Beyond the sunset

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

"Haste, brothers!" he urged. "We must trick the Chippewa. It is Chatanskah's plan to seek the protection of the wood where it approaches the Missouri bank, nearly opposite here."

But this was not so easy of accomplishment as it sounded. The Chippewa soon appreciated our intent, and we had not doubled the apex of the blunt promontory, with its glacis of mudflats, when they tumbled over the Mississippi bluff and pelted us with lead. Others headed across the meadow which constituted the heart of the triangle, thinking to cut us off as we bounded its outer edge, but Tawannears, Corlaer and I crawled to the top of the Missouri bluff and drove them to cover again. And at last, by dint of this and similar desperate ploys, we were enabled to scramble up the Missouri bank in the rear of our allies and dash across a narrow belt of grass land into the green shelter of the wood, a shower of balls slicing the boughs about our shoulders.

There we were reasonably safe, and Tawannears explained the situation to us whilst the Dakota produced meat from their pouches, and we snatched a hasty meal as the evening shadows lengthened.

"This wood runs west and north for a mile," he said. "Beyond it the country is all open, buffalo grazing-ground where the Dakota were hunting when the Chippewa surprised them this afternoon. It is Chatanskah's counsel that we hold the wood until it is dark when he can afford to risk taking to the prairie. The Dakota villages are a long day's——"

He was interrupted by the resumption of the Chippewa's attack. They had massed their men behind the Missouri bank in front of us, and fired into the wood as rapidly as they could load and reload. Bullets "phutted!" into the trees, swished through the branches and whistled in the air. I was long to remember the sinister song they sang, for years were to pass before I was again obliged to stand up to the battering of musketry. The racket was awesome, yet it achieved remarkably little harm. One of the Dakota abandoned shelter to loose an arrow and sagged to the ground with a bullet in his lungs. Otherwise we were scathless so far.

The firing increased in volume. It became a hell of fury, and we could hear the Chippewa yelling encouragement to one another. Smoke clouds billowed out from the bank in thick, cottony puffs, and suddenly Chatanskah screeched a warning. The smoke clouds seemed to vomit forth low-running figures, musket in one hand, tomahawk in the other. But this was a chance for which Tawannears, Peter and I had been waiting, and we made our shots count. Our allies, too, were not dismayed. In the smoky dusk, at such short distances, the bow was on more than equal terms with the musket.

The Chippewa did not dare to stop to reload. They were obliged to rely upon the covering fire of the half-dozen comrades who had remained behind the bank, and these found it impossible to aim because of the heavy smoke that the dying wind could not disperse. The Dakota bows boomed with savage joy. All around us I heard the tense, twanging hum of the strings, the prolonged "his-ss-s-tsst!" of the arrows. Out in the open men tossed their arms aloft and dropped with arrows in their bowels, or fell kicking and coughing, pierced in the throat, or went straight over backward with a bunch of feathers standing up just over their hearts.

The attack faltered and gave ground, and the Dakota warriors burst from the wood. Two of them collapsed before a ragged volley from the river-bank, but there was no stopping them. They swept over the field with tomahawk and scalping-knife, and their arrows drove the surviving Chippewa out upon the mudflats, where they would have followed if Chatanskah had not called them in, fearful of an ambuscade in the gathering darkness.

That was a proud night for the Dakota band. The youngest warrior counted coup, for the Chippewa had lost two-thirds of their number. But what pleased our new friends the most was not their tale of scalps, but the eighteen French firelocks that were theirs for lifting from the ground. It was the biggest haul of war-booty their tribe had ever taken, of incalculable military value, as the future was soon to show. Moreover, that battle in the triangle between the two rivers, obscure though it was, became famous in the annals of the plains tribes, as proving that under favorable circumstances they could stand up to the forest tribes from the east side of the Mississippi, despite the better arms of the forest warriors. And many chiefs, who up to that time had concentrated their efforts upon stealing horses, branched out into elaborate schemes for procuring musketry.

Weary as his men were—and we no less than they—Chatanskah would not allowed them to camp on the scene of their victory. Loaded with the spoil, which was considerable, including, besides the muskets, their enemies' equipment of powder-horns and shot-pouches, knives, tomahawks and other weapons, the band trotted through the wood and out upon the open prairie beyond. With the rising moon to light them they headed inland from the Missouri, bearing northwest by the stars, and doggedly maintained the pace until I guessed it to be midnight. Then Chatanskah consented to make camp, without fires, and set guards for the balance of the night. Tawannears offered to have us take our share of this duty, but the Dakota chief would not hear of it.