CHAPTER IV
Sheriff Tom Redmond was a veteran of many ancient cattle trails. He hadtraveled as many times from Texas to the Dodge City and Abilene pointsof shipment as some of our travelers to-day have journeyed across theAtlantic--and he thought just as little about it. More than once he hadmade the trifling journey from the Rio Grande to Montana, before theinventive individual who supplied fences with teeth had made suchexcursions impossible. Sheriff Tom had seen many war-bonneted Indianslooming through the dust of trail herds. Of the better side of theIndian he knew little, nor cared to learn. But at one time or another hehad had trouble with Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Ute, Pawnee, Arapahoe,Cheyenne, and Sioux. He could tell just how many steers each tribe hadcost his employers, and how many horses were still charged off againstIndians in general.
"I admit some small prejudice," said Sheriff Tom in the course of one ofhis numerous arguments with Walter Lowell. "When I see old Crane hangingaround Bill Talpers's store, he looks to me jest like the cussedComanche that rose right out of nowheres and scared me gray-headed whenI was riding along all peaceful-like on the Picketwire. And that's theway it goes. Every Injun I see, big or little, resembles some redskin Ihad trouble with, back in early days. The only thing I can think of 'emdoing is shaking buffalo robes and running off live stock--not raisingsteers to sell. I admit I'm behind the procession. I ain't ready yet totake my theology or my false teeth from an Injun preacher or dentist."
Lowell preferred Sheriff Tom's outspokenness to other forms ofopposition and criticism which were harder to meet.
"Some day," he said to the sheriff, "you'll fall in line, but meantimeif you can get rid of a pest like Bill Talpers for me, you'll do morefor the Indians than they could get out of all the new leases that mightbe written."
"I've been working on Bill Talpers now for ten years and I ain't beenable to git him to stick foot in a trap," was the sheriff's reply. "ButI think he's getting to a point where he's all vain-like over thecunning he's shown, and he'll cash himself in, hoss and beaver, when heain't expecting to."
When the sheriff arrived at the agency, with the warrant for Fire Bearin his pocket, he found a string of saddle and pack animals tied infront of the office, under charge of two of the best cowmen on thereservation, White Man Walks and Many Coups.
"I'll have your car put in with mine, Tom," said Lowell, who was dressedin cowpuncher attire, even to leather _chaparejos_. "I know you'realways prepared for riding. There's a saddle horse out there for you.We've some grub and a tent and plenty of bedding, as we may be outseveral days and find some rough going."
"I judge it ain't going to be any moonlight excursion on the Hudson,then, bringing in this Injun," observed Redmond.
Lowell motioned to the sheriff to step into the private office.
"Affairs are a little complicated," said the agent, closing the door."Plenty Buffalo has turned up something that makes it look as if JimMcFann may know something about the murder."
"What's Plenty Buffalo found?"
"He discovered a track made by a broken shoe in that conglomeration ofhoof marks at the scene of the murder."
"Why didn't he say so at the time?"
"Because he wasn't sure that it pointed to Jim McFann. But he'd beentrailing McFann for bootlegging and was pretty sure Jim was riding ahorse with a broken shoe. He got hold of an Indian we can trust--anIndian who stands pretty well with McFann--and had him hunt till hefound Jim."
"Where was he?"
"McFann was hiding away up in the big hills. What made him light outthere no one knows. That looked bad on the face of it. Then this Indianscout of ours, when he happened in on Jim's camp, found that McFann wasriding a horse with a broken shoe."
"Looks as if we ought to bring in the half-breed, don't it?"
"Wait a minute. The broken shoe isn't all. Those pieces of rope thatwere used to tie that man to the stakes--they were cut from a rawhidelariat."
"And Jim McFann uses that kind?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where McFann is hanging out?"
"He may have moved camp, but we can find him."
The sheriff frowned. Matters were getting more complicated than he hadthought possible. From the first he had entertained only one ideaconcerning the murder--that Fire Bear had done the work, or that some ofthe reckless spirits under the rebellious youth had slain in a moment ofbravado.
"Well, it may be that McFann and Fire Bear's crowd had throwed intogether and was all mixed up in the killing," remarked the sheriff. "AJohn Doe warrant ought to be enough to get everybody we want."
"We can get anybody that's wanted," said Lowell, "but you must rememberone thing--you're dealing with people who are not used to legalprocedure and who may resent wholesale arrests."
"You'll take plenty of Injun police along, I suppose."
"No--I'm not even going to take Plenty Buffalo. The whole police forceand all the deputies you might be able to swear in in a week couldn'tbring in Fire Bear if he gave the signal to the young fellows aroundhim. We're going alone, except for those two Indians out there, who willjust look after camp affairs for us."
"I dunno but you're right," observed Redmond after a pause, during whichhe keenly scrutinized the young agent's face. "Anyway, I ain't going tolet it be said that you've got more nerve than I have. Let the lead hossgo where he chooses--I'll follow the bell."
