. Thus the punishment will not be so heavy.
Cut Finger is a young man; he has many years to live if he will do as I tell him. He will come back to his tribe by-and-by and be a good man."
So, by putting forth all his skill in gesture he conveyed to Cut Finger"s mind a new idea--the idea of sacrificing himself for the good of the tribe. He also convinced the members of Black Wolf"s band that their peace and safety lay in giving him up to their agent, and so at last the young desperado rose and followed his chief to the wagon wherein Two Horns still sat, impa.s.sive and unafraid.
As he put his hand on the carriage-seat a convulsive shudder swept over Cut Finger. He folded his arms and, lifting his eyes to the hills, burst forth in a death-song, a chant so sad, so pa.s.sionate, and so searching, that the agent"s heart was wrenched. Answering sobs and wails broke from the women, and the young wife of the singer came and crouched at his feet, her little babe in her arms, and this was his song:
"I am going away.
I go to my death.
The white man has said it-- I am to die in a prison.
I am young, but I must go-- I have a wife, but I must go To die among the white men In the dark.
So says the soldier chief."
Curtis, looking into the eyes of Black Wolf, perceived that the old man wavered. The wailing of the women, the young man"s song, had roused his racial hatred--what to him was the killing of a "white robber"?
"Be quiet!" commanded Curtis, and the song ceased. "Get in, quick! No more singing."
The ending of the song left the prisoner in a mood of gloomy yet pa.s.sive exaltation. He took the place indicated and sat with bowed head, his hands limply crossed.
"Go on!" commanded Curtis, and Two Horns brought the whip down on the horses. As they sprang forward a wail of agony burst from the lips of the bereaved young wife. At this cry Cut Finger again turned upon the agent with hands opened like the claws of a bear--his face contorted with despair. Curtis seized him in a grip whose crunching power made itself felt to the marrow of the Tetong"s bones, and his eyes, piercing with terrible determination, shrivelled the resolution of the half-crazed man. He sank back into his seat, a hopeless lump of swaying flesh, his face a tragic mask, and uttered no further word till the sound of a galloping horse made them all turn to see who followed.
"My wife!" the prisoner said. "She carries my baby."
This was indeed true. The sad little wife was galloping after, riding a strong bay pony, the reins flapping loose, while across the pommel of her saddle she held her small pappoose, whose faint wailing told of his discomfort and terror.
"Wait--me take pappoose," the prisoner said, in English, with a note of command.
Curtis was deeply touched. He ordered Two Horns to halt, and Crow got out and took the babe and handed it to Cut Finger, who received it carefully in his long arms. No woman could have been tenderer.
As they drove on, a big lump rose in the soldier"s throat. It seemed a treacherous and sinful thing to hand this man over to a savage throng of white men, perhaps to be lynched on the road. "I will not do it," he said; "I will take him to Pinon City myself. He shall have trial as if he were white. I will yield him to the law, but not to vengeance."
Cut Finger thereafter spoke no word, did not even look back, though Curtis detected him turning his head whenever the sound of the galloping horse grew faint or died away for a few moments. The baby ceased to wail, and on the rough ground, when the wagon jarred, the father held the little one high as in a sling.
Upon entering the camp of Crawling Elk they found all the people ma.s.sed, waiting, listening, and their presence excited the prisoner greatly, and he began again to sing his death-chant, which now seemed infinitely more touching by reason of the small creature he cradled so lovingly in his arms.
"Be silent!" commanded Curtis. "You must not sing. Drive fast, Two Horns!"
Answering wails and fragments of chanting broke from the women; one or two cried out, "Take him from the agent!" But the men shook their heads and sadly watched them pa.s.s. "He has done a foolish thing; he must now suffer for it," said Crawling Elk.
As they drew up before the door of the parsonage Curtis sprang out and said to Cut Finger:
"Give me the baby; he shall be well cared for."
The father gave up the child pa.s.sively, and Curtis called to Jennie: