Na-tee-kah had spent her life in the close retirement of an Indian village. She had been housed up among plains and mountains from all the world, and knew nothing about it. She had lived in a narrower prison than the smallest country village in all the East. The idea of visiting a white man"s camp and seeing all there was in it made her tremble all over. She knew her father and ever so many others would be there in an hour or so, and that her wonderful brother had gone on a hunt with the son of the pale-face chief, but she was to enter a strange place with only white warriors for company. It was an awful thing to do, and she could not have done it, nor would Long Bear have consented to it, but for something they both saw in the face of old Judge Parks when he patted her on the head and said,
"Be my daughter a little while. Make a white girl of her for a week.
Take good care of her."
Red men have keen eyes for character, and Long Bear understood. So did Na-tee-kah, and yet she would have run away and hidden but for her curiosity, stirred up by what Two Arrows had told her of the contents of that camp and its wagons. An offer to a white girl of a trip to Paris might be something like it, but it would not be much more. Her eyes danced and her fingers tingled as they drew near, and yet the only thing she could see was a couple of commonplace tilted wagons and a lot of horses and mules. The moment she was on the ground the old judge came to her a.s.sistance.
"Now, Na-tee-kah, I"ll show you something. Come this way."
She stood as straight as an arrow and walked along courageously, but it required all her strength of mind and will to do so. She watched him in silence, as he went into and came out of one of those mysterious rolling tents full of all unknown riches.
"There, now. That"ll keep you busy while we"re getting ready to move."
She held out both her hands, and when Ha-ha-pah-no at last put her own hand upon her shoulder and said "Ugh!" Na-tee-kah started as if she had been waked from a dream. She had been looking at pictures that told her of another world.
"Heap lie," said Ha-ha-pah-no. "Pale-face tell "em. Make lie about squaw. There!"
It was a picture of several ladies in evening dress, and Na-tee-kah had been looking at it for five minutes. No such woman as those could possibly be, nor could any human beings get themselves up so wonderfully. It was all a lie, and any intelligent squaw could detect the fraud at a glance.
Na-tee-kah drew a long breath that sounded like a sigh, and just then the shout of Yellow Pine announced that all was ready for a move.
"We"ll reach that mine to-morrow night, jedge, if we"re lively.
Everything"s goin" prime now."
With or without an invitation the relatives of Na-tee-kah trudged along with the wagons mile after mile, and Long Bear gained an extra pound of tobacco by sticking to Yellow Pine until the train halted at noon.
Ha-ha-pah-no scolded Na-tee-kah pretty nearly all the way for not knowing more about pale-faces, but she broke down at the noon camp-fire.
She undertook to play cook, and in half a minute Jonas discovered that she did not know how to make coffee.
"Wouldn"t you have b"iled a black soup?" he exclaimed.
"Poor old squaw!" said Ha-ha-pah-no. "Know all about him. Drink some once; bitter. Put sweet in. Stir him up, so."
"Ugh!" said Na-tee-kah. "Know so much. Ask Two Arrows when he come."
CHAPTER XVII
MORE FUN
Sile Parks and Two Arrows had the whole valley before them and all the mountains and valleys beyond, and one knew as much about them as did the other. Neither had ever been just there before, and yet the young Nez Perce was at home, and Sile was in a new country. Sile could ride well and he could shoot well, but here at his side was a born hunter. With all sorts of descriptive signs he asked him,
"Did you ever kill a deer?"
"Ugh! heap deer. Heap bear. Heap buffalo. Big heap."
And then all the pride of Two Arrows came to help him explain that he had killed a cougar all alone, and a big-horn and a grisly. By the time he had succeeded in doing so Sile regarded him as a red-skinned wonder, but had so interpreted some of his signs as to include a big snake, a land-turtle, and a kangaroo in the list of a.s.serted victories. It gave him some doubts as to the others, for he said to himself,
"No rabbit can jump as far as he says that thing did. There are no kangaroos here, and they have no horns. I give it up. Maybe he is lying, but he doesn"t look so."
