by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER XI. ALL THIS WAR-TALK ABOUT INJUNS
Over his second cup of coffee the pale eyes of Big Medicine goggledthoughtfully at the forbidding wall of lava rock that stretched beforethem as far as he could see to left or right. There were places here andthere where he believed that a man could climb to the top with the aidof his hands as well as his feet, but for the horses he was extremelyskeptical; and as for a certain big red automobile.... His eyes swungfrom the brown rampart and rested grievedly upon the impassive face ofLuck, who was just then reaching forward to spear another slice of baconfrom the frying pan.
"Kinda looks to me, by cripes, as if we'd come to the end uh the trail,"he observed in his usual full-lunged bellow, as though he had all hislife been accustomed to pitching his voice above some unending clamor."Yuh got any idee of how an autyMObile clumb that there rim-rock?"
Old Applehead, squatting on his heels across the little camp-fire,leaned and picked a coal out of the ashes for his pipe and afterwardscocked his eyes toward Big Medicine.
"What yuh calc'late yuh tryin' to do?" he inquired pettishly. "Startup an argyment uh some kind? Cause if ye air, lemme tell yuh I got theyer-ache from listenin' to you las' night."
Big Medicine looked at him as though he was going to spring upon him indeadly combat--but that was only a peculiar facial trick of his. Whathe did do was to pour that last swallow of hot, black coffee down histhroat and then laugh his big haw-haw-haw that could be heard half amile off.
"Y' oughta kep Applehead to home with the wimmin folks, Luck," he bawledunabashed. "Night air's bad fer 'im, and the trail ain't goin' to besmooth goin',--not if we gotta ride our hawses straight up, by cripes!"
"We haven't got to." Luck balanced his slice of bacon upon theunscorched side of a bannock and glanced indifferently at the rim ofrock that was worrying the other. "I swung down here to make camp offthe trail But it's only a half mile or so over this rise that lookslevel to you, to where the lava ledge peters out so we can ride over iteasier than we rode up off the river-flat in that loose sand. That easeyour mind any?"
"Helps some," Big Medicine admitted, his eyes going speculatively to therise that looked perfectly level. "I'm willin' to take your word ferit, boss. But what's gittin' to worry me, by cripes, is all this herewar-talk about Injuns. Honest to grandma, I feel like as if I'd beenreadin'--"
"Aw, it's jest a josh, Bud!" Happy Jack asserted boredly. "I betchethere ain't been a Injun on the fight here sence hell was a tradin'post!"
"You think there hasn't?" Luck looked up quickly to ask. But oldApplehead rose up and shook an indignant finger at Happy Jack.
"There ain't, hey? Well, I calc'late that fer a josh, them thar Navvieshas got a right keen sense uh humor, and I've knowed men to lafftheirselves to death on their danged resavation--now I'm tellin' yuh IIt was all a josh mebby, when they riz up a year or two back 'cause oneuh their tribe was goin' t' be arrested er some darn thing! Ole GeneralScott, he didn't call it no joke when he, went in thar to settle 'emdown, did he? I calc'late, mebby it was jest fer a josh them troopswaited on the aidge, ready to go in if he didn't git back a certaintime! 'N' that wasn't so fur back, shorely,--only two years. Why dangyour fool heart, I've laid out there in them hills myself and fitoff the Navvies--'n' _I_ didn't see nothin' much to laugh at, now I'mtellin' yuh! Time I went there after Jose Martinez--"
"Better get under way, boys," Luck interrupted, having heard many timesthe details of that fight and capture. "We'll throw out a circle andpick up the trail of that machine, or whatever they made their getawayin. My idea is that they must have stached some horses out heresomewhere. I don't believe they'd take the risk of trying to get awayin a machine; that would hold them to the main trails, mostly. I know itwouldn't be my way of getting outa reach. I'd want horses so I could getinto rough country, and I've doped it out that Ramon is too trail-wiseto bank very high on an automobile once he got out away from town.Applehead, you and Lite and Pink and Weary form one party if it comesto where we want to divide forces. Pack a complete camp outfit on thesorrel and the black--you notice that's the way I had 'em packed first.Keep their packs just as we started out, then you'll be ready to strikeout by yourselves whenever it seems best. Get me?"
"We get you, boss," Weary sang out cheerfully, and went to workgathering up the breakfast things and putting them into two little pilesfor the packs. Pink led up the black and the sorrel, and helped to packthem with bedding and supplies for four, as Luck had ordered, while Liteand Applehead saddled their horses and then came up to help throw thediamond hitches on the packs.
