CHAPTER XII
PAWNEES
At this Ash Creek camp before the wagoners had unhitched their teamsthere was a cordon around the corral made up of every man who could bespared, and the cannon crews stood silently around their freshly primedguns. The air of tenseness and expectancy pleased Woodson, for it was anassurance that there would be no laxity about this night's watch. Withthe animals staked as close to the wagons as practicable, which causedsome encroachments and several fist fights between jealous wagoners, thefires soon were cooking supper for squads of men from the sentry line;and as soon as all had eaten and the camp was not distracted by too manyduties, the cordon thinned until it was composed of a double watch.Before dusk the animals were driven inside, secured by side-linehobbles, which are much more effective than hobbling the forelegs, andall gaps were closed as tightly as possible.
The evening shadows darkened and ran into blackness; the night windcrept among the branches of the thin line of trees on both banks of thecreek and made soft soughings in the tall, thick grass; overhead the skyfirst darkened and then grew lighter, shot with myriads of stars, whichgleamed as only prairie stars can; and among them, luminous and bright,lay the Milky Way. The creek murmured in musical tones as it fretted atsome slight obstruction and all nature seemed to be at peace. Thensounded the howl of a buffalo wolf, the gray killer of the plains, deep,throaty, full, and followed by a quick slide up the scale with a ringingnote that the bluffs and mountains love to toss back and forth. Yet itwas somehow different. Woodson and his trapper aides, seated togetheragainst a wagon, stirred and glanced sidewise at each other. Not one ofthem had felt the reflex answer of his spine and hair; not one of themhad thrilled. A simple lack; but a most enlightening one.
Franklin bit into a plug of tobacco, pushed the mouthful into his cheekwith deft tongue, and crossed his legs the other way. "Hell!" hegrowled. "Reckon we're in fer it."
"They jest can't git it _all_ in, kin they?" commented Zeb Houghton,coming up.
"No," answered Tom Boyd. "They leave out th' best part o' it." Heglanced in the direction of the nearest fringe of trees, noisycottonwoods all, and shook his head. "We been havin' too fine a stretcho' weather. Hear them trees? In two hours it'll be blowin' hard; an' Ikin feel th' rain already."
From the blackness of the creek there arose a series of short, sharpbarks, faster and faster, higher and higher, the lost-soul howl climbingto a pitch that was sheer torture to some ears.
"Kiyote sassin' a gray," chuckled Zeb, ironically.
"'Upon what meat hath--'" began Tom, and checked the quotation. "Heoughter be tuckin' his tail atween his laigs an' streakin' fer th'Platte; or mebby _he_ missed somethin', too," he said. "Everythin' elseshuts up when th' gray wolf howls."
"Doubled watches air not enough fer tonight," growled Woodson, as atremulous, high-pitched, chromatic, and descending run in a minor keyfloated through the little valley. If it were an imitation of ascreech-owl it was so perfectly done that no man in the caravan coulddetect the difference.
"Us boys will be scoutin' 'round all night," replied Tom. "Hank an' th'others air gittin' some winks now. I don't look fer no fight aforedaylight; but they'll shore try ter stampede us afore then. Reckon I'lltake a good listen out yonder," he said, and arose. He went to JoeCooper's little wagon and was promptly challenged.
"It's Boyd," he answered. "Stick to the wagon, Uncle Joe. We ain'tlooking for any rush before daylight. If one comes Hank and I will gethere quick. Where is Miss Cooper?"
"In th' wagon, of course!"
"That's no place for her," retorted Tom. "Those sheets won't stoparrows. Put her under the wagon, an' hang blankets down th' sides, looseat th' bottoms. Tight blankets or canvas are little better than paper;but a loose Mackinaw yields to th' impact somewhat. I've seen a looseblanket stop a musket ball."
"Can I do anything useful, Mr. Boyd?" came Patience's voice from thewagon. "I can load and cap, anyhow."
