The Great Sioux Trail: A Story of Mountain and Plain

by Joseph A. Altsheler

Will's tasks were as long as ever, but they changed greatly in character. He was no longer compelled to work with the women and children, save when the tending of the herds brought him into contact with the boys, but there he was now an acknowledged chief. A distemper appeared among the ponies and the Sioux were greatly alarmed, but Will, with some simple remedies he had learned in the East, stopped it quickly and with the loss of but two or three ponies. Old Xingudan gave him no thanks save a brief, "It is well," but the lad knew that he had done them a great service and that they were not wholly ungrateful.

He had proof of it a little later, when he was allowed to take part in the trapping and snaring of wild beasts, although he was always accompanied by three or four Indian youths, and was never permitted to have any weapon.

But he showed zeal, and he enjoyed the freedom, although it was only that of the valley and the slopes. He learned to set traps with the best of them, and became an adept in the taking and curing of game. All the while the autumn was deepening and wild life was becoming more endurable. The foliage on slopes and in the valley that had burned in fiery hues, now began to fade into yellow and brown. The winds out of the north grew fierce and cutting, and on the vast and distant peaks the snow line came down farther and farther.

"Waniyetu (winter) will soon be here," said old Inmutanka.

"The village is in good condition to meet it," said Will.

"Better than most villages of our people," said Inmutanka. "The white man presses back the red man because the red man thinks only of today, while the white man thinks of tomorrow too. The white man is not any braver than the red man, often he is not as brave, and he is not as cunning, but when the Indian's stomach is full his head goes to sleep. While the plains are covered with the buffalo in the summer, sometimes our people starve to death in the winter."

"I suppose, doctor," said Will, "that one can't have everything. If he is anxious about the future he can't enjoy the present."

The old Sioux shook his head and remained dissatisfied.

"The buffalo is our life," he said, "or, at least, the life of the Sioux tribes that ride the Great Plains. Manitou sends the buffalo to us. Buffaloes, in numbers past all human counting, are born by the will of Manitou under the ground and in the winter. When the spring winds begin to blow they come from beneath the earth through great caves and they begin their march northward. If the Sioux and the other Indian nations were to displease Manitou he might not send the buffalo herds out through the great caves, and then we should perish."

Will afterward discovered that this was a common belief among the Indians of the plains. Some old men claimed to have seen these caves far down in Texas, and it was quite common for the ancients of the tribes to aver that their fathers or grandfathers had seen them. Most of them held, too, to the consoling belief that however great the slaughter of buffaloes by white man and red, Manitou would continue to send them in such vast numbers that the supply could never be exhausted, although a few such as Inmutanka had a fear to the contrary.