The next day was Sunday, and, true to their New England training, the settlers refrained from labor on the day of rest. Mr. Bryant took his pocket Bible and wandered off into the wild waste of lands somewhere. The others lounged about the cabin, indoors and out, a trifle sore and stiff from the effects of work so much harder than that to which they had been accustomed, and glad of an opportunity to rest their limbs. The younger of the boy settlers complained that they had worn their legs out with punching holes in the sod while planting corn. The soles of their feet were sore with the pressure needed to jam the dibble through the tough turf. In the afternoon, they all wandered off through the sweet and silent wilderness of rolling prairie into the woods in which they proposed to lay off another claim for pre-emption. At a short distance above their present home, cutting sharply through the sod, and crossing the Republican Fork a mile or so above their own ford, was an old Indian trail, which the boys had before noticed but could not understand. As Charlie 117 and Oscar, pressing on ahead of their elders, came upon the old trail, they loitered about until the rest of the party came up, and then they asked what could have cut that narrow track in the turf, so deep and so narrow.
“That’s an Injun trail,” said Younkins, who, with an uncomfortably new suit of Sunday clothes and a smooth-shaven face, had come over to visit his new neighbors. “Didn’t you ever see an Injun trail before?” he asked, noting the look of eager curiosity on the faces of the boys. They assured him that they never had, and he continued: “This yere trail has been here for years and years, long and long before any white folks came into the country. Up north and east of yer, on the head-waters of the Big Blue, the Cheyennes used to live,”––Younkins pronounced it Shyans,––“and as soon as the grass began to start in the spring, so as to give feed to their ponies and to the buffalo, they would come down this yere way for game. They crossed the Fork just above yere-like, and then they struck down to the head-waters of the Smoky Hill and so off to the westwards. Big game was plenty in those days, and now the Injuns off to the north of yere come down in just the same way––hunting for game.”
The boys got down on their knees and scanned the trail with new interest. It was not more than nine or ten inches across, and was so worn down that it made a narrow trench, as it were, in the 118 deep sod, its lower surface being as smooth as a rolled wagon-track. Over this well-worn track, for ages past, the hurrying feet of wild tribes had passed so many times that even the wiry grass-roots had been killed down.
“Did war parties ever go out on this trail, do you suppose?” asked Sandy, sitting up in the grass.
“Sakes alive, yes!” replied Younkins. “Why, the Cheyennes and the Comanches used to roam over all these plains, in the old times, and they were mostly at war.”
“Where are the Cheyennes and the Comanches now, Mr. Younkins?” asked Uncle Aleck.
“I reckon the Comanches are off to the south-like somewhere. It appears to me that I heard they were down off the Texas border, somewheres; the Cheyennes are to the westwards, somewhere near Fort Laramie.”
“And what Indians are there who use this trail now?” inquired Oscar, whose eyes were sparkling with excitement as he studied the well-worn path of the Indian tribes.
Younkins explained that the Pottawottomies and the Pawnees, now located to the north, were the only ones who used the trail. “Blanket Indians,” he said they were, peaceable creatures enough, but not good neighbors; he did not want any Indians of any sort near him. When one of the boys asked what blanket Indians were, Younkins explained,–– 119
“There’s three kinds of Injuns, none on ’em good,––town Injuns, blanket Injuns, and wild Injuns. You saw some of the town Injuns when you came up through the Delaware reserve––great lazy fellows, lyin’ round the house all day and lettin’ the squaws do all the work. Then there’s the blankets; they live out in the woods and on the prairie, in teepees, or lodges, of skins and canvas-like, moving round from place to place, hunting over the plains in summer, and living off’n the Gov’ment in winter. They are mostly at peace with the whites, but they will steal whenever they get a chance. The other kind, and the worst, is the wild ones. They have nothing to do with the Government, and they make war on the whites whenever they feel like it. Just now, I don’t know of any wild Injuns that are at war with Uncle Sam; but the Arapahoes, Comanches, and Cheyennes are all likely to break loose any time. I give ’m all a plenty of elbow room.”