A couple of rods nearer the rock wall Happy Jack was grumbling, acrossthe canvas pack of a little bay, at Big Medicine, who was warninghim against leaving his hair so long as a direct temptation toscalp-lifting. Luck bad already mounted and ridden out a little way,where he could view the country behind them with his field glasses,to make sure that in the darkness they had not passed by anything thatdeserved a closer inspection. He came back at a lope and motioned toAndy and the Native Son.
"That red automobile is standing back about half a mile," he announcedhurriedly. "Empty and deserted, looks like. We'll go back and take alook at it. The rest of you can finish packing and wait here till wecome back. No use making extra travel for your horses. They'll get allthey need, the chances are."
The red automobile was empty of everything but the upholstering and ajack in the toolbox. The state license number was gone, and the serialnumber on the engine had been hammered into illegibility. What tracksthere were had been blown nearly full of the white sand of thatparticular locality There was nothing to be learned there, except thevery patent fact that the machine bad been abandoned for some reason.Luck took a look at the engine and saw nothing wrong with it. There wasoil and there was "gas"--a whole tank full. Andy and Miguel, ridingan ever-widening circle around the machine while Luck was looking forevidence of a breakdown, ran across a lot of hoofprints that seemed tohead straight away past the rim-rock and on to the hills.
They picked up the trail of the hoofprints and followed it. When theyreturned to the others they found the boys all mounted and waitingimpatiently like hounds on the leash eager to get away on the chase. Sixhorses there were, and even old Applehead, who was in a bad humor thatmorning and seemed to hate agreeing with anyone, admitted that probablythe four who had committed the robbery and left town in the machine hadbeen met out here by a man who brought horses for them and one extrapack horse. This explained the number in the most plausible manner, andsatisfied everyone that they were on the right trail.
Riding together--since they were on a plain trail and there was nothingto be gained by separating--they climbed to the higher mesa, crossed theridge of the three barren hills that none of them but Applehead had everpassed, and went on and on and on as the hoofprints led them, straighttoward the reservation.
They discussed the robbery from every angle--they could think of, andonce or twice someone hazarded a guess at Annie-Many-Ponies' reasonfor leaving and her probable destination. They wondered how old DaveWiswell, the dried little cattleman of The Phantom Herd, was making outin Denver, where he had gone to consult a specialist about some kidneytrouble that had interfered with his riding all spring. Weary suggestedthat maybe Annie-Many-Ponies had taken a notion to go and visit oldDave, since the two were old friends.
It was here that Applehead unwittingly put into words the vaguesuspicion which Luck had been trying to stifle and had not yet faced asa definite idea.
"I calc'late we'll likely find that thar squaw putty tol'ble close towhar we find Bill Holmes," Applehead remarked sourly. "Her goin'off same, day they stuck up that bank don't look to me like nohappenstance--now I'm tellin' yuh! 'N' if I was shurf, and was ast tolocate that squaw, I'd keep right on the trail uh Bill Holmes, jest aswe're doin' now."
"That isn't like Annie," Luck said sharply to, still the conviction inhis own mind. "Whatever faults she may have, she's been loyal to me, andhonest. Look how she stuck last winter, when she didn't have a
nything atstake, wasn't getting any salary, and yet worked like a dog to helpmake the picture a success. Look how she got up in the night when theblizzard struck, and fed our horses and cooked breakfast of her ownaccord, just so I could get out early and get my scenes. I've knownher since she was a dirty-faced papoose, and I never knew her to lieor steal. She wasn't in on that robbery--I'll bank on that, and shewouldn't go off with a thief. It isn't like Annie."
"Well," said Big Medicine, thinking of his own past, "the best uh womengoes wrong when some knot-headed man gits to lovemakin'. They'll dothings fer the wrong kinda man, by cripes, that they wouldn't do fer noother human on earth. I've knowed a good woman to lie and steal--fera man that wasn't fit, by cripes, to tip his hat to 'er in the street!Women," he added pessimistically, "is something yuh can't bank on, assafe as yuh can on a locoed horse!" He kicked his mount unnecessarilyby way of easing the resentment which one woman had managed to instilagainst the sex in general.
"That's where you're darned right, Bud," Pink attested with a suddenbitterness which memory brought. "I wouldn't trust the best woman thatever lived outa my sight, when you come right down to cases."
"Aw, here!" Andy Green, thinking loyally of his Rosemary, swung hishorse indignantly toward the two. "Cut that out, both of you! Justbecause you two got stung, is no reason why you've got to run down allthe rest of the women. I happen to know one--"
"Aw, nobody was talking about Rosemary," Big Medicine apologizedgruffly. "She's different; any fool knows that."
