Part 9

Yet even in those days Waumdisapa was friendly with the traders, and like the famous Sitting Bull of the north, was only anxious to keep his people from corrupting contact with the whites, jealous to hold his lands and resolute to maintain his tribal traditions. His was the true chief’s heart—all his great influence was used to maintain peace and order. He carried no weapon—save the knife with which he shaved his tobacco and cut his meat, and on his arm dangled the beaded bag in which the sacred pipe of friendship and meditation lay, and wherever he walked turmoil ceased.

For these reasons he was greatly beloved by his people. No one feared him—not even the children of the captive Ute woman who served Iapa—and yet he had gained his preëminence by virtue of great deeds as well as by strong and peaceful thoughts. He was a moving orator also—polished and graceful of utterance, conciliatory and placating at all times. Often he turned aside the venomous hand of revenge and cooled the hot heart of war. In tribal policies he was always on the side of justice.

Mattowan was a brave warrior, too, a man respected for his horsemanship, his skill with death-dealing weapons, and distinguished, too, for his tempestuous eloquence—but he was also feared. His hand was quick against even his brothers in council. He could not tolerate restraint. Checked now and again by Waumdisapa, he had darkened with anger, and in his heart a desire for revenge was smoldering like a hidden fire in the hollow of a great tree.

He was ambitious. “Why should Waumdisapa be chief? Am I not of equal stature, of equal fame as a warrior?” So he argued among his friends, spreading disaffection. “Waumdisapa is growing old,” he sneered. “He talks for peace, for submission to the white man. His heart is no longer that of a warrior. He sits much in his tepee. It is time that he were put away.”

When the chief heard these words he was very sad and very angry. He called a council at once to consider what should be done with the traitor and the whole tribe trembled with excitement and awe. What did it mean when the two most valiant men of the tribe stood face to face like angry panthers?

When the head men were assembled Waumdisapa, courteous, grave and self-contained, placed Mattowan at his left and old Mato, the hereditary chief, upon his right, and took his seat with serene countenance. Outside the council tepee the women sat upon the ground—silent, attentive, drawn closer to the speakers than they were accustomed to approach. The children, even the girl babies, crouched beside their mothers—their desire for play swallowed up in a dim sense of some impending disaster. No feast was being prepared, smiles were few and furtive. No one knew what was about to take place, but a foreboding of trouble chilled them.

The chief lighted his pipe and passed it to Mato who put it to his lips, drew a deep whiff and passed it to his neighbor. So it went slowly from man to man while Waumdisapa sat, in silence, with downcast eyes, awaiting its return.

As the pipe came to Mattowan he, the traitor, passed it by with a gesture of contempt.

The chief received it again with a steady hand, but from his lowered eye-lids a sudden flame shot. Handing the pipe to Mato he rose, and looking benignantly, yet sadly, round the circle, began very quietly:

“Brothers, the Lakotans are a great people, just and generous to their foes, faithful to the laws of their tribe. I am your chief. You all know how I became so. Some of you knew my father—he was a great warrior——”

“Aye, so he was,” said Mato.

“He was a wise and good man also,” continued Waumdisapa.

“Aye, aye,” chorused several of the old men.

“He brought me up in the good way. He taught me to respect my elders and to honor my chief. He told me the stories of our tribe. He taught me to pray—and to shoot. He taught me to dance, to sing the ancient songs, and when I was old enough he led me to battle. My skill with the spear and the arrow I drew from him, he gave me courage and taught me forbearance. When he died you made me leader in his place and carefully have I followed his footsteps. I have kept the peace among my people. I have given of my abundance to the poor. I have not boasted or spoken enviously because my father would be ashamed of me if I did so. Now the time has come to speak plainly. I hear that my brother who sits beside me—Mattowan, the son of my mother’s sister—is envious. I hear that he wishes to see me put aside as one no longer fit to rule.”

He paused here and the tension was very great in all the assembly, but Mattowan sullenly looked out over the heads of the women—his big mouth close set.

The chief gently said: “This shall be as you say. If you, my brothers, head men of the Lakotans, say I am old and foolish, then Waumdisapa will put aside his chief’s robes and go forth to sit outside the council circle.” His voice trembled as he uttered this resolution—but drawing himself to proud height he concluded in a firm voice: “Brothers, I have spoken.”

As he took his seat a low mournful sound passed among the women, and the mother of Mattowan began to sing a bitter song of reproach—but some one checked her, as old Mato rose. He was small, with the face of a fox, keen, shrewd, humorous. After the usual orator’s preamble, he said: “Brothers, this is very foolish. Who desires to have Mattowan chief? Only a few boys and grumblers. What has he done to be chief? Nothing that others have not done. He is a crazy man. His heart is bad. Would he bring dissension among us? Let us rebuke this braggart. For me I am old—I sit here only by courtesy of Waumdisapa, but for me I want no change. I do not wish to make a wolf the war chief of my people. I have spoken.”

As the pipe went round and one by one the head men rose to praise and defend their chieftain, Mattowan became furious. He trembled and his face grew ferocious with his almost ungovernable hate and disappointment—plainly the day was going against him.

At last he sprang up, forgetting all form—all respect. “You are all squaws,” he roared. “You are dogs licking the bones this whining coward throws to you——”

He spoke no more. With the leap of a panther his chief fell upon him and with one terrible blow sunk his knife to the hilt in his heart. Smitten with instant palsy Mattowan staggered a moment amid the moans of the women, and the hoarse shouts of the men, and fell forward, face down in the very center of the council circle.

[Illustration: An Indian Brave

_Illustration from_ A BUNCH OF BUCKSKINS _by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published by_ R. H. RUSSELL, _1901_]

For a minute Waumdisapa, tense and terrible in his anger, stood looking down upon his fallen calumniator—rigid, menacing, ready to strike again—then his vast muscles relaxed, his eyes misted with tears and with a moan of remorse and anguish he lifted his blanket till his quivering lips were covered—crying hoarsely, “I have killed my brother. I am no longer fit to be your chief.”

Thereupon dropping his embroidered pipe-bag and his ceremonial fan upon the ground he turned and walked slowly away with staggering, shaking limbs, onward through the camp, out upon the plain and there, throwing himself down upon the ground, began to chant a wild song of uncontrollable grief.

All night long he lay thus, mourning like a wounded lion, and his awed people dared not approach. Over and over, with anguished voice, he cried: “Father pity me. My hand is red with my brother’s blood. I have broken the bond of the council circle. My heart is black with despair!—Pity me!—My brother!”

* * * * *

In the morning he returned to his tepee, moving like an old man, bent and nerveless, avoiding all eyes, ignoring all greetings—and when next the council met, Waumdisapa, clad in rags, with dust upon his head, silently took his place outside the council circle—self-accused and self-deposed.

The sight of their chief moving so humbly to a seat among the obscure, deeply affected the women, and a wailing song ran among them like an autumn wind—but Waumdisapa’s head was bowed to hide his quivering lips.

A DECREE OF COUNCIL

A DECREE OF COUNCIL

Big Nose was an inveterate gambler. Like all the plains tribes the Shi-an-nay are a social people. They love companionship and the interchange of jest and story. At evening, when the day’s hunt is over, they come together to tell stories and joke and discuss each other’s affairs precisely as the peasants of a French village do. And when amusement is desired they dance or play games.

It is this feeling on their part which makes it so difficult for the Government to carry out its theories of allotment. It is difficult to uproot a habit of life which has been thousands of years forming. It is next to impossible to get one of these people to leave the village group and go into his lonely little cabin a mile or two from a neighbor. And the need of amusement is intensified by the sad changes in the life of these people. Games of chance appeal to them precisely as they do to the negro and to large classes of white people. They play with the same abandon with which the negro enters into a game of craps.

One evening Big Nose was in company with three or four others in the midst of Charcoal’s camp playing The Hand game. He had been doing some work for the Post and had brought with him to the camp a little heap of silver dollars. He was therefore in excellent temper for a brisk game. But luck was against him. His little store of money melted away and then he began taking his ponies, his gun, and finally his blankets and his tepee; all went into the yawning gulf of his bad luck. Before midnight came he had staked everything but the clothing on his back and had reached a condition of mind bordering on frenzy.

Nothing was too small for his opponents to accept and nothing was too valuable for him to stake. He began putting his moccasins up on the chance and ended by tearing off his Gee string which represented his absolute impoverishment. A reasonable being would have ended the game here but with a desperation hitherto unknown to the gamblers of his tribe, he sat naked on the ground and gambled both his wives away.

When he realized what had happened to him, that he was absolutely without home or substance in the world, naked to the cold and having no claim upon a human being, his frenzy left him and he sank into pitiful dejection. Walking naked through the camp, he began to cry his need, “Take pity on me, my friends. I have nothing. The wind is cold. I have no blanket. I am hungry. I have no tepee.”

For a long time no one paid any heed to him, for they were disgusted with his foolishness and they would not allow his wives to clothe him or give him shelter. However, at last, his brother came out and gave him a blanket and took him into his tepee. “Let this be a lesson to you,” he said. “You are a fool. Yet I pity you.”

Next day a council was called to consider his case, which was the most remarkable that had ever happened in the tribe. There were many who were in favor of letting him take care of himself, but in the end it was decreed that he should be clothed and that he should have a tepee and the absolute necessities of life.

The question of restoring him to his wives was a much more serious one, the general opinion being that a man who would gamble his wives away in this way had no further claim upon a woman.

[Illustration: In an Indian Camp

_The two men standing are in argument about the squaw seated between them, for the possession of whom they had gambled, the brave in the breech-clout, although the loser, refusing, in Indian parlance, “to put the woman on the blanket.”_

_Illustration from_ SUN-DOWN LEFLARE’S WARM SPOT _by_ Frederic Remington

_Originally published in_ HARPER’S MAGAZINE, _September, 1898_]

[Illustration: Crow Indians Firing into the Agency

_This incident occurred in 1887 on the Crow Reservation in Northern Montana. A score or so of young Crow braves having captured sixty horses in a raid they made on a Piegan camp, were wildly celebrating the victory when the agent sought to arrest them with his force of Indian police. Upon this the raiders assumed a hostile attitude and as a defiance they began firing into the agency buildings._

_Illustration from_ THE TURBULENT CROWS

_Originally published in_ HARPER’S WEEKLY, _November 5, 1887_]

At last, old Charcoal arose to speak. He was a waggish old fellow whose eye twinkled with humor as he said, “Big Nose has two wives as you know. One of them is young. She is industrious. She is very quiet, saying little and speaking in a gentle voice. The other is old and has a sharp tongue. Her tongue is like a whip. It makes her husband smart. Now let us restore him to his old wife. She will be good discipline for him. She will not let him forget what he has done.”

This suggestion made every one laugh and it was agreed with. And the news was carried to Big Nose. “I don’t want my old wife,” he said. “I want my young wife.”

“The council has decreed,” was the stern answer, “and there is no appeal.”

Big Nose accepted the ruling of the tribe and resolutely turned his face in the right direction. He gave up gambling and became one of the most progressive men of the tribe. By hard work he acquired a team and a wagon and worked well, freighting for the Agency and for the Post traders.

His old wife, however, grew more and more unsatisfactory as the years went by. For some inscrutable reason, she did not care to make a home, but was always moving about from camp to camp, full of gossip and unwelcome criticism. All this Big Nose patiently endured for four years. But one day he came to Seger, the superintendent of the school near him, and said:

“My friend, you know I am walking the white man’s road. You see that I want to do right. I have a team. I work hard. I want a home where I can live quietly. But my old wife is trifling. She is good for nothing. She wants to gad about all the time and never stay home and look after the chickens. I want to put her away and take another and better wife.”

Seger was very cautious. “What do the old chiefs say about it?”

Big Nose looked a little discouraged, but he answered defiantly, “Oh, I am walking the white man’s road these days. I don’t care what they say. I am listening to what you say.”

“I’ll consider the matter,” he replied evasively, for he wished to consult the head men. When he had stated the matter to White Shield, he said, “Now, of course, whatever you think best in this matter will be acceptable. I don’t know anything about the circumstances, but if this old woman is as bad as Big Nose says, she is of no account.”

White Shield, very quietly, replied, “Big Nose can never marry again.”

“Why not?” inquired Seger, being interested in White Shield’s brevity and decision of utterance.

White Shield replied, “Haven’t you heard how Big Nose gambled his wives away? That thing he did. Gambled away his tepees, his clothing, and walked naked through the camp. We gave him clothes. We gave back one wife, but we marked out a road and he must walk in it. He cannot marry again.”

And from this decree there was no appeal.

DRIFTING CRANE

DRIFTING CRANE

The people of Boomtown invariably spoke of Henry Wilson as the oldest settler in the Jim Valley, as he was of Buster County, but the Eastern man, with his ideas of an “old settler,” was surprised as he met the short, silent, middle-aged man, who was very loath to tell anything about himself, and about whom many strange and thrilling stories were told.

Between his ranch and the settlements in Eastern Dakota there was the wedge-shaped reservation known as the Sisseton Indian Reserve, on which were stationed the customary agency and company of soldiers. The valley was unsurveyed for the most part, and the Indians naturally felt a sort of proprietorship in it, and when Wilson drove his cattle down into the valley and squatted, the chief, Drifting Crane, welcomed him, as a host might, to an abundant feast whose hospitality was presumed upon, but who felt the need of sustaining his reputation for generosity, and submitted graciously.

The Indians during the first summer got to know Wilson, and liked him for his silence, his courage, his simplicity; but the older men pondered upon the matter a great deal and watched with grave faces to see him ploughing up the sod for his garden. There was something strange in this solitary man thus deserting his kindred, coming here to live alone with his cattle; they could not understand it. What they said in those pathetic, dimly lighted lodges will never be known; but when winter came, and the newcomer did not drive his cattle back over the hills as they thought he would, then the old chieftains took long counsel upon it. Night after night they smoked upon it, and at last Drifting Crane said to two of his young men: “Go ask this cattleman why he remains in the cold and snow with his cattle. Ask him why he does not drive his cattle home.”

This was in March, and one evening a couple of days later, as Wilson was about re-entering his shanty at the close of his day’s work, he was confronted by two stalwart Indians, who greeted him pleasantly.

“How d’e do?” he said in reply. “Come in.”

The Indians entered and sat silently while he put some food on the table. They hardly spoke till after they had eaten. The Indian is always hungry, for the reason that his food supply is insufficient and his clothing poor. When they sat on the cracker-boxes and soap-boxes which served as seats, they spoke. They told him of the chieftain’s message. They said they had come to assist him in driving his cattle back across the hills; that he must go.

To all this talk in the Indian’s epigrammatic way, and in the dialect which has never been written, the rancher replied almost as briefly: “You go back and tell Drifting Crane that I like this place; that I’m here to stay; that I don’t want any help to drive my cattle. I’m on the lands of the Great Father at Washington, and Drifting Crane ain’t got any say about it. Now that sizes the whole thing up. I ain’t got anything against you nor against him, but I’m a settler; that’s my constitution; and now I’m settled I’m going to stay.”

While the Indians discussed his words between themselves he made a bed of blankets on the floor, and said: “I never turn anybody out. A white man is just as good as an Indian as long as he behaves himself as well. You can bunk here.”

In the morning he gave them as good a breakfast as he had,—bacon and potatoes, with coffee and crackers. Then he shook hands, saying: “Come again. I ain’t got anything against you; you’ve done y’r duty. Now go back and tell your chief what I’ve said. I’m at home every day. Good day.”

The Indians smiled kindly, and drawing their blankets over their arms, went away toward the east.

During April and May two or three reconnoitering parties of land-hunters drifted over the hills and found him out. He was glad to see them, for, to tell the truth, the solitude of his life was telling on him. The winter had been severe, and he had hardly caught a glimpse of a white face during the three midwinter months, and his provisions were scanty.

These parties brought great news. One of them was the advance surveying party for a great Northern railroad, and they said a line of road was to be surveyed during the summer if their report was favorable.

“Well, what d’ye think of it?” Wilson asked, with a smile.

“Think! It’s immense!” said a small man in the party, whom the rest called Judge Balser. “Why, they’ll be a town of four thousand inhabitants in this valley before snow flies. We’ll send the surveyors right over the divide next month.”

They sent some papers to Wilson a few weeks later, which he devoured as a hungry dog might devour a plate of bacon. The papers were full of the wonderful resources of the Jim Valley. It spoke of the nutritious grasses for stock. It spoke of the successful venture of the lonely settler Wilson, how his stock fattened upon the winter grasses without shelter, what vegetables he grew, etc.

Wilson was reading this paper for the sixth time one evening in May. He felt something touch him on the shoulder, and looked up to see a tall Indian gazing down upon him with a look of strange pride and gravity. Wilson sprang to his feet and held out his hand.

“Drifting Crane, how d’e do?”

The Indian bowed, but did not take the settler’s hand. Drifting Crane would have been called old if he had been a white man, and there was a look of age in the fixed lines of his powerful, strongly modeled face, but no suspicion of weakness in the splendid poise of his broad, muscular body. There was a smileless gravity about his lips and eyes which was very impressive.

“I’m glad to see you. Come in and get something to eat,” said Wilson, after a moment’s pause.

The chief entered the cabin and took a seat near the door. He took a cup of milk and some meat and bread silently, and ate while listening to the talk of the settler.

“I don’t brag on my biscuits, chief, but they _eat_, if a man is hungry. An’ the milk’s all right. I suppose you’ve come to see why I ain’t moseying back over the divide?”

The chief, after a long pause, began to speak in a low, slow voice, as if choosing his words. He spoke in broken English, of course, but his speech was very direct and plain and had none of these absurd figures of rhetoric which romancers invariably put into the mouths of Indians. His voice was almost lionlike in its depth, and yet was not unpleasant.

“Cattleman, my young men brought me bad message from you. They brought your words to me, saying, he will not go away.”