"I don"t feel like tellin" about it jest now. There"s too good a chance for tryin" it again to suit me."
"Is that so? Pine, do you know, I wish you"d tell me how they came to call you Yellow Pine."
The fear of either thirst or hunger had plainly not yet fallen upon Sile, or he would not have asked that question just then. It sounded so much like fourteen years old and recklessness that the great, gaunt man turned in his saddle and looked at him.
"I"d call it--Well, now, you"re a customer. Some reckon it"s my complexion, and I am turned kind o" yaller, but it ain"t. It"s my own name."
"How"d you get it, anyway?"
"How? Well, my father was just like me; he was a wise man. He named me after his brother, my uncle Ogden, and after Colonel Yell, that was killed in the Mexican war. So I"m Yell O. Pine, and n.o.body but you ever cared how it kem so."
Sile was satisfied as to that one point, but there did not seem to be anything else on that prairie about which he was satisfied, and at last his companion remarked to him,
"Now look here, Sile Parks, you go back and tell the judge, if I"ve got to answer questions for you all night, he"ll hev to raise my wages. I"m thirsty with it now, and there"s no water to spare."
Sile was in no wise disconcerted, but rode back to the main body in excellent spirits. It was the first real danger of any sort that the expedition had encountered, and there was a keen excitement in it. He had read of such things, and now he was in one without the least idea in the world but what everything would come out all right, just as it does in a novel. Before midnight he had asked every other human being around him all the questions he could think of, and had dismounted four times to examine the gra.s.s at the wayside and see if it were of any better quality. Each time he was compelled to mount again and ride on to his father, "Chips."
When bunch-gra.s.s gets to be so dry that it will crumble in the fingers it ceases to be of any use except to carry a prairie-fire in a great hurry. It will do that wonderfully, but it will not do to feed animals on, and it was needful to have something better.
When a halt was called, at about twelve o"clock, and a rest of two hours was decided on, the barrels of water in the wagons were drawn upon for only a moderate ration all around, and the animals plainly testified their eagerness for more. They were not at all distressed as yet, but they would have been if they had done that amount of work under sunshine. When the moment for again setting out arrived and the word was given, Judge Parks inquired,
"Pine, where is Sile?"
"Where? I"d call it--There he is on his blanket, sound asleep. I"ll shake him up."
"Do, while I put the saddle on his horse. Guess he"s tired a little."
A sharp shake of Sile"s shoulder had to be followed by another, and then a sleepy voice responded,
"Water? Why, Pine, there"s a whole lake of it. Was you ever at sea?"
"Sea be hanged! Git up; it"s time to travel."
"Ah, halloo! I"m ready. I dreamed we"d got there. Riding so much makes me sleepy."
He was quickly in the saddle again, and they went forward; but there were long faces among them at about breakfast-time that morning. They were halted by some clumps of sickly willows, and Yellow Pine said, mournfully,
"Yer"s where the redskins made their next camp. They and their critters trod the pool down to nothin" and let the sun in onto it, and it"s as dry as a bone. We"re in for a hard time and no mistake."
CHAPTER V
A VERY OLD TRAIL
During all that was left of that happy day in the Nez Perce camp there was an immense amount of broiling and boiling done. Whoever left the great business of eating enough and went and sat down or lay down got up again after a while and did some more remarkable eating. All the life of an Indian trains him for that kind of thing, for he goes on in a sort of continual vibration from feast to famine.
All the other boys in camp were as hungry as Two Arrows, and as their hunger went down their envy of him went up; he had suddenly stepped ahead of them and had become an older boy in a moment. It was very much as if a boy of his age in the "settlements" had waked up, some fine morning, with a pair of mustaches and a military t.i.tle, uniform and all.
Two Arrows was ent.i.tled to strut a little, and so was One-eye, but for some reason neither of them was inclined to anything but eating and lying down. One-eye may have felt lonely, for he found himself the only dog in all that camp, and he knew very well what had become of the dogs he used to know: they had gone to the famine, and there had been no sort of funeral ceremonies, and now there could be no kind of neighborly quarrel over bones any more. There was a reason, why One-eye should attach himself more closely than ever to his master and follow his every movement. They had killed two buffaloes in company, and there was no telling what they might or might not yet do if they kept together.
Two Arrows found the effects of his long fasting rapidly pa.s.sing away, but he was like everybody else and needed a big sleep. One-eye had the only eye that did any watching all that night, and n.o.body but the fat squaw was up very early next morning. Her next company was the Big Tongue, and he at once began to talk about the game he intended to kill, now he had had something to eat. Two Arrows might not have been the next riser if it had not been for a friendly tug from One-eye, but the moment he was awake he knew that he was hungry again. He was hungry, but he was silent, and it was plain that he was thinking about something uncommonly interesting. He stood in front of his father"s lodge, waiting for the breakfast that was now sure to come, when a light hand was laid upon his arm and a soft musical voice exclaimed, triumphantly,
"Two Arrows! Name!"
