CHAPTER VIII. A SCOUTING EXPEDITION.
After the emigrants had partaken of their breakfast, Abe thought of a plan to give the beasts something to eat; the grass within the little camp had long since disappeared, but outside of the wagon-line there was plenty. The question was how to protect the cattle from the Indians while they grazed.
Abe directed a passage-way to be made by pulling two of the wagons apart; then he dispatched five of the cattle at a time to feed, while he, Dave and Grierson, who was an excellent shot, mounted and rode on before the cattle. The first five cattle that went out, the Crows made a dash for, but Abe, the moment they got within range, shot the first in the shoulder and checked the advance, the rifles of the whites having so much greater carrying powers than the guns of the Indians, gave them a decided advantage.
Then the Crows tried their favorite maneuver of hiding themselves behind their horses, riding by at full speed and firing at the cattle. The whites speedily stopped that by shooting the Indian horses, and after the Crows had lost three animals they gave up the attempt and left the beasts of the emigrants to eat in quiet.
“Wal, thar’s another idea of the red-skins blocked,” cried Abe. “I guess they won’t starve either us or our cattle.”
“But we can not advance,” said Grierson, “while they surround us.”
“Of course not,” replied Abe, “but they’ll get tired of squatting down out thar an’ watching us, ’fore long, see if they don’t. Another p’int, I ain’t a-goin’ to stay quiet hyar an’ let ’em alone. ’Fore long, I’ll worry ’em a little, see if I don’t.”
And so, after all the cattle were fed, Abe and Dave held a private consultation.
“Dave,” said the “Crow-Killer,” “I think I’ll take a leetle scout out among the Crows an’ see what they are arter.”
“Shall I go with you?” asked Dave.
“No, you remain hyar in command of the train, but, arter I’m gone, if the Crows on the north and east don’t appear to be up to any thing, you fust select a little party, say five or six good men, and ambush yourself, about a half a mile beyond the bend, in the timber on the river-bank. I’m goin’ to take advantage of the timber on the bank to walk into the Crow camp an’ see what they’re up to; an’ when I’ve found out all I can an’ git ready to leave, I’ll fix things so as to lead some of the red devils right into your ambush.”
“Be careful, Abe; don’t run heedlessly into danger,” said Dave.
“Sart’in, I have the highest respect in the world for my top-knot, an’ I ain’t inclined to part with it yet. You bet, none of the painted sarpints get it, without a big tussle. Another thing I’m arter. I want to find out whether the little gal is alive or not. I ’spect, of course, that you want to find that out, yourself, but, Dave, it’s better that I should go. I know thar ain’t any hope of snatching her out of the red-skins’ hands jist now; but I can find out, I guess, whether she’s alive or dead. You know, Dave, thar isn’t a man in the north-west that knows the Crows as well as I do. Are you willin’ to stay behind, look after the camp, an’ let me go?” and the old Indian-fighter laid his hand kindly on the shoulder of the young guide as he spoke.
“Yes, Abe,” said Dave, his voice choked with emotion; “you are right. It is better that you should go than I; for if I saw her in the hands of the red devils, I should do something, not only to endanger my own life but hers. Go, therefore, in Heaven’s name. I will faithfully obey all your instructions.”
“That’s jist as it ought to be,” cried Abe, wringing his hand warmly. “All I’ve got to say is this: I’m going to take advantage of the timber to crawl up the bank of the river and sneak into their camp, for from what I saw on the prairie, I’m satisfied that their head-quarters is up the river. Now it ain’t likely that they’ll keep a very strict guard, ’cos they’ve been fightin’ all night, an’ besides, they won’t expect a visit. If I can only get near enough to hear their talk—you know I know the Crow language as well as I do my own—why then, I shall find out what they’re goin’ to do, an’ perhaps what’s goin’ to become of the little gal. Jist you ambush your men ’bout half a mile above an’ lay low in the bushes till you see me. I’ll lead some of the red imps right into your fire. That’s all I’ve got for to say.”
Then the guide went to the bank of the river, crawled under a wagon and disappeared in the little thicket beyond.
Noiselessly and carefully, Abe, the “Crow-Killer,” threaded his way through the thicket, his ears ever on the alert to catch the slightest sound before him; his keen eyes piercing the dense wood, eager for a sight of the foe.
