"The hunt's over," said Franklin, looking at the dead animals. "We've enough for us all."
"Yes, sir," said Curly, "we shore got meat, and got it plenty sudden. — Juan, vamos, pronto!" He made signs showing that he wished the Mexican to skin and dress the buffalo, and the latter, as usual, proceeded to give immediate and unhesitating obedience.
CHAPTER XI THE BATTLE
Occupied for a few moments with the other at the wagon, Franklin ceased to watch Juan, as he went slowly but not unskilfully about the work of dressing the dead buffalo. Suddenly he heard a cry, and looking up, saw the Mexican running hurriedly toward the wagon and displaying an animation entirely foreign to his ordinary apathetic habit. He pointed out over the plain as he came on, and called out excitedly: "Indios! Los Indios!"
The little party cast one long, careful look out toward the horizon, upon which now appeared a thin, waving line of dust. A moment later the two wagons were rolled up side by side, the horses were fastened securely as possible, the saddles and blanket rolls were tossed into breastworks at the ends of the barricade, and all the feeble defences possible were completed. Four rifles looked steadily out, and every face was set and anxious, except that of the Mexican who had given the alarm. Juan was restless, and made as though to go forth to meet the advancing line.
"Vamos — me vamos!" he said, struggling to get past Curly, who pushed him back.
"Set down, d —— n you — set down!" said Curly, and with his strange, childlike obedience, the great creature sat down and remained for a moment submissively silent.
The indefinite dust line turned from gray to dark, and soon began to show colours — black, red, roan, piebald — as the ponies came on with what seemed an effect of a tossing sea of waving manes and tails, blending and composing with the deep sweeping feather trails of the grand war bonnets. Hands rose and fell with whips, and digging heels kept up the unison. Above the rushing of the hoofs there came forward now and then a keen ululation. Red-brown bodies, leaning, working up and down, rising and falling with the motion of the ponies, came into view, dozens of them — scores of them. Their moccasined feet were turned back under the horses' bellies, the sinewy legs clamping the horse from thigh to ankle as the wild riders came on, with no bridle governing their steeds other than the jaw rope's single strand.
"Good cavalry, b'gad!" said Battersleigh calmly, as he watched them in their perfect horsemanship. "See 'em come!" Franklin's eyes drew their brows down in a narrowing frown, though he remained silent, as was his wont at any time of stress.
The Indians came on, close up to the barricade, where they saw the muzzles of four rifles following them steadily, a sight which to them carried a certain significance. The line broke and wheeled, scattering, circling, still rising and falling, streaming in hair and feathers, and now attended with a wild discord of high-keyed yells.
"Keep still, boys; don't shoot!" cried Franklin instinctively. "Wait!"
It was good advice. The mingling, shifting line, obedient to some loud word of commando swept again up near to the front of the barricade, then came to a sudden halt with half the forefeet off the ground. The ponies shuffled and fidgeted, and the men still yelled and called out unintelligible sounds, but the line halted. It parted, and there rode forward an imposing figure.
Gigantic, savage, stern, clad in the barbaric finery of his race, his body nearly nude, his legs and his little feet covered with bead-laden buckskin, his head surmounted with a horned war bonnet whose eagle plumes trailed down the pony's side almost to the ground, this Indian headman made a picture not easily to be forgotten nor immediately to be despised. He sat his piebald stallion with no heed to its restive prancing. Erect, immobile as a statue, such was the dignity of his carriage, such the stroke of his untamed eye, that each man behind the barricade sank lower and gripped his gun more tightly. This was a personality not to be held in any hasty or ill-advised contempt.
The Indian walked his horse directly up to the barricade, his eye apparently scorning to take in its crude details.
"Me, White Calf!" he exclaimed in English, like the croak of a parrot, striking his hand upon his breast with a gesture which should have been ludicrous or pompous, but was neither. "Me, White Calf!" said the chief again, and lifted the medal which lay upon his breast. "Good. White man come. White man go. Me hunt, now!"
He swept his arm about in a gesture which included the horizon, and indicated plainly his conviction that all the land belonged to him and his own people. So he stood, silent, and waiting with no nervousness for the diplomacy of the others.
Franklin stepped boldly out from the barricade and extended his hand. "White Calf, good friend," said he. The Indian took his hand without a smile, and with a look which Franklin felt go through him. At last the chief grunted out something, and, dismounting, seated himself down upon the ground, young men taking his horse and leading it away. Others, apparently also of rank, came and sat down. Franklin and his friends joined the rude circle of what they were glad to see was meant to be an impromptu council.
White Calf arose and faced the white men.
"White men go!" he said, his voice rising. "Injun heap shoot!"
"B'gad, I believe the haythen thinks he can scare us," said
Battersleigh, calmly.
Franklin pointed to the carcasses of the buffalo, and made signs that after they had taken the meat of the buffalo they would go. Apparently he was understood. Loud words arose among the Indians, and White Calf answered, gesticulating excitedly:
"Heap good horse!" he said, pointing to the horses of the party.
"White man go! Injun heap get horse! Injun heap shoot!"
"This is d——d intimidation!" shouted Battersleigh, starting up and shaking a fist in White Calf's face.
"Give up our horses? Not by a d——d sight!" said Curly. "You can heap shoot if you want to turn loose, but you'll never set me afoot out here, not while I'm a-knowin' it!"
The situation was tense, and Franklin felt his heart thumping, soldier though he was. He began to step back toward the wagons with his friends. A confused and threatening uproar arose among the Indians, who now began to crowd forward. It was an edged instant. Any second might bring on the climax.
And suddenly the climax came. From the barricade at the rear there rose a cry, half roar and half challenge. The giant Mexican Juan, for a time quieted by Curly's commands, was now seized upon by some impulse which he could no longer control. He came leaping from behind the wagons, brandishing the long knife with which he had been engaged upon the fallen buffalo.
"Indios!" he cried, "Indios!" and what followed of his speech was only incoherent savage babblings. He would have darted alone into the thick