CHAPTER XXXIII
THE END OF A DREAM
The dark of the moon was come.
All that day the sun had baked, and the steady south blow had been like the draught of an oven. As evening came, brushing a glory of red from the sky, the wind quickened, instead of lulling, and fetched up clouds that rested on the ridge-tops and roofed the wide valley. Through these not a star showed. But now and then, for an instant, the post sprang into sight out of the blackness to the weird play of the heat-lightning.
In the stockade there was perfect quiet—a quiet tense with excitement. Secrecy forbade any strong-heart songs and dances. Caution advised against mosquito fires. And suspense did away with drumming, shrill laughter, and feast-shout. The aged men, the women, and the children kept close within their lodges, where they whispered and nodded, nose to nose. The warriors stayed outside, preserving their calm with kinnikinick. In the dark, the open bowls of their scattered pipes were so many ruddy glow-worms.
From the pitchy shelter of the shingle roof, Squaw Charley looked out. He sat on his heels, about him the few mangy dogs that had not found the dinner-pot. One of these stirred. Half rising, he gave it a kick, just as one of his brothers might have done. Then he squatted again, and through the ragged strands of his bang, his black eyes sparkled eagerly. For, of late, every warrior's lodge had seen secret flesh-painting; under every warrior's blanket were hidden gaudy tracings of vermilion, scarlet, orange, and blue; and was he not painted, too!
He had sought in an ash-pile for coals; found a beef bone and snapped it for marrow; next, taken from his worn pouch a lump of red earth. He had rubbed the coals to powder in a square of rag, after which he had mixed the powder and the grease to make a paste. Then, he had pulled off his mourning blanket and his squaw's shirt, and bared his body to the waist.
Vermilion, orange, scarlet, and blue—these colours had been laid in stripes, circles, and figures upon the braves. They were colours that he, an outcast, might not use. But there was one poor privilege in flesh-painting that even he could claim. Kneeling again in clout and squaw's skirt, he had smeared the black and red in rude signs upon his chest. The braves, his brothers, had painted themselves for battle. But he, the pariah, had painted himself in the colours of death.
Suddenly he forsook the roof for the shadow of the log wall. There he waited. Two warriors had left the lodge of Brown Mink and were crossing the pen. He knew them. The shorter was Canada John, the eldest of the four condemned. The other was a Sioux who had been captured that day and cast into prison at sunset. He was a giant in stature, wore full war paint and dress, and a belt that testified his valour. For it hung thick with scalps, some jetty and coarse,—taken from heads of his own kind,—some brown or fair, with the softness that belongs to the hair of white women and little children. The two were talking low together. Presently, as they strolled near, the outcast heard the deep murmur of their voices; then their words. He leaned toward them, all ears.
"How many sleeps before the dove calls?" It was the bass of the stranger.