The Great Sioux Trail: A Story of Mountain and Plain

by Joseph A. Altsheler

Old Xingudan ruled with the alternate severity and forbearance of a patriarch, and now he showed his kindly side to Will, treating him almost as one of their own young warriors. The "almost" was soon turned to a fact, as old Inmutanka formally adopted Will as his son with the ceremonies customary on such occasions, and he knew therefore that his struggle had been achieved at last, that he had now attained a plane of social equality with the Indians of the village.

Whatever it may have seemed six months before, it was no small triumph now. His task was chiefly in the making of arms, along with the other warriors, and he soon become the equal of any of them. He also practiced with them the throwing of the tomahawk at trees, in which he acquired wonderful dexterity. But his best work was done among the ponies. Often in jest he called himself the horse doctor of the camp. He had studied their ailments and he knew how to cure them, but above all was his extraordinary gift of reaching into the horse nature, a power, derived he knew not whence or how, of conveying to them the sympathy for them in his nature. They responded as human beings do to such a feeling, and, with a word and a sign, he could lead a whole herd from one field to another.

This power of his impressed the Sioux even more than his slaying of the monstrous grizzly bear with only a spear. It was a gift direct from Manitou, and they were proud that an adopted warrior of their village should have such a mysterious strength. Will knew now that he was no longer in danger of torture by fire or otherwise. Old Xingudan would not do it. Heraka, who was his superior chief, might return and command it, but Xingudan and the whole village would disobey. Moreover, he was now the adopted son of Inmutanka, a young Sioux warrior with all the rights of a Sioux, and the law forbade them to torture him or put him to death. And Indian laws were often better obeyed than white man's laws.

Xingudan kept his repeating rifle, his revolver and his field glasses, but a bow and arrows were permitted to him, and he learned to use them as well as any of the Indians. The valley and the slopes that were not too high and steep, afforded an extensive hunting range, despite the deep snow, and Will brought down with a lucky arrow a fine elk that made for him a position yet better in the village, as he and Inmutanka, his father, were entitled to the body, but instead divided at least half of it among the older and weaker men and women.

Despite the favor into which he had come, Will could learn nothing of his location or of the progress of the war between the great Sioux nation and the whites. Yet of the latter he had a hint. Just before the winter closed in on them finally, a young warrior, evidently a runner because he bore all the signs of having travelled far and fast, arrived in the valley. He was taken into the lodge of Xingudan and he departed the next morning with five of the young warriors of the village, the best men they had. When Will referred to their absence he received either no answer or an ambiguous one. Inmutanka himself would say nothing about them, but Will made a shrewd surmise that the runner had come for help in the great war and that the last and uttermost village would be stripped in the attempt to turn back the white tide.

His growing appreciation of wild life caused him to have an increasing feeling of sympathy for the Sioux. The white flood would engulf them some day. He knew that just as well as he knew that he was in the valley, but as for himself, he had no wish to see the buffalo disappear from the plains. If his own personal desires were consulted the west would remain a wilderness and a land of romance. It was pleasant to think that there was an immense region in which one could always discover a towering peak, a noble river or a splendid lake.

Adopted now into the tribe, and far from the battle line, he might have drifted on indefinitely with the Indians, but there was the memory of his white comrades, whom he could not believe dead, and also the mission upon which he had started, the hunt for the great mine which his father had found. The reasons why he should continue the search were overwhelming, and despite the kindness of Inmutanka and the others he meant to escape from them whenever he could.

The winter shut down fierce and hard. Will had never before known cold so intense and continuous. In the valley itself the snow lay deep and its surface was frozen hard, but the Indians moved over it easily on their snowshoes, the use of which Will learned with much pain and tribulation. The river was covered with ice of great thickness, but the Indians cut holes in it and caught many excellent fish, which added a pleasant variety to their diet.

One of their hardest struggles was to keep alive the herd of ponies. At the suggestion of Will and of Xingudan, who was a wise man beyond his race, much forage had been cut for them before the winter fell, and in the alcoves of the mountains where the snow was thin they were continually seeking grass, which grew despite everything. Will led in the work of saving the herd, and gradually he directed almost his whole time to it. He insisted upon gathering anything they could eat, even twigs, and Indian ponies are very tough. The young boys, the old men and the old women helped him and were directed by him.

Scarcely any young warriors were left in the village and Will's strength and intelligence fitted him for leadership. The weaker people began to rely upon him and, as he learned the ways of the wild and fused them with the ways of civilization, he became a great source of strength in the village. He wore a beautiful deerskin suit which several of the old women had made for him in gratitude for large supplies of food that he had given to them, and he had a splendid overcoat which Inmutanka and he had made of a buffalo robe.