"Well, I've got a six-gun here that'll talk for another one," silentLite Avery spoke up suddenly. "One that would tip the scales on thewoman's side for goodness if the rest of the whole sex was bad."
"Oh, thunder!" Pink cried, somewhat redder than the climbing sun alonewould warrant. "I'll take it back. I didn't mean THEM--you know darnedwell I didn't mean them--nor lots of other women I know. What I meantwas--"
"What you meant was Annie," Luck broke in uncompromisingly. "And I'm notcondemning her just because things look black. You don't know Indiansthe way I know them. There's some things an Indian will do, and thenagain there's some things they won't do. You boys don't know it--butyesterday morning when we left the ranch, Annie-Many-Ponies made me thepeace-sign. And after that she went into her tent and began to sing theOmaha. It didn't mean anything to you--Old Dave is the only one thatwould have sabed, and he wasn't there. But it meant enough to me thatI came pretty near riding back to have a pow-wow with Annie, even if wewere late. I wish I had. I'd have less on my conscience right now."
"Fur's I kin see," Applehead dissented impatiently, "you ain't gotno call to have nothin' on your conscience where that thar squaw isconcerned. You treated her a hull lot whiter'n what she deserved--nowI'm tellin' ye! 'N' her traipsin' around at nights 'n'--"
"I tell you, you don't know Indians!" Luck swung round in the saddleso that he could face Applehead. "You don't know the Sioux, anyway. Shewouldn't have made me that peace-sign if she'd been double-crossing me,I tell you. And she wouldn't have sung the Omaha if she was going tothrow in with a thief that was trying to lay me wide open to suspicion.I've been studying things over in my mind, and there's something in thisaffair I can't sabe. And until you've got some proof, the less you sayabout Annie-Many-Ponies the better I'll be pleased."
That, coming from Luck in just that tone and with just that look in hiseyes, was tantamount to an ultimatum, and it was received as one. OldApplehead grunted and chewed upon a wisp of his sunburned mustache thatlooked like dried cornsilk after a frost. The Happy Family exchangedcareful glances and rode meekly along in silence. There was not a manof them but believed that Applehead was nearer right than Luck, but theywere not so foolish as to express that belief.
After a while Big Medicine began bellowing tunelessly that old ditty,once popular but now half forgotten:
"Nava, Nava, My Navaho-o I have a love for you that will grow-ow!"
Which stirred old Applehead to an irritated monologue upon the theme ofcertain persons whose ignorance is not blissful, but trouble-inviting.Applehead, it would seem from his speech upon the subject, would be amuch surprised ex-sheriff--now a deputy--if they were not all capturedand scalped, if not worse, the minute their feet touched the forbiddensoil of these demons in human form, the Navajo Indians.
"If they were not too busy weaving blankets for Fred Harvey," Luckqualified with his soft Texan drawl and the smile that went with it."You talk as if these boys were tourists."
"Yes," added Andy Green maliciously, "here comes a war-party now, boys.Duck behind a rock, Applehead, they're liable to charge yuh fer themblankets!"
The Happy Family laughed uproariously, to the evident bewilderment ofthe two Indians who, swathed in blankets and with their hair knotted andtied with a green ribbon and a yellow, drove leisurely toward the groupin an old wagon that had a bright new seat and was drawn by a weazenedspan of mangy-looking bay ponies. In the back of the wagon sat a youngsquaw and two papooses, and beside them were stacked three or fourof the gay, handwoven rugs for which the white people will pay manydollars.
"Buenas dias," said the driver of the wagon, who was an oldish Indianwith a true picture-postal face. And: "Hello," said the other, who wasyoung and wore a bright blue coat, such as young Mexicans affect.
"Hello, folks," cried the Happy Family genially, and lifted theirhats to the good-looking young squaw in the wagon-bed, who tittered inbashful appreciation of the attention.
"Mama! They sure are wild and warlike," Weary commented drily as heturned to stare after the wagon.
"Us little deputies had better run home," Pink added with mock alarm.
"By cripes, I know now what went with Applehead's hair!" bawled BigMedicine. "Chances is, it's weaved into that red blanket the old buck iswearin'--Haw-haw-haw!"
"Laff, dang ye, laff!" Applehead cried furiously. "But do your laffingwhere I can't hear ye, fer I'm tellin' ye right now I've had enough ofyore dang foolishness. And the next feller that makes a crack is goin'to wisht he hadn't now I'm tellin' ye!"
This was not so much an ultimatum as a declaration of war--and the HappyFamily suddenly found themselves all out of the notion of laughing atanything at all.