We slept in the bed of our wagon-box that night while the crew rode away to fight a prairie fire. We heard them come quietly in toward dawn, and when we awoke and looked out of our cover we saw them lying all about us on the ground each rolled up in his tarpaulin like a boulder. Altogether it was a stirring glimpse of ranch life for my city-bred wife.
Primeau's home ranch and store which we reached about eleven the next forenoon was an almost equally sorry place for a delicate woman, a sad spot in which to spend even a single night. Flies swarmed in the kitchen like bees, and the air of our bedroom was hot and stagnant, and mosquitoes made sleep impossible. Zulime became ill, and I bitterly regretted my action in bringing her into this God forsaken land. "We shall return at once to the fort," I promised her.
It was an iron soil. The valley was a furnace, the sky a brazen shield. No green thing was in sight, and the curling leaves of the dying corn brought back to me those desolate days in Dakota when my mother tried so hard to maintain a garden. Deeply pitying the captive red hunters, who were expected to become farmers under these desolate conditions, I was able to understand how they had turned to the Great Spirit in a last despairing plea for pity and relief. "Think of this place in winter," I said to Zulime.
One of the men whom Primeau especially wished me to meet was Slohan, the annalist of his tribe, one of the "Silent Eaters," a kind of bodyguard to Sitting Bull. "He lives only a few miles up the valley," Primeau explained, and so to find him we set off in a light wagon next morning drawn by a couple of fleet ponies.
As we rode, Primeau told me more of "The Silent Eaters." "They were a small band of young warriors organized for defense and council, and were closely associated with Sitting Bull all his life. Slohan, the man we are to see to-day, is one of those who stood nearest the chief. No man living knows more about him. He can tell you just what you want to know."
An hour later as we were riding along close to the bank of the creek, Primeau stopped his team. "There he is now!" he exclaimed.
Looking where he pointed I discovered on a mound above the stream an old man sitting motionless as a statue, with bowed head, and lax hands. There was something strange, almost tragic in his attitude, and this impression deepened as we approached him.
He was wrinkled with age and clad in ragged white man's clothing, but his profile was fine, fine as that of a Roman Senator, and the lines of his face were infinitely sad. In one fallen hand lay a coiled rope.
He did not look up as we drew near, did not appear to hear Primeau's respectful greeting. Dejected, motionless, he endured the hot sunshine like an Oriental Yoghi or a man deadened by some narcotic drug.
Gently, almost timidly, Primeau addressed him. "Slohan, this white man has come a long way to see you. He wishes to talk with you about the Sitting Bull and of the days of the buffalo."