“If we ever do get to it again. Custer’s expedition in the fall of last year didn’t go through here for fun, nor yet to look after the Sioux, though that was given as the colour of it. Why, they were prospectin’ all the time, and not for nothin’ neither. No, ‘Uncle Sam’ wants to have all the plums himself, and, likely enough, the hills’ll be full of cavalrymen soon as the snow melts. Then I reckon we shall have to git.”
“Well, the reds’ll be hoist with their own petard. It’s the old fable again. They call in ‘Uncle Sam’ to clear out the miners, and ‘Uncle Sam’ hustles them out as well. But we may not have to clear, after all, for it’s my belief that the moment the grass begins to sprout the whole Sioux nation will go upon the war-path.”
“Then we’d have to git all the slicker.”
“Not necessarily,” replied Vipan, coolly. “I’ve a notion we could stop here more snugly than ever.”
“Not unless we helped ’em,” said the scout, decidedly. “And that’s not to be done.”
“I don’t know that. Speaking for myself, I get on very well with the reds. They’ve got their faults, but then so have other people. Wait, I know what you’re going to say—they’re cruel and treacherous devils, and so forth. Well, cruelty is in their nature, and, by the way, is not unknown in civilisation. As for treachery, it strikes me, old chum, that we’ve got to keep about as brisk a look-out for a shot in the back in any of our Western townships as we have for our scalps in an Indian village.”
The scout nodded assent; puffing away vigorously at his pipe as he stared into the glowing embers.
“For instance,” went on the other, “when that chap ‘grazed’ me in the street at Denver while I wasn’t looking, and would have put his next ball clean through me if you hadn’t dropped him in his tracks so neatly—that was a nice example for a white man and a Christian to set, say, to our friends Mountain Cat, or Three Bears, or Hole-in-a-Tree, down yonder, wasn’t it? But to come to the point—which is this: Supposing some fellow had rushed us while we were prospecting that place down on the Big Cheyenne in the summer and invited us to clear, I guess we should briskly have let him see a brace of muzzles. Eh?”
“Guess we should.”
“Well, then, it amounts to the same thing here. We are bound to strike a good vein or two in the summer—in fact, we have as good as struck it. All right. After all the risk and trouble we’ve stood to find it, Uncle Sam lopes in and serves us with a notice to quit. It isn’t in reason that we should stand that.”
“Well, you see, Vipan, we’ve no sort of title here. This is an Indian reservation, and Uncle Sam’s bound by treaty to keep white men out. There are others here besides us, and I reckon in the summer the Hills’ll be a bit crowded up with them. So we shall just have to chance it with the rest, and if we’re moved, light out somewhere else.”
“Well, I don’t know that I shall. It’s no part of good sense to chuck away the wealth lying at our very feet.” And the speaker’s splendid face wore a strangely reckless and excited look. “The scheme is for the Government to chouse the Indians out of this section of country by hook or by crook—then mining concessions will be granted to the wire-pullers and their friends. And we shall see a series of miscellaneous frauds blossoming into millionaires on the strength of our discoveries.”
“And are you so keen on this gold, Vipan? Ah I reckon you’re hankering after Europe again, but I judge you’ll be no happier when you get there.”
The scout’s tone was quiet, regretful, almost upbraiding. The other’s philosophy was to end in this, then?
“It isn’t exactly that,” was the answer, moodily, and after a pause. “But I don’t see the force of being ‘done.’ I never did see it; perhaps that’s why I’m out here now. However, the Sioux won’t stand any more ‘treaties.’ They’ll fight for certain. Red Cloud isn’t the man to forget the ignominious thrashing he gave Uncle Sam in ’66 and ’67, and, by God, if it comes to ousting us I’ll be shot if I won’t cut in on his side.”
“I reckon that blunder won’t be repeated. If the cavalrymen had been properly armed; armed as they are now, with Spencer’s and Henry’s instead of with the sickest old muzzle-loading fire-sticks and a round and a half of ammunition per man, Red Cloud would have been soundly whipped at Fort Phil Kearney ’stead of t’other way about.”
“Possibly. As things are, however, he carried his point. And there’s Sitting Bull, for instance; he’s been holding the Powder River country these years. Why don’t they interfere with him? No, you may depend upon it, a war with the whole Sioux nation backed by the Indian Department, won’t suit the Govermental book. ‘Uncle Sam’ will cave in—all the other prospectors will be cleared out of the Hills, except—except ourselves.”
“Why except ourselves?” said the scout, quietly, though he was not a little astonished and dismayed at his friend and comrade’s hardly-suppressed excitement.
“We stand well with the chiefs. Look here, old man: I’d wager my scalp against a pipe of Richmond plug—if I wasn’t as bald as a billiard ball, that is—that I make myself so necessary to them that they’ll be only too glad to let us ‘mine’ as long as we choose to stay here. Just think—the stuff is all there and only waiting to be picked up—just think if we were to go in on the quiet, loaded up with solid nuggets and dust instead of a few wretched pelts. Why, man, we are made for life. The reds could put us in the way of becoming millionaires, merely in exchange for our advice—not necessarily our rifles, mind.” And the speaker’s eyes flashed excitedly over the idea.
Chapter Two.
A Nocturnal Visitor.
No idea is more repellent to the mind of a genuine Western man than that of siding with Indians against his own colour. Contested almost step by step, the opening up of the vast continent supplies one long record of hideous atrocities committed by the savage, regardless of age, sex, or good faith; and stern, and not invariably discriminate, reprisals on the part of the dwellers on the frontier. It follows, therefore, that the race-hatred existing between the white man and his treacherous and crafty red neighbour will hardly bear exaggeration. Thus it is not surprising that Smokestack Bill should receive his reckless companion’s daredevil scheme with concern and dismay. Indeed, had any other man mooted such an idea, the honest scout’s concern would have found vent in words of indignant horror.
There was silence in the hut for a few minutes. Both men, lounging back on their comfortable furs, were busy with their respective reflections. Now and again a fiercer gust than usual would shake the whole structure, and as the doleful howling of the wolves sounded very near the door, the horses in the other compartment—which was used as a stable—would snort uneasily and paw the ground.
“You don’t know Indians even yet, Vipan,” said Smokestack Bill at length, speaking gravely, “else you’d never undertake to help them, even by advice, in butchering and outraging helpless women, let alone the men, though they can better look after themselves. No, you don’t know the red devils, take my word for it.”
“I had a notion I did,” was the hard reply. “As for that ‘helpless woman’ ticket, I won’t vote on it, Bill, old man. There’s no such thing as a ‘helpless’ woman; at least, I never met with such an article, and I used to be reckoned a tolerably good judge of that breed of cattle, too—”
His words were cut short. The dog uttered a savage growl, then sprang towards the door, barking. Each man coolly reached for his rifle, but that was all.
“I knew I wasn’t out of it,” muttered the scout, more to himself than to his hearer. “Smokestack Bill knew the war-whoop