Tom's chuckle came straight from his heart. "Not yet, God bless you.Despite their reputation in some quarters, Pawnees are not the mostdaring fighters. Any of the tribes east of the Mississippi are paragonsof courage when compared to these prairie Indians. Pawnees would rathersteal than fight; and they know that this is no helpless caravan, butone with nearly two hundred armed men. If they were Comanches or Kiowas,Utes or Apaches, I'd be bothered a lot more than I am now. And they knowthat there are two cannons pointing somewhere into the night. All wehave to worry about is our animals."
The mournful, hair-raising screech of an owl sounded again, and then allthe demons of hell seemed to have broken loose around the camp. Thecorralled animals, restless before, now surged one way and now another,largely cancelling their own efforts because wave met wave; but all thewhile they were getting wilder and more frantic and the blood-chillingyells on all sides finally set them into a sort of rhythm which more andmore became uniform. They surged from one side to the other, strikingthe wagons harder and harder. Then the yelling ceased and the Pawneewhistle was heard. There ensued a few minutes of silence and then thewhistle sounded again. It set off a hellish uproar on one side of theencampment and the frantic animals whirled and charged in the otherdirection. The shock rocked some of the wagons and would have overturnedthem but for the great weight of their loads. Anticipating this surge ofthe animals some of the traders, told off by the captain, had boundbundles of twigs and dried grass to long cottonwood sticks and now setthem afire and crawled under the wagons, thrusting the torches into thefaces of the charging mass. This started the animals milling and soonthe whole herd was running in a circle. The stampede had failed.
Here and there from under the wagons on the threatened side of theencampment guns stabbed into the night, showing where tenderfeet weregallantly engaged in guessing matches. Arrows curved over the wagon topsand some of the torch wavers on the other side of the camp had narrowescapes before their purpose was accomplished and the torches burnedout.
A cricket chirped twice and then twice again not far from Joe Cooper'slittle wagon, and the alert plainsman crouched behind an outer wheelanswered by three short trills. "Don't shoot, Uncle Joe," Tom softlycalled. "That's Hank."
Hank seemed to be having a hard time of it and made more noise than washis wont. Alarmed, Tom was about to crawl out and help his friend to thecorral when Hank's querulous complaint barely reached him.
"Danged if ye ain't so plumb full o' buffaler meat ye nigh weigh a ton,"growled the hunter. "Yourn as heavy as mine, Jim?"
"Wuss," complacently answered Ogden.
"Huh!" snorted another voice, crowding so much meaning into the gruntthat he had the best of the little exchange and the last word.
"If I could twang like you, Hank," said Ogden, pausing a moment to rest,"I'd have a hull dozen, danged if I wouldn't. Mine's got nigh ter sixfeet o' feathers a-hangin' ter him."
Tom rocked back and forth, laughing silently. "Then he makes up fer th'rest o' yer dozen!" he gasped. "Hostages, by th' Great Horned Spoon!" Hemade some funny noises in his throat and gasped again. "A _chief_, too!"
"An' a plumb waste o' good ha'r," growled Hank. "But jest now it's wuthmore on thar heads than fastened ter our belts. Hyar, haul this hyarwarrior o' mine under th' waggin. I'm all tuckered out."
"Hank kin shoot more arrers with his mouth than some Injuns kin withthar bows," panted Jim, grasping a spoke and yanking his captive roughlyagainst the wheel. "All I kin imitate is a lance." He chuckled at hisjoke and rested.
"When Hank twanged, Big Polecat, hyar, got right up an' stumbled plumbover me," said Zeb's weary voice. "I near busted his skull with thatnewfangled pistol. It's heftier than I'm used ter. Wonder is I didn'tbash his brains out. Hyar, gimme a hand, I can't hardly wiggle no more."
"Wonder what them danged fools air firin' at?" queried Hank, as severalshots rang out in quick succession from the other side of theencampment. "Don't they know th' dance is over till mornin'?"
"Oh, them greenhorns'll be shootin' all night," growled Ogden. "Ifthar's a rush at
daylight they won't have no more powder an' ball. Whenthey hadn't oughter shoot, they shoot; when they oughter shoot, thar toodanged scared to pull trigger."