"Another thing," said Lowell. "You're on an Indian reservation. TheseIndians have been looking to me for advice and other things in the lastfour years. If it comes to a point where decisive action has to betaken--"
"You're the one to take it," interrupted the sheriff. "From now on it'syour funeral. I don't care what methods you use, so long as I git FireBear, and mebbe this half-breed, behind the bars for a hearing down atWhite Lodge."
The men walked out of the office, and the sheriff was given his mount.The Indians swung the pack-horses into line, and the men settledthemselves in their saddles as they began the long, plodding journey tothe blue hills in the heart of the reservation.
* * * * *
The lodges of Fire Bear and his followers were placed in a circle, in agrove somber enough for Druidical sacrifice. White cliffs stretched highabove the camp, with pine-trees growing at all angles from theinterstices of rock. At the foot of the cliffs, and on the green slopethat stretched far below to the forest of lodgepole pines, stood manyconical, tent-like formations of rock. They were even whiter than thecanvas tepees which were grouped in front of them. At any time of theday these formations were uncanny. In time of morning or evening shadowthe effect upon the imagination was intensified. The strange outcroppingwas repeated nowhere else. It jutted forth, white and mysterious--amonstrous tenting-ground left over from the Stone Age. As if to deepenthe effect of the weird stage setting, Nature contrived that all thewinds which blew here should blow mournfully. The lighter breezesstirred vague whisperings in the pine-trees. The heavy winds wroughtweird noises which echoed from the cliffs.
Lowell had looked upon the Camp of the Stone Tepees once before. Therehad been a chase for a cattle thief. It was thought he had hiddensomewhere in the vicinity of the white semicircle, but he had not beenfound there, because no man in fear of pursuit could dwell more than anight in so ghostly a place of solitude.
It had been late evening when Lowell had first seen the Camp of theStone Tepees. He remembered the half-expectant way in which he hadpaused, thinking to see a white-clad priest emerge from one of theshadowy stone tents and place a human victim upon one of the sacrificialtablets in the open glade. It was early morning when Lowell looked onthe scene a second time. He and the sheriff had made a daylight start,leaving the Indians to follow with the pack-horses. It was a long climbup the slopes, among the pines, from the plains below. The trail, forthe greater part of the way, had followed a stream which was none tooeasy fording at the best, and which regularly rose several inches everyafternoon owing to the daily melting of late snows in the mountainheights. It was neces
sary to cross and recross the stream many times.Occasionally the horses floundered over smooth rocks and were nearlycarried away. All four men were wet to the waist. Redmond, with memoriesof countless wider and more treacherous fords crowding upon him, merelyjested at each new buffeting in the stream. The Indians were concernedonly lest some pack-animal should fall in midstream. Lowell, a goodhorseman and tireless mountaineer, counted physical discomfort asnothing when such vistas of delight were being opened up.
The giant horseshoe in the cliffs was in semi-darkness when they came insight of it. Lowell was in the lead, and he turned his horse andmotioned to the sheriff to remain hidden in the trees that skirted theglade. The voice of a solitary Indian was flung back and forth in thecurve of the cliffs. His back was toward the white men. If he heardthem, he made no sign. He was wrapped in a blanket, from shoulders toheels, and was in the midst of a long incantation, flung at the beetlingwalls with their foot fringe of stone tents. The tepees of the Indianswere hardly distinguishable from those which Nature had pitched on thisworld-old camping-ground. No sound came from the tents of the Indians.Probably the "big medicine" of the Indian was being listened to, butthose who heard made no sign.
"It's Fire Bear," said Lowell, as the voice went on and the echoesfluttered back from the cliffs.
"He's sure making big medicine," remarked the sheriff. "They've pickedone grand place for a camp. By the Lord! it even sort of gave me theshivers when I first looked at it. What'll we do?"
"Wait till he gets through," cautioned Lowell. "They'd come buzzing outof those tents like hornets if we broke in now, in all probability."
The sheriff's face hardened.
"Jest the same, that sort of thing ought to be stopped--all of it," hesaid.
"Do you stop every fellow that mounts a soap box, or, what's morelikely, stands up on a street corner in an automobile and makes aSocialist speech?"
"No--but that's different."
"Why is it? An Indian reservation is just like a little nation. It hasits steady-goers, and it has its share of the shiftless, and also it hasan occasional Socialist, and once in a while a rip-snorting Anarchist.Fire Bear doesn't know just what he is yet. He's made some pretty bigmedicine and made some prophecies that have come true and have gainedhim a lot of followers, but I can't see that it's up to me to stop him.Not that I have any cause to love that Indian over there in thatblanket. He's been the cause of a lot of trouble. He's young andarrogant. In a big city he would be a gang-leader. The police and thecourts would find him a problem--and he's just as much, or perhaps more,of a problem out here in the wilds than he would be in town."
