III—THE SWORD
Some time in the third decade of the nineteenth century certain voyageurs of the Hudson's Bay brigades made their homes in the Rocky Mountains. They were Iroquois warriors, devoutly Christian, were fit messengers. The fiery Cross is not carried very far by smug pastors who let the flame die out, but, brandished by knights-errant such as these Iroquois, it kindled the mountaineer Nez Percés, Flatheads, Cœur d'Alènes, and Pend d'Oreilles, and like a forest fire the Faith swept through the hills. Not satisfied, but craving for more light, the Nez Percés dispatched a couple of young warriors as their envoys on foot through countries held by hostile nations to visit the white men's lands, and beg the Big Father at Washington to send them Black-robes.
The White-tie missions responded, forwarding a brace of Methodist ministers who settled on the Lower Columbia where the tribes were tame, the lands fertile, and prospects favorable in godliness and possibly real estate. Later a couple of Presbyterian White-ties came to the mountains, with their courageous wives, and were welcomed by an assemblage of the tribes, thousands of mounted warriors at full gallop, a display of frantic joy and terrifying grandeur. The ladies fainted, and their husbands were properly shocked by naked, painted, plumed, and yelling savages. For some few years this intensely respectable mission showed off their sober paces, their small proprieties to ferocious idealists, wild saints of the Silent Places. In the end, utterly disillusioned, the Nez Percés took the scalps of the missionaries as the only useful asset of the mission.
If one cannot lighten one's darkness with sun rays, a rushlight is better than nothing, so the pony tribes were still quite patient with their White-tie medicine men when in May, 1839 Storm came with a following of his Kutenais to trade for guns at Fort Colville. Upon the morning after his arrival he brought his people to a church parade in progress outside the stockade. The gate, of course, was closed, and in the covered gallery above a sentry lounged to watch proceedings through the loopholes, while on a bastion to the left a gun was manned commanding the curtain wall, just to make sure. The fish-eating tribes assembled for the salmon run were not more dangerous than an average mothers' meeting, but some of the mounted Indians had come to trade, and Storm's Kutenais might prove excitable. So in this congregation the salmon fishers were squatted in the sunshine, the Kutenais standing aloof, as aristocrats who observe the savor of the commonalty, and the haughty mountaineers remained on horseback. Under the bastion stood a group of American trappers, long-haired, dressed like the fighting Indians in buckskin, chewing cable-twist tobacco and spitting with an air of absolute detachment, spectators not devotees.
The White-tie medicine man, in blacks, attired like the Reverend Mr. Stiggins or dear Brother Chadband, despite the repulsive dress, parsonic voice, and pious mannerisms, had a suggestion of rough-neck about him, something manful, real, earnest, a glitter of the eyes, a smile. He served out Presbyterian views on Predestination as though he thought the stuff important. Certainly he pleased the Hudson's Bay officers, who sat with their native wives on adze-hewn benches, all in their Sunday swallow-tails, nursing top hats, Scots to a man, alert to the shrewd and pawky argument. As to the native interpreters, sound on fish, but hazy as theologians, each of them preached a sermon of his own, which, had he known, would have horrified the missionary. Here and there in the congregation were grubby naked boys conducting dog fights, groups of mothers exchanging the latest gossip, and stolid babies lashed to their board cradles making the most of the sunshine. The fleas were not wasting time.
Long afterwards when Storm told his mother about that service: "Tea ain't much good," was his summing-up, "unless you've boiled the water."
After dinner Mr. James Douglas went for a walk, a Sabbath stroll taken in civilized dress, tall beaver hat, gloves, his mother's New Testament in his left hand, a cane in his right—the sort of things to remind an exile of Home. His close-cropped mutton-chop whiskers and clean-shaven chin, clear-cut features, gray eyes, stern jaw, belonged, one would suppose, to city life, to business management; but the soul of him, despite all such appearances, in defiance of the uttermost self-discipline, was kin to the wild solitude of the frontier. Yet of all frontiersmen Storm was the one man with vision keen enough to discern Black Douglas as he was, and, when they happened to meet beside the farm, he offered his hand to the factor as to an equal.
"Beastly familiar. Confound these Yankee trappers!" So Douglas felt as he pulled up short and took a pace backward. "And yet no trapper would sport a single straight-up eagle pinion worn at the back of the head. This fellow claims my hand as an Indian, as a chief!"
Against the verdure of the meadows, in clear sunshine, this creature was certainly most beautiful. Deep tan, sun-lighted mane, and buckskin dress appeared all dusty gold save for the flashing blue of his clear eyes. The stature, strength, grace, dignity, commanding power of the fellow made the factor catch his breath as he asked:
"Who are you? Surely, I've seen you somewhere. Not—not Bill Fright?"