The line of the savages was some three hundred yards from the camp. Abe, calculating that he must now be near it, proceeded onward with increased caution. In a few steps more he came to where the little thicket ended, and an open glade, perhaps a hundred feet in space, intervened; beyond that, the thicket commenced again; and on the grass by the thicket sat a Crow chief. He was evidently on the watch, and yet his watch was any thing but strict. The savage did not dream of danger and sat lazily cutting the grass around him with his tomahawk, while his eyes were vacantly fixed upon the distant prairie.
To cross the open glade, so near the savage camp, was a dangerous task, but to cross it with the Indian sitting there on the watch was clearly an impossibility.
The old Indian-fighter surveyed the ground before him, long and earnestly.
“Jerusalem!” he muttered, “that durned red Injun is right in my track; if I could get by him, guess I could walk right into the Crow camp, without trouble, but how in creation am I to git across that glade? The cuss has got a carbine t’other side of him too. ’Pears to me, these Crows must have been making a raid on some of Uncle Sam’s wagons. Oh! you long-legged red imp!” and he shook his fist at the unconscious savage, “I’d like for to get hold of your top-knot.”
“Wal,” soliloquized the “Crow-Killer,” “I can’t cross the glade, that’s sart’in; now let’s see if I can’t get round it some way.”
First he looked to his right; before him was the open prairie; no hope there, of course. Then he looked to the left; there rolled the river. His eyes fell upon the little growth of timber on the opposite bank, which grew down to the edge the same as did that in which the hunter lay concealed.
“Thunder!” he cried, again communing with himself, “I mought have gone up on the other bank of the river, but then,” and he thought the matter over carefully, “I should be as bad off as I am now, for I couldn’t cross the river ag’in, without being seen any more that I can cross this glade. Jerusalem! whar are my ideas?” The guide racked his brains for a method to cross this hundred feet of open space guarded by the Indian. Just then the savage opened his mouth and indulged in a loud yawn.
“Oh! if he’d only go to sleep for jist two minutes, jist that long, an’ I’d send him to kingdom come, quicker’n a wink.”
But the savage, beyond yawning, evinced no desire or disposition to sleep.
The hunter bit his lips in desperation; his eyes wandering vacantly around, fell again upon the opposite bank of the river. Suddenly a smile stole over his features; he had an idea how to cross the glade, or if not to cross it, how, in military parlance, “to turn the enemy’s position.”
As we have said, the trees on the opposite side, as well as on the one on which the guide was hid, grew down to the edge of the bank; but, from the edge of the bank to the water of the river was at least six feet, the river being low; the washing of the rapid-rolling waters in time of the spring freshets and at other periods of high water had worn away the earth of the bank and tunneled it out to quite an extent underneath the brink.
“I’ve got it!” said the “Crow-Killer” in triumph; “if this ’ere bank is hollowed out underneath like t’other one, all I’ve got to do is to get down to the edge, get under the bank and crawl along till I reach the timber again; the bank will hide me snug as can be.”
So the “Crow-Killer” quietly withdrew from his position at the edge of the timber and wormed his way, snake-like, to the bank of the river. Then he carefully lowered himself off the bank into the soft clay-earth fringed by the rolling waters.
Then noiselessly he crept along, bent almost double, under the overhanging bank.
The “Crow-Killer” safely accomplished his purpose, reached the timber on the other side of the glade without exciting the suspicions of the savage. The position of the enemy was turned.
The guide took the precaution to go some distance beyond the glade, before he left the shelter of the overhanging bank—that had so kindly shielded him—and took to the thicket.
“’Pears to me,” he said, musingly, “that I onc’t hearn one of the sodgers at Fort Benton say that it was bad policy for an invading army to leave a strong post of the enemy in their rear. Now, as I suppose I stand for the same as an invading army, it would be bad policy for me to let that ’are Crow hold his position without a try to boost him out of it, ’cos if I should happen to get into any leetle difficulty beyond hyar with the Crows, my only chance of escape is by this timber, ’cos, on the prairie, their horses would run me down, easy as fallin’ off a log. Tharfore, it’s very clear to my mind that the first thing to be done is to put that Crow out of the way.”