"Ugh," said he. "Na-tee-kah."
He hardly looked around, but the pleasantest face in all that band was smiling upon him. It bore a strong resemblance to his own, and belonged to an Indian girl a year or so younger than himself. She was well grown, slender, and graceful, and had a pair of eyes as brilliant as his, but a great deal more gentle and kindly in their expression. They lacked the restless, searching, eager look, and his, indeed were quieter than they had been the day before.
"Got plenty to eat now," she said. "Not starve to death any more."
"Eat all up," replied he. "Fool! Starve again, pretty soon."
"No, Long Bear and old men say, keep all there is left. Work to-day. Dry meat. Go hunting somewhere else. Not stay here."
There was a little more talk that indicated a very fair degree of affection between the brother and sister, and then Two Arrows said to her,
"Keep tongue very still. Come."
She followed him to the lower edge of the camp, and he silently pointed her to the place where the old buffalo trail came in.
"Great many make that. Long time. All know why."
"The cow came in there."
"Ugh! now come."
She followed him now to the upper end of the camp, and he pointed again to the trail, deeply and plainly made, going on into the gorges of the mountains.
"Buffalo go that way; Two Arrows follow. Say no word. Not find him pretty soon."
That was the meaning of all his thoughtfulness. He meant to set off on a hunt of his own planning, without asking permission of anybody. Two days earlier he would not have dreamed of such a piece of insubordination.
Now he had won his right to do that very thing, and he meant to take advantage of it instantly. All the young ambition in him had been stirred to the boiling point, and his only remaining anxiety was to get a good supply of provisions and get out of the camp without being seen by anybody. He could look out for his weapons, including several of his father"s best arrows, and Na-tee-kah at once promised to steal for him all the meat he wanted. She went right into his plan with the most sisterly devotion, and her eyes looked more and more like his when she next joined her mother and the other squaws at their camp-fire. There was no doubt but what her brother would have his marching rations supplied well, and of the best that was to be had.
There was no need for Two Arrows to steal from Long Bear. What between pride and buffalo meat the old chief was ready to give or rather lend him anything, and he deemed it his heroic son"s day to parade and show off. He was ent.i.tled to do so with the best weapons in his father"s collection. The day would surely come when he would be allowed to paint himself and do a great many other things belonging to full-grown braves and warriors. It was even lawful for him to wear a patch or two of paint now, and Na-tee-kah helped him to put it on. If he had been a white boy with his first standing-collar, he could not have been more particular, and every other boy in camp had something to say to the others about the fit of that vermilion.
It was a day of drying and smoking meat, and of eating as much as the older men permitted, and everybody wore an aspect of extreme good-humor except One-eye and his master. The dog and the boy alike kept away from the camp-fires and from all grown-up Indians. Towards the middle of the afternoon, Na-tee-kah slipped quietly out at the upper end of the camp, carrying her own buckskin sack nearly full of something, and n.o.body thought of asking her what there might be in it. She had not been gone many minutes before anybody loafing at that end of the camp might have seen her brother was following her. He had been standing near the spring for some time, in full rig, for the other boys to admire him, and now he walked dignifiedly away as if he were weary of being looked at. Half a mile farther up the rugged valley he caught up with Na-tee-kah, and she returned to camp without her bead-worked sack. There was nothing at all noticeable in the whole affair, unless some suspicious person had been closely watching them. It was after sunset before there was any special inquiry for Two Arrows, and it was dark before Na-tee-kah expressed her belief that he had "gone hunt." She replied freely to every question asked her, well knowing that there would be no pursuit, but she was more than a little relieved when the old chief, instead of getting angry about it, swelled up proudly and remarked,
"Two Arrows! young brave. All like father, some day. Kill more buffalo."
Then Na-tee-kah felt courage to speak about the trail and her brother"s reasoning as to where it might lead to. She had her ears boxed for that, as it had a sound of giving advice to her elders, but it was not long before her father gravely informed a circle of the warriors and braves that the path pointed out by the buffalo cow was the one by which they must seek for more like her. It was very easy to convince them that they could do nothing upon the dry, sunburnt plains, or by staying to starve again in that camp. The objection made by Big Tongue that n.o.body knew where that old trail might carry them was met by Long Bear conclusively.
He picked up a dry pony-bone that lay on the ground and held it out to Big Tongue.
"All other trail go this way. Know all about it. Been there."
It was enough. It was better to follow an unknown trail than to starve, and it was not long before it leaked out that Two Arrows was believed to have gone ahead of them on that very road.