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

by Sir William Francis Butler

Then taking my hand, he shook it in silence, and turned back towards the ridge from whence he had seen the strange figures.

I was dumb with astonishment. What was the meaning of this strange conduct on his part? I tried in vain for an explanation. I remembered that the Assineboine had spoken to the Sioux, and that it was the information he had given which had first caused the change in my friend’s plan. Instinctively I now looked towards my prisoner in the hope of finding an explanation of the mystery. The prisoner met my look with an expression of face that seemed to say, “I know what you are thinking of; but I cannot speak your tongue.”

The Indian is, however, an adept in the art of communicating his thoughts by sign and gesture. There are few incidents of life on the plains that he cannot portray by the motion of his hands, the attitudes of his body, or the expression of his features. There is in fact a universal sign language common to all the various tribes over the vast wilderness, and when Sioux meets in peace Arrapahoe, or Crow and Blackfoot come together, they are able by means of their sign language, to exchange with each other all news of war, chase, or adventure, though no spoken word will have passed between them.

As the Assineboine now looked me full in the face, he began by instinct to express his meaning by signs. He placed his head resting on one side with his eyes closed, to indicate a camp or resting-place; then he pointed to himself, and held up the fingers of one hand twice, to show that it was the camp of his friends the Assineboines that he meant; then he touched me on the cheek and held up one finger, at the same time pointing in the direction of the ridge which they had just quitted, and moving his hand in the form of a circle, to show that he wished to carry his companion in thought beyond the circle of that ridge. Again he pointed to my face and repeatedly held up one finger. This was easily understood, it meant a white man; and following this clue I arrived at the fact that in the camp of the Assineboines there had been a white man. That was enough for me; my friend guessed, and guessed quickly, the rest. [The white man was the trader McDermott.] One of the three men seen by the Sioux from the ridge-top was the enemy he had so long sought for, and now he had gone back to risk his life in a desperate and unequal struggle with this inveterate foe.

[The white man was the trader McDermott.]

I looked towards the ridge, and noticed that the figure of the Sioux was no longer visible upon its black surface. He was evidently following the valley, to gain some point from which he might make a closer onslaught upon the party.

I had small time left for reflection; but when a man keeps one great object steadily in view, it is ever an easy matter to decide upon the general outline of the course he has to follow; that great object in this case was to help my friend—to save him, if possible, in the desperate venture in which he was about to engage. I could not accept quietly the part which in this instance the Sioux would have assigned to me. Friendship is no limited liability, and in the peril of the work we had undertaken it should be all and all alike. The presence of the Assineboine was, however, a fact not to be overlooked in the affair. It would have been an easy matter to have rid myself of this prisoner, and then galloped direct to the assistance of my friend; but I could not entertain such a thought for a second. Life taken in fair fight had little terror for me; but not even the safety of my friend’s life, or of my own, could induce me to slay in cold blood a fellow-creature.

One sign I made to the Assineboine. Holding up two fingers, I pointed to the Assineboine and then motioned with my hand across the ridge. The question was understood, and the prisoner shook his head in reply—the other two men whom we had seen were not Assineboines. That was all I wanted to know. In an instant I had severed the cords which bound the prisoner in his saddle, and had cut free his left arm from its binding; then I motioned with my hand that he was free to go whither he pleased. Since the prisoner’s capture many things had caused him unutterable astonishment. His life had been spared, he had been well fed; his leg, which had sustained only a trifling injury from his encounter with the dog, had been carefully looked after by the man who had taken him prisoner; and here now, when he could fully read in that white man’s face the reasons why he (that white man) might have taken his life in order to be free to assist his comrade, liberty was given to him, and he was told to go which way he might select.