Red Cloud, the Solitary Sioux: A Story of the Great Prairie

by Sir William Francis Butler

“Look out,” whispered Red Cloud. “They are come at last.”

I looked out over the water, but I could see nothing. It was yet night, but the first faint ray of light was in the east behind us as we looked from the island, and its indistinct hue made vague and shadowy the whole range of vision. The fire was no longer visible.

As I strove to pierce the gloom, there suddenly flashed forth in the darkness a long volley of musketry, and the echoes from a hundred mountain cliffs rolled in tumultuous thunder around our island; nor had they ceased ere their reverberations were blended in the fierce war-cry of the Sircies, which pealed forth close to our old camp. We lay within our shelter while this wild storm of shot and shout died away. We could then hear a scurrying of feet, and voices raised in tones of rage and disappointment; then all was again quiet.

The daylight was now gaining rapidly upon the darkness; soon we could distinguish figures moving to and fro where our camp had been, and then we could make out with greater precision the dress and faces of individual Indians, some on the borders of the lake, others in the clump of trees, and others along the banks of the river, within one hundred paces of where we lay.

And now as the dawn momentarily filled the valley with increasing light, there appeared upon the scene a figure which centred upon it all our attention. I looked at Red Cloud, to mark how he bore himself within sight of his arch-enemy, for the mounted man who now rode up to our camping-place was none other than the villain trader; but neither in feature nor in gesture did the Sioux show symptoms of those long-cherished feelings which must have filled his heart. There, within easy rifle-shot of where we lay, stood this man, whose slowly accumulated crimes and long-pursued hatred, had brought him even to this remote resting-place of one whose life he had betrayed—to this home of him whose murder he had so often tried to compass; yet the rifle of Red Cloud remained lowered, and his eye betokened neither rage nor astonishment as he thus beheld his enemy.

As yet there seemed to have occurred to the war-party no suspicion that we had retired to the island. Our disappearance from camp was evidently an event which they had not calculated upon; and even now, when the camp was found deserted, while traces of its recent occupation were numerous, they did not imagine that we had done more than conceal ourselves in the surrounding woods.

That our ultimate destruction was assured, naturally appeared certain to them, for excepting the trail by which they had entered the valley, no outlet was apparent to them; and as they now held that sole means of egress, a thorough search seemed certain to promise our capture.

They therefore set to work at once when daylight enabled them to see the ground, to hunt us up amid the rocks and woods that lay between the meadow and the loftier hills, whose rugged and precipitous sides forbade all chance of escape.

At the upper end of the valley, where the river first entered the level space, the perpendicular walls of a cañon prevented horses going further into the mountains in that direction. It is true that by scrambling over the boulders and many rocks which lay piled on each side at the base of these walls, a man on foot might force his way at low water; but at this time the snows of the upper mountains, the vast glaciers which here formed the parent spring of the Saskatchewan river, were pouring forth their volumes under the influence of the midsummer sun, and the snow-fed river was foaming full through the rocky aperture into the prairie valley.

If they could have found our horses, then the question of the possibility of our escaping on foot up some cleft or landslip in the mountain wall would still have remained an open one; but wherever we had got to, there also must be our horses, and the horses must still be within the confines of the valley. They now set to work diligently to seek us out; while some remained near our old camping-place, the greater number spread themselves along both sides of the lake. Meantime the sun had risen. All through the forenoon the search went on and when mid-day came there was not a spot in the valley which had not been visited, excepting the island on which we stood. It was now that, returning from their fruitless quest, they turned their attention with more persevering examination to the ground around our old camp. The spot where the little raft had been constructed showed more signs of wood-cutting than the supply of the summer camp would have necessitated; the bank of the river also betrayed our trail at the water’s edge. Then we saw them consult together, while their looks and gestures, as they pointed towards the island, clearly told us that the next attempt would be made in our direction.