CHAPTER VI
THE KAKISAS
On the afternoon of the fourth day they suddenly issued out of bigtimber to find themselves at the edge of a plateau overlooking a shallowgreen valley, bare of trees in this place, and bisected by asmoothly-flowing brown river bordered with willows. The flat containedan Indian village.
"Here we are!" said Stonor, reining up.
"The unexplored river!" cried Clare. "How exciting! But how pretty andpeaceful it looks, just like an ordinary river. I suppose it doesn'trealize it's unexplored."
On the other side there was a bold point with a picturesque clump ofpines shading a number of the odd little gabled structures with whichthe Indians cover the graves of their dead. On the nearer side from offto left appeared a smaller stream which wound across the meadow andemptied into the Swan. At intervals during the day their trail hadbordered this little river, which Clare had christened the Meander.
The tepees of the Indian village were strung along its banks, and thestream itself was filled with canoes. On a grassy mound to the rightstood a little log shack which had a curiously impertinent look there inthe midst of Nature untouched. On the other hand the tepees sprang fromthe ground as naturally as trees.
Their coming naturally had the effect of a thunderclap on the village.They had scarcely shown themselves from among the trees when theirpresence was discovered. A chorus of sharp cries was raised, and therewas much aimless running about like ants when the hill is disturbed. Thecries did not suggest a welcome, but excitement purely. Men, women, andchildren gathered in a dense little crowd beside the trail where theymust pass. None wished to put themselves forward. Those who lived on theother side of the little stream paddled frantically across to be in timefor a close view.
As they approached, absolute silence fell on the Indians, the silence ofbreathless excitement. The red-coat they had heard of, and in a generalway they knew what he signified; but a white woman to them was asfabulous a creature as a mermaid or a hamadryad. Their eyes were savedfor Clare. They fixed on her as hard, bright, and unwinking as jetbuttons. They conveyed nothing but an animal curiosity. Clare nodded andsmiled to them in her own way, but no muscle of any face relaxed.
"Their manners will bear improving," muttered Stonor.
"Oh, give them a chance," said Clare. "We've dropped on them out of aclear sky."
Some of the tepees were still made of tanned skins decorated with rudepictures; they saw bows and arrows and bark-canoes, things which havealmost passed from America. The dress of the inhabitants was lesspicturesque; some of the older men still wore their picturesque blanketcapotes, but the younger were clad in machine-made shirts and pants fromthe store, and the women in cotton dresses. They were a pure race, andas such presented for the most part fine, characteristic faces; but inbody they were undersized and weedy, showing that their stock wasrunning out.
Stonor led the way across the flat and up a grassy rise to the littleshack that has been mentioned. It had been built for the Company clerkwho had formerly traded with the Kakisas, and Stonor designed it toaccommodate Clare for the night. They dismounted at the door. TheIndians followed them to within a distance of ten paces, where theysquatted on their heels or stood still, staring immovably. Stonorresented their curiosity. Good manners are much the same the world over,and a self-respecting people would not have acted so, he told himself.None offered to stir hand or foot to assist them to unpack.
Stonor somewhat haughtily desired the head man to show himself. When onestepped forward, he received him sitting in magisterial state on a boxat the door. Personally the most modest of men, he felt for the momentthat Authority had to be upheld in him. So the Indian was required tostand.
His name was Ahchoogah (as near as a white man could get it) and he wasabout forty years old. Though small and slight like all the Kakisas, hehad a comely face that somehow suggested race. He was better dressedthan the majority, in expensive "moleskin" trousers from the store, aclean blue gingham shirt, a gaudy red sash, and an antiquegold-embroidered waistcoat that had originated Heaven knows where. Onhis feet were fine white moccasins lavishly embroidered in colouredsilks.
"How," he said, the one universal English word. He added a moreelaborate greeting in his own tongue.
Mary translated. "Ahchoogah say he glad to see the red-coat, like heglad to see the river run again after the winter. Where the red-coatscome there is peace and good feeling among all. No man does bad toanother man. Ahchoogah hope the red-coat come often to Swan River."
Stonor watched the man's face while he was speaking, and apprehendedhostility behind the smooth words. He was at a loss to account for it,for the police are accustomed to being well received. "There's been somebad influence at work here," he thought.