Two Arrows was boasting quite truthfully, and the trouble was with Sile"s translation.
"Ugh! look. Rifle--"
Sile"s eyes followed the pointing finger in vain for a moment. At first he saw nothing but a clump of sumach bushes, but for once he asked no questions. What could be among them? One seemed to move a little. Could it be possible? the horns of a buck!
"Maybe I can hit him. I"ve heard of such a thing. I"ll aim below them; his body is there somewhere."
Two Arrows could have told him just how that deer was standing, but Sile"s guess-work was pretty good. He let his rifle-muzzle sink on a line with one of those antlers, and had lowered it a little too much when he pulled the trigger. The kicking of the rifle made the aim a good one, for the sharp report was answered by a great bound from the cover of the sumachs, and in an instant a mortally-wounded buck was dashing across the open, with One-eye close at his heels.
"Ugh! got him," said Two Arrows. "Heap shoot. Bow not so good."
Sile had offered to lend him a rifle at starting, but Two Arrows had prudently refused to disgrace himself. He had never owned one and did not care to show his lack of skill.
That was a fine dash after One-eye and the wounded buck, but it was a short one. The bullet had done its work so thoroughly that there was little trouble left for the dog when he seized his victim"s throat to pull him down.
There had been some hunting done by the mining party on their long journey, but Sile could have told Two Arrows if he had chosen to do so, that here lay the first deer he had ever killed. He could also have told him that it appeared to be the largest, fattest, finest, most miraculous buck that anybody in the world had ever killed; as it really was even Two Arrows spoke well of the buck and thought well of the shot which had brought it down.
"If I knew where to find our train I"d take it right in," said Sile, as they hoisted the buck to his own saddle. "I"d just as lief walk."
"Find him," said Two Arrows, understanding the searching look Sile gave towards the mountains. "Go so. Come. Get on horse; ride."
He took the lead at once, but it seemed to Sile that he was going in the wrong direction. He was not at all aware that his friend had skilfully directed their hunt on a line nearly parallel, at no great distance, from that which the train must follow. He was therefore doubly astonished when a brief ride brought them within sight of the wagon-tilts. They had halted, and Sile had double comfort: he could show his father his first deer and he could get a hot dinner, for Ha-ha-pah-no could do very well with a steak if not with coffee.
"Which of you killed the deer?" asked the judge, as they rode in.
Sile was silent long enough for Two Arrows to point at him and remark,
"Heap shoot."
"So I did, father, but he pointed him out. I"d never have seen him if I"d been alone."
"Jest so," said Yellow Pine. "There isn"t anything else on the earth like the eyesight of an Indian. I"ve had "em sight game more"n once that I"d ha" missed sure."
It puzzled Na-tee-kah somewhat that anybody else should have won anything while her wonderful brother was near by, but Ha-ha-pah-no relieved her by remarking,
"Ugh! The red-head kill deer. Two Arrows show him how. Good."
One of the miners had ridden out from the line of march and returned with another deer, so that fresh venison was plentiful in the camp. Two Arrows felt no longing for any more hunting that day, and he bluntly said so. It was ten times more to his liking to ride along with the train and keep his eyes busy. He was studying white men, and all the world knows what a curious study they are. One white boy was also studying him and his sister, and could not understand them at all.
Sile"s eyes and thoughts ran about over everything he heard or saw until he almost had a headache.
"Tell you what, father," he said to the judge, "when we go into camp again I"m going to show them my box."
"It"s a curiosity box. Show it to them."
The road was necessarily somewhat rough, and wagoning was slow work, and before sunset a place was chosen for an all-night camp. Then came Sile"s experiment. He hauled a stoutly-made, leather-covered trunk out of one of the wagons, before the eyes of Two Arrows and Na-tee-kah, and it was instantly evident that neither had ever seen one, but that both understood its use. He unstrapped it, but it did not open, and he made them try it. Lock and key were mysteries they had no thought of, and they almost started back with surprise when Sile pushed a thin bit of steel into one side of that contrivance and all the upper part of it could be tipped right over.