"Bring Me His Ears"

by Clarence Edward Mulford

Tom's chuckle came straight from his heart. "Not yet, God bless you. Despite their reputation in some quarters, Pawnees are not the most daring fighters. Any of the tribes east of the Mississippi are paragons of courage when compared to these prairie Indians. Pawnees would rather steal than fight; and they know that this is no helpless caravan, but one with nearly two hundred armed men. If they were Comanches or Kiowas, Utes or Apaches, I'd be bothered a lot more than I am now. And they know that there are two cannons pointing somewhere into the night. All we have to worry about is our animals."

The mournful, hair-raising screech of an owl sounded again, and then all the demons of hell seemed to have broken loose around the camp. The corralled animals, restless before, now surged one way and now another, largely cancelling their own efforts because wave met wave; but all the while they were getting wilder and more frantic and the blood-chilling yells on all sides finally set them into a sort of rhythm which more and more became uniform. They surged from one side to the other, striking the wagons harder and harder. Then the yelling ceased and the Pawnee whistle was heard. There ensued a few minutes of silence and then the whistle sounded again. It set off a hellish uproar on one side of the encampment and the frantic animals whirled and charged in the other direction. The shock rocked some of the wagons and would have overturned them but for the great weight of their loads. Anticipating this surge of the animals some of the traders, told off by the captain, had bound bundles of twigs and dried grass to long cottonwood sticks and now set them afire and crawled under the wagons, thrusting the torches into the faces of the charging mass. This started the animals milling and soon the whole herd was running in a circle. The stampede had failed.

Here and there from under the wagons on the threatened side of the encampment guns stabbed into the night, showing where tenderfeet were gallantly engaged in guessing matches. Arrows curved over the wagon tops and some of the torch wavers on the other side of the camp had narrow escapes before their purpose was accomplished and the torches burned out.

A cricket chirped twice and then twice again not far from Joe Cooper's little wagon, and the alert plainsman crouched behind an outer wheel answered by three short trills. "Don't shoot, Uncle Joe," Tom softly called. "That's Hank."

Hank seemed to be having a hard time of it and made more noise than was his wont. Alarmed, Tom was about to crawl out and help his friend to the corral when Hank's querulous complaint barely reached him.

"Danged if ye ain't so plumb full o' buffaler meat ye nigh weigh a ton," growled the hunter. "Yourn as heavy as mine, Jim?"

"Wuss," complacently answered Ogden.

"Huh!" snorted another voice, crowding so much meaning into the grunt that he had the best of the little exchange and the last word.

"If I could twang like you, Hank," said Ogden, pausing a moment to rest, "I'd have a hull dozen, danged if I wouldn't. Mine's got nigh ter six feet o' feathers a-hangin' ter him."

Tom rocked back and forth, laughing silently. "Then he makes up fer th' rest o' yer dozen!" he gasped. "Hostages, by th' Great Horned Spoon!" He made some funny noises in his throat and gasped again. "A chief, too!"