"Tell Chiquita how many sleeps on the cars Washington City from Denver City."
"Five sleeps on the cars Denver City to Washington City."
Jack happened to have in his kit a railroad map of the United States and with this spread before them on a blanket, he would point out Rock Creek and then explain the distances from one place to another, telling of the great buildings, the industries, the immense amount of fuel used in the big shops and the number of men employed in making guns, wagons, saddles, harness, boots, blankets and the like, articles that appeared in the camp and which were in everyday use at the White River Agency. This was a very arduous but pleasing task, in that it required all of Jack's ingenuity to portray the information intelligently, and frequently Chiquita would be the instructor because of her better ability, as a child of the forest, to convey thought by means of signs and comparative objects. He taught her the alphabet, also words of one and two syllables, and she showed how wonderful is the Indian mind in its retention of the slightest impression when the will power to receive it is acquiescent.
"Tell Chiquita, does the white man's squaw carry the wood for the fire so the warrior can cook his venison?"
"No," said Jack, laughing, "the warrior of the white man is the soldier at the fort."
Chiquita interrupted quickly, a deep scowl causing her inky black eyebrows to meet over her flashing eyes, and with her head thrown back, displaying the full, rounded throat, her beautiful arm bared save for the wide beaded bracelets and amulets, she pointed to the sky, almost hissing through her marvelously white teeth, "Chiquita comprehends, the warrior of the white man is the hired pale face, sent by the Great White Chief at Washington City to slay my people; even now mebbe so the hired man rides to take Chiquita back to the White River; but her people are brave. Her people were as the stars above, as the drops that make the big river, but they are gone to the Great Spirit, where their ponies await their coming in the Happy Hunting Ground that the pale face knows not of, and to where the spirit of Chiquita will some day fly. Let the white man Jack beware. It is well for him that Yamanatz is his friend, and Chiquita will see that no harm comes to the friend of Yamanatz. Mebbe so Colorow is no friend of the white man Jack, but Colorow has no bullets. The gun of Colorow is empty, but the knife in the belt of Colorow is pointed. It is sharp and the arm of Colorow is as the young tree, and his step is as the step of the fawn when the dew is on the grass. Let the white man Jack beware. Colorow will come to tell the white man to go to the land which was taken from Colorow's people; that this is the Utes' land and that the Utes will no more let the white man hunt the deer and trap the wolf, which run by the tepee of the red man. So let the white man Jack be cunning and let not Colorow find the white man asleep under the big tree."
She was all excitement. The cords stood out upon her graceful throat, while her rounded cheeks crimsoned as the frosted leaf in the autumn time. Jack was spellbound as the words of that eloquent warning fell upon his ears, but at the last subdued, almost beseeching plea, he started as if the knife was already at his throat, for it was but yesterday, in the warm sunshine far beyond the snowy range, at noon time, he had taken a short nap under a big pine tree, where a bed of pine needles made an inviting spot, little dreaming that a living being, much less an Indian, was within five miles of him. Chiquita guessed his thoughts, and in that musical tone found only among the old blanket Indian tribes, told Jack how she followed him and Colorow from the camp on Rock Creek, fearing all the while that that cunning war chief would slay the young man from the east and upset all plans of Chiquita becoming a medicine tepee queen.
Chiquita knew that Colorow, of all the discontented Utes on Rock Creek, desired especially to be rid of Jack's presence. That the old warrior had a grudge against the trapper was evident, and the trapper's departure, leaving Jack alone to attend to the traps, was to her mind clear proof that Colorow had been instrumental in causing the departure.
She had heard the leaders of the renegade band denounce all trappers who sought the region contiguous to the White River reservation, and in particular the trapper who had built the cabin on Rock Creek. She knew that this trapper had the winter before wantonly killed seventy-six elk, which he had stumbled upon in a little willow grown park where the deep snow had stalled them, and that he did not kill any more because his ammunition had given out. She knew that the Utes, as well as the white settlers, had in unmeasured terms condemned this wanton slaying of so much game, but she did not think this episode was the cause of Colorow's animosity. There was but one reason that sufficed in her opinion. She believed Colorow had told the trapper to abandon the camp under penalty of death if he remained, and she reasoned that the trapper went alone because he had been ashamed to tell Jack the truth. Consequently Jack would be the next to go, and as she already knew that Colorow had openly declared his intention of driving the young paleface away, she determined to watch that cunning Ute every day and give him no opportunity for any hostile movement against Jack.
The gray dawn of the day referred to in her impassioned warning found Chiquita swiftly and silently making her way toward the Rock Creek cabin, where she took up a position commanding a view of the camp and the trails leading to it.