CLEAR enough now, as the explanation burst. Thus was history made. The dream of an old savage medicine man, interpreted to suit his fancy, seized upon by interested parties, passed around afar among the tribes; a sign from the Great Spirit!
“And furs, trade, country, all go to the Hudson’s Bay,” said Carson. “You’re an agent, stirring the Injuns up with this nonsense.”
“I will talk straight,” said Shunan. “You are Kit Carson, Leetle Chief. You are good man. big man; everybody speak well of you; Captain McKay think well of you. Will you come again to the Hudson’s Bay employ this spring?”
“With a good catch, I’ll pay what I owe McKay,” evaded Carson.
“Good catch, sure; you be certain of that. What you owe? Nothing. To forget! You get much. A long time past, in the mountains, and poor. This nex' time, rich! You think for leetle squaw to keep your lodge? Bah! You can set up a lodge like a chief, in fat country where no Injun will harm you—head man, chief trader, factor!
Shunan waxed eloquent with his urging to the silent man.
“Tonight you have heard much war talk. It come, sure. Americans are too few to fight all Injuns at once. They lose their furs, robes—hair! By gar, Marie was good medicine for Americans to see, at Santa Fe! They all think to set their traps for her, maybe.” The girl laughed softly, silkily. “I'm not to be bought in beaver or horses! But let Little Chief come to the Oregon country. Let him come to Captain McKay and set his traps again, for a sure catch.”
Her eyes dwelt upon Carson invitingly, warmly, eagerly. Then she was up gathering the robe around her, and gone from the lodge. Carson sat motionless. He could not believe what his groping senses told him, what her eyes had conveyed to him. But in the silence, Shunan leaned over, put one great paw on his knee, and spoke softly. Again the sense of the man’s earnestness made itself felt. Here was straight talk.
“You see, Leetle Chief? One time she watch you, at rendezvous last year. She set her heart on you. By gar. I tell you that girl crazee about you, Leetle Chief! That be true, oui. I, Shunan, tell you so. I want for make her happy.”
So that was it. Apparently stoical, Carson sat with a flame eating at his brain, his thoughts in struggling confusion and wonder. She loved him? Maybe, although it seemed absurd. Seldom was there any talk of love in such arrangements. However, Shunan’s interest was thus accounted for.
And in another way also. Carson was not blind to his own status. He knew that his influence among the other mountain men, among the uncertain Utes his friends, was desired. There was no definite reason why he should not go straight to the Hudson’s Bay Company and cast in his lot with them. He could see himself a power in the land, his hair safe, with this girl queening it in his lodge, and in his trading-post, where he would be the chief factor.
With an effort he stood up, controlled the eager little tremble in his sinews, and made the “cut off” sign to indicate that the talk was closed.
“Time I was getting back,” he said.
“The word is what?” demanded Shunan. “You open your heart?”
“I will think.” Carson meant his words. This must be considered. There was more than his personal interest at stake, much more; the responsibility terrified him vaguely.
“You’ll tell Bent? No?”
“Bent has ears.”
'You have been guest in council, in my lodge. Let another bird sing in Bent’s ears.”
“His Cheyenne kin will tell him everything. I'm going.”
“Good. It shall be an au revoir, my frien'.”
Without a look aside, Carson went out. The night was quiet, the great camp had relaxed in sleep. Was she waiting out here? He did not know or look to see, but mounted his horse and headed for-the post.
His thoughts were milling in chaos. The night had been one of amazement. The council, the words and speeches, the dance, the white beaver revelation, the tempting, incredible bait offered him.
Bait, yes. He recalled the mad eagerness of Rube Herring, of old Laforay, at sight of her. But she was for him; Shunan spoke the truth; her eyes told him so. She had Blackfoot blood in her; she sat in the lodge of Plenty Eagle—so much the better! She would open the prime beaver country of the Blackfeet, where an American now trapped with rifle at cock and the trail bloody. She would open all Oregon, all the Hudson’s Bay country west of the mountains. A gold vista! Not to be lightly cast aside.
His thoughts leaped to William Bent. What would the trader say now? Bent might scoff at the notion of any confederacy among the tribes, north and south; but Bill knew Injuns and could think like an Injun, and was already worried over this talk of medicine beaver. If such a sign from the Great Spirit were passed around, then all the tribes, even the Utes of the southern mountains, would believe and accept. And somewhere there must be a white beaver. Shunan had heard of one somewhere existent. Possibly it was being sought far and near....
A shadowy figure springing in air, then another. Carson felt the impact as they hurtled into him, cast sinewy arms about him, bearing him toppling from the saddle No time to think, to act, to speak!
Fingers like a steel trap gripped his throat. A blow cracked down on his head. He was vaguely conscious of an Indian palm clapped over his mouth, of his breath whistling, and then of motion. He was being lifted and carried, a prisoner. He knew better than to struggle and invite the knife.
Tied hands and feet, Carson lay in the lodge where he had been dumped. He had slept; no use wasting strength and energy by staying awake, after his head cleared. The lodge was dark, cold. He heard breathing; an Indian was stretched across the threshold, inside the pinned flap.
Now the feel of morning was in the dark air. A shuffle of quick moccasins was heard outside. The watcher across the threshold alertly roused; the entrance flap was opened.
Nimble fingers loosened Carson’s feet. He was hauled upright and showed through the low entrance. The dawn was just breaking.
Half hoisted, half prodded, Carson was put into the saddle of his own horse, and tied on. The group enclosed him and moved away, some 20 men in all.