He said grimly to Mary: "Tell him that I hear his good words, but I donot see from the faces of his people that we are welcome here."
This was repeated to Ahchoogah, who turned and objurgated his peoplewith every appearance of anger.
"What's he saying to them?" Stonor quietly asked Mary.
"Call bad names," said Mary. "Swear Kakisa swears. Tell them go back tothe tepees and not look like they never saw nothing before."
And sure enough the surrounding circle broke up and slunk away.
Ahchoogah turned a bland face back to the policeman, and through Marypolitely enquired what had brought him to Swan River.
"I will tell you," said Stonor. "I come bearing a message from themighty White Father across the great water to his Kakisa children. TheWhite Father sends a greeting and desires to know if it is the wish ofthe Kakisas to take treaty like the Crees, the Beavers, and otherpeoples to the East. If it is so, I will send word, and my officers andthe doctor will come next summer with the papers to be signed."
Ahchoogah replied in diplomatic language that so far as his particularKakisas were concerned they thought themselves better off as they were.They had plenty to eat most years, and they didn't want to give up theright to come and go as they chose. No bad white men coveted their landsas yet, and they needed no protection from them. However, he would sendmessengers to his brothers up and down the river, and all would beguided by the wishes of the greatest number.
At the beginning of this talk Clare had gone inside to escape thepiercing stares. While he talked, Ahchoogah was continually trying topeer around Stonor to get a glimpse of her. When the diplomaticformalities were over, he said (according to Mary):
"I not know you got white wife. Nobody tell me that. She is verypretty."
"Tell him she is not my wife," said Stonor, with a portentous scowl tohide his blushes. "Tell him--Oh, the devil! he wouldn't understand. Tellhim her name is Miss Clare Starling."
"What she come for?" Ahchoogah coolly asked.
"Tell him she travels to please herself," said Stonor, letting him makewhat he would of that.
"Ahchoogah say he want shake her by the hand."
Stonor was in a quandary. The thought of the grimy hand touching Clare'swas detestable yet, if the request had been made in innocence it seemedchurlish to object. Clare, who overheard, settled the question for him,by coming out and offering her hand to the Indian with a smile.
To Mary she said: "Tell him to tell the women of his people that thewhite woman wishes to be their sister."
Ahchoogah stared at her with a queer mixture of feelings. He was muchtaken aback by her outspoken, unafraid air. He had expected to despiseher, as he had been taught to despise all women, but somehow she struckrespect into his soul. He resented it: he had taken pleasure in theprospect of despising something white.
Clare went back into the shack. Ahchoogah, with a shrug, dismissed herfrom his mind. He spoke again with his courteous air; meanwhile (or atany rate so Stonor thought) his black eyes glittered with hostility.
Mary translated: "Ahchoogah say all very glad you come. He say to-morrownight he going to give big tea-dance. He send for the Swan Lake peopleto come. A man will ride all night to bring them in time. He say it willbe a big
time."
"Say we thank him for the big time just as if we had had it," saidStonor, not to be outdone in politeness. "But we must go on down theriver to-morrow morning."
When this was translated to Ahchoogah, he lost his self-possession for amoment, and scowled blackly at Stonor. Quickly recovering himself, hebegan suavely to protest.
"Ahchoogah say the messenger of the Great White Father mustn't go up anddown the river to the Kakisas and ask like a poor man for them to taketreaty. Let him stay here, and let the poor Kakisas come to him and makerespect."
"My instructions are to visit the people where they live," said Stonorcurtly. "I shall want the dug-out that the Company man left here lastSpring."
Ahchoogah scowled again. Mary translated: "Ahchoogah say, why you wantheavy dug-out when he got plenty nice light bark-canoes."
"I can't use bark-canoes in the rapids."
A startled look shot out of the Indian's eyes. Mary translated: "Whatfor you want go down rapids? No Kakisas live below the rapids."
"I'm going to visit the white man at the Great Falls."
When Ahchoogah got this he bent the look of a pure savage on Stonor,walled and inscrutable. He sullenly muttered something that Maryrepeated as: "No can go."
"Why not?"
"Nobody ever go down there."
