To this Bill replied, after some moments of solemn silence only broken by the puff-puff of the pipes, that he and his friend desired nothing better. It would give them infinite pleasure to pay a visit to their red brethren, and to the great chiefs of the Dahcotah nation especially. But it was mid-winter. The weather was uncertain. Before undertaking a journey which would entail so long an absence from home, he and his friend must sleep upon the proposal and consult together. In the morning War Wolf should have his answer. Either they would return with him in person, or provide him with a suitable message to carry back to the chiefs.
In social matters, still less in diplomatic, Indians are never in a hurry. Had the two white men agreed there and then upon what their course should be, they would have suffered in War Wolfs estimation. The answer was precisely what he had expected.
“It is well,” he said. “The wisdom of The Beaver will not be overclouded in the morning, nor will the desire of Golden Face to meet his friends be in any way lessened.”
While this talk was progressing, Vipan’s eye had lighted upon an object which set him thinking. It was a small object – a very small object, so minute indeed that nine persons out of ten would never have noticed it at all. But it was an object of ominous moment, for it was nothing less than a spot of fresh blood; and it had fallen on the warrior’s leggings, just below the fringe of his tunic. Putting two and two together, it could mean nothing more nor less than a concealed scalp.
“Bill was right,” he thought. “Bill was right, and I was an ass. He did hear the war-whoop right enough. I wonder what unlucky devil lost in the storm this buck could have overhauled and struck down?”
The discovery rendered him wary, not that a childlike ingenuousness was ever among Vipan’s faults. But he resolved to keep his weather eye open, and if he must sleep, to do so with that reliable orbit ever brought to bear upon their pleasant-speaking guest.
Soon profound silence reigned within the log cabin, broken only by the subdued, regular breathing of the sleepers, or the occasional stir of the glowing embers. The tempest had lulled, but, as hour followed hour, the voices of the weird waste were borne upon the night in varied and startling cadence; the howling of wolves, the cat-like scream of the panther among the overhanging crags, the responsive hooting of owls beneath the thick blackness of the great pine forests, and once, the fierce snorting growl of a grizzly, so near that the formidable monster seemed even to be snuffing under the very door.
The two owners of the cabin are fast asleep; Vipan with his blanket rolled round his head. The scout, however, is lying on his back, and his blanket has partially slipped off, as though he had found its weight too burdensome. The three are lying with their feet to the fire in fan-shaped formation from it: the scout in the centre, their guest on the outside. The latter, too, is fast asleep.
Is? Surely not. Unless a man can be said to sleep with both eyes open.
A half-charred log fell into the embers, raising a small spluttering flame. This flame glowed on the fierce orbs of the red warrior. For a fraction of a second it glowed on something else, before he hid his hand within his blanket. But the still, steady breathing of the savage was that of a sleeping man.
“Tu-whoo-whoo-whoo!”
Nothing is more dismal than the hoot of an owl in the dead silent night. That owl is very near; almost upon the tree overhead. His voice must have had a disturbing effect upon the dreams of the red man, for in some unaccountable fashion the distance between the latter and the sleeping scout has diminished by about half. Yet the white man has not moved.
“Tu-whoo-whoo-whoo!”
That time it is nearer still. Noiseless, and with a serpentine glide, the head of the savage warrior is reared from the ground, in the semi-gloom resembling the hideous head of some striped and crested snake, and in the dilated eyeball there is a fierce scintillation.
The attitude is one of intense, concentrated listening.
Honest Bill slumbers peacefully on. That hideous head raised over him, scarce half a dozen yards distant, is suggestive of nightmare personified. Yet its owner is his guest, who has eaten at his fireside, and now rests beneath his roof. Why should his slumbers be disturbed?
“Tu-whoo-whoo-whoo!”
Again that doleful cry. But – look now! What deed of dark treachery is this stealthy savage about to perpetrate? He is a yard nearer his sleeping host, and his right hand grips a long keen knife. Ah! will nothing warn the sleeper?
The murderous barbarian rises to his knees, and his blanket noiselessly slips off. And at that moment through the intervening space of gloom comes a low distinct whisper:
“Are the dreams of War Wolf bad, that he moves so far in his sleep?”
Vipan has not moved. His blanket is still rolled round his head, but the fierce Indian, darting his keen glance in the direction of the voice, espies an object protruding from the speaker’s blanket that was not there when last he looked. It is about three inches of a revolver barrel, and it is covering him. No fresh scalp or scalps for him to-night.
Let it not be supposed for a moment that the treacherous villain was in any way abashed. It was not in him. He merely replied, pleasantly:
“No – I cannot sleep. I am hungry again, for I have ridden far, and it is now near morning. I would have found the ‘chuck’ (food) without disturbing Golden Face and The Beaver, who are very weary, and sleep well.”
And, knife in hand, he deliberately stepped over to the corner where hung the carcase from which they had feasted the evening before, and cutting off a portion, placed it upon the coals to broil.
Vipan could not but admire the cool readiness of both reply and action. He knew that but for his own wariness, either his friend or himself – possibly both – would by now be entering the Happy Hunting-Grounds, yet from his bloodthirsty and treacherous guest he apprehended no further aggression – that night at any rate. The surprise had failed abjectly; the enemy was on the alert; it was not in Indian nature to make a second attempt under all the circumstances. Moreover, he recognised in the incident a mere passing impulse of ferocity, moving the savage at the sight of these two victims ready, – as he imagined – for the knife, combined with the overmastering temptation to the young warrior to bear back to his village the scalps of two white men – men of considerable renown, too – taken by himself, alone and singlehanded. So he calmly laid down again as if nothing had happened.
The scout, who had awakened at the first sound of voices, and who took in at a glance the whole situation, fully equalled his friend’s coolness.
“Snakes!” he remarked, “I had a pesky bad dream. Dreamt I was just goin’ to draw on some feller, when I awoke.”
“The Beaver has slain many enemies,” rejoined War Wolf, nodding his head approvingly. “When a man has taken scalps, he is prompt to take more, even in his dreams.”
“And to lose his own, you pison young skunk!” thought Smokestack Bill, in reply to this. “I’ll be even with you one day, see if I don’t.”
But the “pison young skunk,” unenlightened as to this event of the future, merely nodded pleasantly as he sat by the fire, knife in hand, assimilating his juicy venison steak with the utmost complacency.
Chapter Three
A Tragedy of the Wild West
It may seem strange that on the face of so forcible a demonstration of the treacherous disposition of their guest, yet a couple of hours after sunrise should see our friends starting in his company for the Sioux villages. But the incident of the night, which might have had so tragic a termination, impressed these men not one whit. It was “all in the day’s journey,” they said, while admitting that they had been a trifle too confiding. That, however, was a fault easily remedied. But to men who habitually carry their lives in their hands, one peril