Two Arrows: A Story of Red and White

by William O. Stoddard

It looked very much like it, and his return as an intelligent and successful scout added largely to all his other claims to distinction. Not another boy in the band had ever announced anything so very bad and so important.

That was no time for anybody to spend a thought upon the fame of Two Arrows, however. All the old men said, one after another, that they wished they knew just how many Apaches there were in that war-party. Had they known how very strong it was, they might have been even worse puzzled, but Long Bear was really a clear-headed leader, and he decided the whole matter promptly and finally. He told his gathering braves that the place where they were was a bad one to fight in, while their pale-face friends had selected a peculiarly good one. They themselves had but twenty-three warriors armed with rifles, and nearly as many more young men and well-grown boys armed with bows and arrows. That was no force with which to meet Apaches, nobody knew how many, and all sure to be riflemen. To go back through the pass was to die of sure starvation, even if they were not followed and slaughtered among the rocks. The Apaches were plainly making for that very pass, he said; and he was only a keen-eyed chief and not at all a prophet when he read the matter correctly and said,

"'Pache run away from blue-coats. All in a hurry. Not stop. Nez Percé hide and let them go by. Not fight. Keep pony. Keep hair. Good. Ugh!"

The party which had been sent back after the lodges and things was a serious anxiety, and a light-footed youngster was started off at once to warn them. He would be sure to meet them on their way, returning, and could tell them to be on their guard, and very little more could be done for them.

Long Bear finished his speech of explanation, and then, without a moment's pause, he gave the order to break up camp and prepare to march, carrying with them every pound of provisions. Not one moment was to be lost in gaining such protection as might be had from the good position of the miners, and from the fact that they were pale-faces of some importance, and from the other great fact that they were all good riflemen. There was hardly anybody in the band, old enough to understand what an Apache was, who did not fully appreciate the force of the chief's argument, and every squaw did her best to hasten the departure. Lodges came down, ponies were packed, children were gathered, warriors and braves and boys completed their preparations for fighting; the Big Tongue declared his readiness to kill a large number of Apaches, and One-eye was compelled to abandon forever all the bones he had buried since the people he barked for had settled upon the bank of that river.

There was a good deal of quiet and sober efficiency in spite of the excitement. Two Arrows had further questions to answer from quite a number of his elders. He was furnished with one of the best ponies in the drove in acknowledgment of his services. He was now, also, to figure as a kind of guide, and he did not once think of or mention the fatigue of his long, hard ride. He very willingly ate, however, the whole of a buffalo steak, broiled for him by one of the squaws, and felt a good deal better afterwards. He almost felt that he had earned a rifle, or at least a pistol, but well knew that it was all in vain to ask for one, when the supply was insufficient to arm all the braves who were a full head taller than himself.

Still, it was a magnificent thing, at last, to ride out at the head of the cavalcade, by the side of a tall warrior, as the one boy of all that band who was on first-rate terms with the pale-faces and knew perfectly the trail leading to them. As for that, any red man of them all could have followed the tracks of the wagon-wheels, even at night, but Two Arrows had no idea of surrendering that part of his growing importance. It would have done Na-tee-kah's proud heart good to have seen him in particular, and it would have been well worth the while of almost anybody else to have had a good look at the whole affair, as the motley array poured out into the moonlight from under the shadowy cover of the primeval forest.

There were no sleepy ones except the pappooses, and they could sleep under the tightly-drawn blankets upon the backs of their mothers as well as anywhere else. All the rest were more or less hardened to the quick changes and migrations of the kind of life into which they had been born. They were not likely to be injured by being kept up pretty late for one night, and there was no need that anybody should walk, now that their four-footed wealth had returned.

Two Arrows thought of that, and he could hardly help reminding some of his friends of his share in so good a thing. He received a reply from one gray-headed warrior which sounded very much like a snub:

"Ugh! Two Arrows. Red-head. Boys find pony first. Pony there. Brave find next day. Boy talk too much. Kill 'Pache like warrior. Then talk a heap. Show scalp. Whoop. Ugh!"