"Well, somebody's got to be the first to go."
"Rapids down there no boat can pass."
"The white man came up to the Indians when they were sick last fall. Ifhe can come up I can go down."
"He got plenty strong medicine."
Stonor laughed. "Well, I venture to say that my medicine is as strong ashis--in the rapids."
Ahchoogah raised a whole cloud of objections. "Plenty white-face beardown there. Big as a horse. Kill man while he sleeps. Wolf down there.Run in packs as many as all the Kakisas. Him starving this year."
"Women's talk!" said Stonor contemptuously.
"You get carry over those falls. Behind those falls is a great pile ofwhite bones. It is the bones of all the men and beasts that were carriedover in the past. Those falls have no voice to warn you above. The waterslip over so smooth and soft you not know there is any falls till you goover."
"Tell Ahchoogah he cannot scare white men with such tales. Tell him tobring me the dug-out to the river-shore below here."
Ahchoogah muttered sulkily. Mary translated: "Ahchoogah say got nodug-out. Man take it up to Swan Lake."
"Very well, then; I'll take two bark-canoes and carry around therapids."
He still objected. "If you take our canoes, how we going to hunt andfish for our families?"
"You offered me the canoes!" cried Stonor wrathfully.
"I forget then that every man got only one canoe."
Stonor stood up in his majesty; Ahchoogah was like a pigmy before him."Tell him to go!" cried the policeman. "His mouth is full of lies andbad talk. Tell him to have the dug-out or the two canoes here byto-morrow morning or I'll come and take them!"
The Indian now changed his tone, and endeavoured to soften thepoliceman's anger, but Stonor turned on his heel and entered the shack.Ahchoogah went away down-hill with a crestfallen air.
"What do you make of it all?" Clare asked anxiously.
Stonor spoke lightly. "Well, it's clear they don't want us to go downthe river, but what their reasons are I couldn't pretend to say. Theymay have some sort of idea that for us to explode the mystery of theriver and the white medicine man whom they regard as their own would beto lower their prestige as a tribe. It's hard to say. It's almostimpossible to get at their real reasons, and when you do, they generallyseem childish to us. I don't think it's anything we need bother ourheads about."
"I was watching him," said Clare. "He didn't seem to me like a bad manso much as like a child who's got some wrong idea in his head."
"That's my idea too," said Stonor. "One feels somehow that there's beena bad influence at work lately. But what influence could reach away outhere? It beats me! Their White Medicine Man ought to have done themgood."
"He couldn't do them otherwise than good--so far as they would listen tohim," she said quickly.
They hastily steered away from this uncomfortable subject.
"Maybe Mary can help us," said Stonor. "Mary, go among your people andtalk to them. Give them good talk. Let them understand that we have noobject but to be their friends. If there is a good reason why weshouldn't go down the river let them speak it plainly. But this talk ofdanger and magic simply makes white men laugh."
Mary dutifully took her way down to the tepees. She returned in time toget supper--but threw no further light on the mystery.
"What about it, Mary?" asked Stonor.
"Don't go down the river," she said earnestly. "Plenty bad trip, Ithink. I 'fraid for her. She can't paddle a canoe in the rapids nortrack up-stream. What if we capsize and lose our grub? Don't go!"
"Didn't the Kakisas give you any better reasons than that?"
Mary was doggedly silent.
"Ah, have they won you away from us too?"
This touched the red woman. Her face worked painfully. She did her bestto explain. "Kakisas my people," she said. "Maybe you think they foolishpeople. All right. Maybe they are not a wise and strong people like theold days. But they my people just the same. I can't tell white men theirthings."
"She's right," put in Clare quickly. "Don't ask her any more."
"Well, what do you think?" he asked. "Do you not wish to go anyfurther?"
"Yes! Yes!" she cried. "I must go on!"
"Very good," he said grimly. "We'll start to-morrow."
"I not go," said Mary stolidly. "My people mad at me if I go."
Here was a difficulty! Stonor and Clare looked at each other blankly.
"What the devil----!" began the policeman.
"Hush! leave her to me," said Clare, urging him out of the shack.
By and by she rejoined him outside. "She'll come," she said briefly.
"What magic did you use?"
"No magic. Just woman talk."