The Great Sioux Trail: A Story of Mountain and Plain

by Joseph A. Altsheler

Inmutanka, as became his nature, was provident. The lodge that he and Will inhabited was well stored with pemmican, with nuts and a good store of shelled corn. It also held many dried herbs and to Will's eyes, now long unused to civilization, it was a comfortable and cheerful place. A fire was nearly always kept burning in the centre, and he managed to improve the little vent and wind vane at the top in such a manner that the smoke was carried off well, and his eyes did not suffer from it.

Then a fierce, cold rain came, blown by bitter winds and stripping the last leaf from the trees. At Will's own suggestion, vast brush shelters had been thrown up near the slopes. Crude and partial though they were, they gave the great pony herd much protection, and when old Xingudan inspected them carefully he looked at Will and said briefly: "It is good."

Will felt that he had taken another step into favor, and it was soon proved by a lightening of his labors and an increase in his share of the general amusements. Life was continually growing more tolerable. The black periods were becoming shorter and the bright periods were growing longer. The evenings had now grown so cold that the young Sioux spent them mostly in the lodges, Will devoting a large part of his time to learning the language from Inmutanka, who was a willing teacher. As he had much leisure and the Sioux vocabulary was limited he could soon talk it fluently.

All the while the winter deepened and Will, seeing that he would have no possible chance of escape for many months, resigned himself to his captivity. The fierce rain that lasted two days, was followed by snow, but the Indians still hunted and brought in much game, particularly several fine elk of the great size found only in the far northwest. They stood as tall as a horse, and Will judged that they weighed more than a thousand pounds apiece.

Then deeper snow came and he could hear it thundering in avalanches on the distant slopes. He was quite sure now that they were even farther north than he had at first supposed, and that probably they would be snowed in all the winter in the valley, a condition to which the Indians were indifferent, as they had good shelter and plenty of food. They began to make snowshoes, but Will judged that they would be used for hunting rather than for travel. There was no reason on earth that he knew why the village should move, or any of its people abandon it.

The warriors spent a part of their time making lances, bows, arrows and shields, sometimes working in a cave-like opening in the slope a little distance from the village. Will did his share of this work and grew exceedingly skilful. One very cold morning he and several others were toiling hard at the task under the critical eye of old Xingudan, who sat on a ledge wrapped in a pair of heavy blankets, Will's fine repeating rifle lying across his knees.

Two of the warriors were sent back to the village for more materials, the others were dispatched on different tasks until finally only Will was left at work, with Xingudan watching. The Fox had seen many winters and summers, and his wilderness wisdom was great, but he was an Indian and a Sioux to the bone. He had noted the steady march of the white man toward the west, and even if the buffalo continued to come forever in countless numbers out of the vast caves in the south, they might come, in time, for the white man only and not for the red.

He regarded Will with a yellow and evil eye. Wayaka was a good lad—he had proved it more than once—but he was a representative of the conquering and hated race. Heraka had said that his fate, the most terrible that could be devised, must come some day, but Wayaka was not to know the hour of its coming; no sign that it was at hand must be given.

Xingudan went over again the words of Heraka, who was higher in rank than he, and he pursed his lips thoughtfully, trying to decide what he would do. Then he heard a woof and a snort, and a sudden lurch of a heavy body. He sprang to his feet in alarm. While he was thinking and inattentive, Rota (the grizzly bear), not yet gone into his winter sleep, vast and hungry, was upon him.

Xingudan was no coward, but he was not so agile as a younger man. He sprang to his feet and hastily leveling the repeating rifle fired once, twice. The Indian is not a good marksman, least of all when in great haste. One of the bullets flew wild, the other struck him in the shoulder, and to Rota that was merely the thrust of a needle, stinging but not dangerous. A stroke of a great paw and the rifle was dashed from the hands of the old chief. Then he upreared himself in his mighty and terrible height, one of the most powerful and ferocious beasts, when wounded, that the world has ever known.