The sheriff made no reply, but watched Fire Bear narrowly. Soon theIndian ended his incantations, and the tents of his followers beganopening and blanketed figures came forth. Lowell and the sheriff steppedout into the glade and walked toward the camp. The Indians groupedthemselves about Fire Bear. There was something of defiance in theirattitude, but the white men walked on unconcernedly, and, without anypreliminaries, Lowell told Fire Bear the object of their errand.
"You're suspected of murdering that white man on the Dollar Sign road,"said Lowell. "You and these young fellows with you were around there.Now you're wanted, to go to White Lodge and tell the court just what youknow about things."
Fire Bear was one of the best-educated of the younger generation ofIndians. He had carried off honors at an Eastern school, both in hisstudies and athletics. But his haunts had been the traders' stores whenhe returned to the reservation. Then he became possessed of the ideathat he was a medicine man. Fervor burned in his veins and fired hisspeech. The young fellows who had idled with him became his zealots. Hebegan making prophecies which mysteriously worked out. He had prophesieda flood, and one came, sweeping away many lodges. When he and hisfollowers were out of food, he had prophesied that plenty would come tothem that day. It so happened that lightning that morning struck thetrace chain on a load of wood that was being hauled down themountain-side by a white leaser. The four oxen drawing the load werekilled, and the white man gave the beef to the Indians, on conditionthat they would remove the hides for him. This had sent Fire Bear'sstock soaring and had gained many recruits for his camp--even some ofthe older Indians joining.
Lowell had treated Fire Bear leniently--too leniently most of the whitemen near the reservation had considered. With the Indians' religiousceremonials had gone the usual dancing. An inspector from Washington hadsent in a recommendation that the dancing be stopped at once. Lowell hadreceived several broad hints, following the inspector's letter, but hewas waiting an imperative order before stopping the dancing, because heknew that any high-handed interference just then would undo anincalculable amount of his painstaking work with the Indians. He hadfigured that he could work personally with Fire Bear after the youngmedicine man's first ardor in his new calling had somewhat cooled. Thenhad come the murder, with everything pointing to the implication of theyoung Indian, and with consequent action forced on the agent.
A threatening circle surrounded the white men in Fire Bear's camp.
"Why didn't you bring the Indian police to arrest me?" asked the youngIndian leader.
"Because I thought you'd see things in their right light and come," saidLowell.
Fire Bear thought a moment.
"Well, because you did not bring the police, I will go with you," hesaid.
"You don't have to tell us anything that might be used against you,"said the sheriff.
Fire Bear smiled bitterly.
"I've studied white man's law," he said.
Redmond rubbed his head in bewilderment. Such words, coming from ablanketed Indian, in such primitive surroundings, passed hiscomprehension. Yet Lowell thought, as he smiled at the sheriff'samazement, that it merely emphasized the queer jumble of old and new onevery reservation.
"I'll ask you to wait for me out there in the trees," said Fire Bear.
Redmond hesitated, but the agent turned at once and walked away, and thesheriff finally followed. Fire Bear exhorted his followers a fewmoments, and then disappeared in his tent. Soon he came out, dressed inthe "store clothes" of the ordinary Indian. He joined Redmond and theagent at the edge of the glade, and they made their way toward thecreek, no one venturing to follow from the camp. At the bottom of theslope they found the Indian helpers with the horses.
"Fire Bear," said Lowell, as they paused before starting out, "there'sone thing more I want of you. Help us to find Jim McFann. He's as deepor deeper in this thing than you are."
"I know he is," replied Fire Bear, "but it wasn't for me to say so. I'llhelp find him for you."
They had to fight to get Jim McFann. They found the half-breed cookingsome bacon over a tiny fire, at the head of a gulch that was just madefor human concealment. If it had not been for the good offices of FireBear on the trail, they might have hunted a week for their man. McFannhad moved camp several times since Plenty Buffalo had located him. Eachtime he had covered his tracks with surpassing care.
Lowell, according to prearranged plan, had walked in upon McFann, withRedmond covering the half-breed, ready to shoot in case a weapon wasdrawn. But McFann merely made a headlong dive for Lowell's legs, andthere was a rough-and-tumble fight about the camp-fire which was settledonly when the agent managed to get a lock on his wiry opponent whichpinned McFann's back to the ground.
"You wouldn't fight that hard if you thought you was being yanked up fora little bootlegging, Jim," mused Tom Redmond, pulling his longmustache. "You know what we've come after you for, don't you?"
McFann threshed about in another futile attempt to escape, and cursedhis captors with gifts of expletive which came from two races.
"It's on account of that tenderfoot that was found on the Dollar Sign,"growled Jim, "but Fire Bear and his gang can't tell any more on me thanI can on them."
"That's the way to get at the truth," chuckled the sheriff triumphantly."I guess by the time you fellers are through with each other we'll knowwho shot that man and staked him down."
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