Young men, hot hearts, he noted as he kept his balance in the saddle. By the few guttural words that reached him, these were Arapahoe and Blackfeet. His mouth was to be shut—by whose orders? Shunan? Plenty Eagle? Impossible to say. More likely, not by orders at all, merely by voluntary action on the part of these young braves. No, Plenty Eagle’s word had been given, and would be proudly inviolate.
When in the growing light he saw his rifle and other “fixin’s” carried as plunder, anger mounted in him. There was no one in this party whom he knew.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked of the young warrior on his right. Not for answer, but to test the temper of his escort. The only reply was a jerk on the rope and a quirt applied to his horse, the animal’s jump nearly unseating him. They rode on, with general trend toward the northwest and the foothills.
The party made halt at noon. Whither going? Impossible to say or guess; but no doubt was in Carson’s mind. They sought some spot where they might dispose of him at leisure, with torture and slow enjoyment. This open country afforded no such spot. They went on through the afternoon, and made camp at sunset. Time passed, and night drew on ….
For hours, it seemed to him, Carson had been working to free one arm. He lay with an Indian to either side, robe-wrapped to the scalp against the cold. His swollen wrists had been unbound, so that he might eat and care for himself. But during the night, a rope from either of his arms was held fast by his outstretched guards.
One warrior shifted posture in his sleep; the rope was slack.
CARSON gradually got the slack to his lips. He set his teeth to it, bit and gnawed until the rawhide was pulp. The hide yielded and parted. Instantly, Carson was plucking at the knotted loop about his other arm. He loosened it, slipped it down over his hand—and barely in time.
The man on his right muttered, rolled over, threw off his buffalo robe, and rose. Carson lay stiff, breathing evenly. The Indian stooped above him, peering hard. As he stooped, the man below acted, like a coiled reptile at strike.
An arm went about the warrior’s neck, dragging him down in vise-like grip that choked off words and sounds. The other hand drove for the keen knife, hanging in its beaded sheath at the brave’s waist. Plunging for it, seizing it with sure grip; then the blade, driving home between the red shoulders, severing vertebrae and spinal cord. Death as by a lightning stroke!
No alarm; none had been wakened by the slight sounds. Sure of this, Carson drew the knife across his ankle bonds, then shifted his blanket over the corpse. There beside him, where this man had laid them, were his own rifle, horn and pouch. He seized upon them avidly, then picked his way out from among the sleeping men with delicate tread.
To the horses, at last. His own horse sniffed and drew back at the scent of blood. Carson tore free the picketing rope, with one motion threw a loop about the animal’s lower jaw, and was astride the bare back. Away now, with prod of moccasined feet—away, rifle in fist, bloody knife in belt!
As he rode, the dawn brightened, first signaled from the cloudlike snowy range, all rosily aglow, and then flooding the gaunt plains with pink. Carson, easing his horse from time to time, eyed the black trail.
The upflashing sun hailed a little nucleus of black dots, lined for an instant upon a swell of ground. The dots vanished, swallowed by a dip, but he had seen enough. They had his trail. They had nosed it out until now they were following it by sight. Already the air seemed pulsating with the whoop and the view-halloo.
A jolt threw him forward on his horse’s neck. The animal sank a foreleg into a prairie-dog hole, recovered, went hobbling on. The first shouts drifted in from behind. Now what? The horse was slowing painfully.
Cut off! Carson peered with incredulous eyes. Figures there, on the rise. Suddenly his pulses bounded. White men! White men, with pack mules, coming at the gallop.
He saw their jutting rifles, their flaring hat-brims. Two, no more; but those two a very host. A yell broke from him. Rube Herring, and Laforay the Iroquois breed!
A minute more, and they drew in on either side of him. The pursuit split before the ready rifles, split and raced past with an eddy of exultant whoops, to form and take counsel beyond.
Laforay cackled, “I dream right. My medicine was strong!”
“What’s the sign, Kit? After your scalp?” demanded Herring.
“Carried me off from the camp. I knifed one of them in the night and took to horse.”
“That’s blood. Means business. What did they want of you?”
“Reckon I heard too much. I sat with Shunan and Plenty Eagle in council. If they’re back of this, I’ll kill ’em for it! But—how did you two come here?”
Herring’s leathery face split in a grin.
“Laforay dreamed. He’ll tell you; no time now. Cut trail for the hills ’fore we’re holed in.”
“With these mules?” Laforay’s voice rose sharply. “Look out! Coming!”
“Hold your fire!” rasped Carson. “Talk!”
The Indians, yelling, charged for the three, but again split and swept past on either flank. A Blackfoot swerved his mount, his palm held high, his voice sounding clearly:
“Give us the man who killed one of our warriors, and we go.”
Herring responded. He threw up his rifle, but Carson reached out and checked the movement of the weapon.
“Keep moving!” said Laforay. “My medicine say we not to die.”
They pushed on compactly, Carson’s horse limping, the mules tugging and plunging. The outflung circle around them shifted, threatening front, rear and flanks.
“Let the mules go,” said Laforay. “ 'Most pulled me out of the saddle that time.”
“What?” snapped Herring. “Lose our packs, traps, everything? No! Better down ’em and take fort behind ’em.”
“We get ’em again,” Laforay insisted, his eyes rolling. “I dream. I see us in the mountains, setting traps. Kit. too.” A sudden oath burst from him. An arrow, arched high from a lucky bow, was buried halfway to its feathers in his horse’s neck. The animal went to its knees. Laforay swung clear just in time.