Through the timbers cautiously stole the guide; he was now approaching the Indian in the rear. He had formed so true a calculation of the spot upon which sat the Crow chief, that, after five minutes’ continued progress he could distinguish the dusky figure on the outskirts of the timber.
“Thar’s the red devil!” muttered the hunter. Just then he happened to step upon a dried twig, which snapped beneath his tread. Noiselessly and with the quickness of the lightning’s flash, the “Crow-Killer” sunk at full length upon the ground.
The quick ear of the Indian caught the sound of the breaking twig, and he lazily turned his head in the direction of the noise. The action was prompted by curiosity only, not alarm, for he had no suspicion of danger; he looked for the foe before not behind him.
A moment or two the Indian kept his eyes fixed in the direction of the “Crow-Killer.” All was still, however, no sound came from the little thicket.
The Indian, at last satisfied that the noise came from some little animal or bird within the thicket, again resumed his watch down the river.
“Wal,” the “Crow-Killer” whispered, “that were a narrow escape. If that Injun had as much sense as a pig, he’d have found out what made that ’are noise. Bah! talk ’bout Injun sense and skill! Thar never were an Injun yet that could come up to a white man trained in their ways; they ain’t got the head on their red bodies for to do it. A moment ago, I thought it were a difficult question to decide, whether he’d take my top-knot or I’d take his’n, but thar ain’t any doubt ’bout it now; he’s a gone sucker, as sure as my name’s Abe.”
Then drawing his keen-edged hunting-knife, with a stealthy step the old hunter crept upon his foe. The Indian, unconscious of danger, and wearied from the toil of last night’s fight, sat upon the grass, idly reclining upon his elbow, his carbine by his side, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the open prairie
With a spring like that of the panther leaping upon his prey, the old hunter sprung upon his foe, and while one broad hand, clutching the brawny throat of the savage, stifled his cries, the other drove the broad-bladed knife deep into his bosom. A single convulsive movement of the savage’s limbs, a stifled gasp in the throat, and the soul of the Crow chief had fled to the happy hunting-grounds. Another brave of the Crow nation had fallen by the hand of the Avenger.
A strange expression was in the eyes of the old “Crow-Killer” as he knelt by the side of the dead warrior.
“A young brave,” he muttered, gazing on the features of the Crow—tinted with the gay war-paint—that a few moments before had been radiant with life, health and strength, yet now were rigid in death. “Probably this was his first expedition,” he continued, “the first time that he has decked his face with the war-paint and gone on the war-trail ag’in’ the whites; yet I don’t know that; the ‘White Vulture’ isn’t much older than this chap, an’ he has seen many a bloody fight. ’Tain’t for nothing that they call him the ‘greatest fighting-man of the Crow nation.’”
The scout took another long look at the youthful features of the dead warrior, from the wound in whose breast the blood was streaming freely.
“It seems a pity to kill the red devils arter all; yet when I think of the wrong they have done me, cuss ’em!” and the guide shut his teeth together vindictively. “When I think of my father, dead, killed by these red dogs—when I think of my little Injun wife that they stole away from me, an’ then, when I think of my two boys, my twin boys—if they had lived they’d have been about the age of this feller now—it makes me feel so bitter, that I really believe if I had the power I could wipe out the whole durned Crow nation, with as little remorse as I would feel for killin’ a wolf. One of these days, I ’spect I’ll find the truth about my wife and those twin babies. It makes me feel right bad sometimes, when I think that, maybe, the Crows didn’t kill my two boys, but have reared ’em up an’ made ’em Crow warriors, taught ’em to fight ag’in’ their father, an’, some day, I may meet an’ kill ’em or they me. I think I should know ’em though, ’cos they must look like the mother an’ something like me.” And then the old hunter was silent for a moment; then he took the body of the Indian, placed it carefully with its back against a tree, facing it toward the prairie.
“Thar,” said Abe, “if any of the red skunks on the prairie pass by they’ll think he’s on his post, all right; they won’t see that he’s done fer unless they come mighty close. Now then,” he said, picking up his rifle from where he had laid it in the thicket, “now I think I can walk right into the Crow camp without any trouble; I must be careful, though, I don’t stumble on ’em afore I know it, ’cos a fight is the last thing that I want to git into now.”