BACK in camp, Jim Bridger heard their report. He was stingy of words, as ever. “We can't have no such nest o' varmints around here. They may stay to weather the storm. If they leave, snow’ll fill the tracks; we’ll lose 'em. Twenty men to stay to watch camp. Rest of us take to the hosses, clean out this nest with brimstun'. Then we can sleep easy ag'in.”
There was fast mounting and riding now.
Laforay and another man went forward afoot to scout. The main party dismounted, waited. Presently a shot and a yell sounded; nothing more. The two scouts came back, snowy, breathless. Laforay’s glowing black eyes glinted in a dance of excitement.
“There, all right; 'bout the middle of the island. First I know, lead she whistles! They’re holed up in old winter quarters, log forts. Hosses no good, Jim; brush too thick.”
“Take to moccasins. Spread out; go for 'em,” said Bridger simply.
There was no hesitation, no strategy; straightforward attack. The enemy made stout resistance. In a clearing were nine of 10 little hut forts, made of logs and poles loosely piled; but the cotton-wood of these rude walls was pithy with age, the winter camp ground had been used many long years. Thwacking lead tore through and through, to whine on info the standing timber.
The death yell mingled with shouted taunts, the sharp cracking of rifles and bang of fusils. Arrows streaked the snow-filled air.
The fire from the Blackfeet dwindled to a spatter, and died out.
All waited on Bridger’s command, when suddenly a voice broke forth at them from the huts; a jibing hail in the Snake dialect cleft the swirl of snow:
“Listen, dogs! When you kill the few of us here, you will have no place to go back to again!”
Swift alarm and consternation scurried upon the threat. Voices broke forth:
“While we scrimmage here, we've lost camp and plunder!”
“It’s a ’tarnal lie, unless there’s another band of ’em about. We've heard no shooting.”
“Maybe they've stole away on us and jumped camp guard. What about our hosses?”
In sharp uneasiness and alarm, men turned about, with thought upon horses, shelter, meat and furs. Then Bridger’s crisp order settled all argument. A wise old head, Jim Bridger. He was taking no chance.
“We've done enough here. Save hosses, make for camp. Maybe a trick, maybe not.”
Carson reflected, nodded, and they edged out of the mass, their going unobserved in the general rush and the driving snow. While the column plunged off, they tied their horses again and started back through the timber.
“I bet you Jim get fooled; not me. My knife cry for blood.”
At the clearing now, crouching in cover, listening, peering. In this windblown storm the ears outpaced the eyes. No voices, no stir, no hint of life within the huts, yet they might have eyes and ears also. Then, sudden upon the muffling snow, an Indian voice lifted. It was somewhere off among the trees. A mournful, despairing voice ringing in an eerie call for help. It was gone, and came no more.
“I'm going in.” Carson looked to his priming and left cover. Laforay sprang to join him.
NERVES taut, every sense alert, they headed across the clearing. Nothing happened. A swift forward dash, and they were across. The first of the huts was empty, blood-spattered. The second hut, likewise riddled, was empty. They went on. Then, in one of the shelters, Carson swooped on a blob of crimson. A fox-fur turban cap lined with greasy scarlet blanketing and skewered at the rim with a cock grouse feather.
A voyageur and woods runner “bonnet,” heritage of some Hudson’s Bay homme du Nord. How here? Indian fancy gratified by gift or trade? Carson hesitated, then caught a sharp and impatient call from Laforay. He stuffed the cap into his shirt folds and bolted out.
“All gone, Kit! Here’s trail. Come quick.”
Into the brush again. Here the trail was wide and plain—mark of moccasins, of ruddy stains, of bodies boosted along or dragged, over logs and through brush. Everything was dimmed by falling snow and muffled daylight. The trail led toward the river.
“Gone, run away,” grunted Laforay. “While Bridger goes to camp, they save themselves, by gar! Try to scare horses, so nobody follow—Ah! Look out!”
He froze, his gaze fixed, head thrown back and wide nostrils quivering like those of a questing dog. Carson, too, shrank aside for cover. His senses warned him; even before he fully saw the prone figure, his rifle swung, hesitated, and then dropped. A dead Indian—but no!
The eyes, blackly open, were not glassy—They countered his gaze with living venom. The extended body was motionless, snow-shrouded; but the eyes in the seamed, stiff face glittered through the drifting snowflakes.
They walked forward. Now Carson realized whence had come that frantic, despairing cry for help. He started, recognizing that face. It was the sub-chief, he who had been fooled by that whitened beaver skin lying on a yellow stone. Now he lay twisted over on his back in a dark puddle of blood, his foot caught fast in the springy low crotches of a spreading shrub. Body bullet-riddled, drained cold, death mounting in his face yet briefly stayed by those defiant, baleful eyes.
Carson stood over the prone figure, and spoke down into the grim face with carefully chosen words, Arapahoe, Snake, Blackfoot, eked out by signs.
“Listen. This is death. Your skin is empty; your ghost is in your throat,” He twitched out the cap. Its odor mounted to his nostrils; again his senses told him of something familiar which he could not recognize. “Whose is this?”
The fixed incurious eyes only replied with mute hate. The tight lips were locked in deathless scorn, to inquiry.
Laforay spoke softly.
“Look like some cap coureur de bois wear! You want to know something? I part his lips with this knife.”
“No.” Carson tried again. “The Arapahoe girl. Where is she—where is Singing Bird?”
The stiff lips moved now, with breath of malice exultant. “Let the white dog ask Plenty Eagle.”
“Then Plenty Eagle was here?”
“No.” Hatred fed the glittering eyes with life, although death had sapped the icy features. Now the ghastly visage was convulsed for final effort, “You see Plenty Eagle under red sky—red sky over bare ground of winter! He will come …. Take White Beaver medicine sure.”
Carson thrust the cap forward again.
“I hear you. You hear me. Quick! Whose is it?”
Only contempt and disdain, silence and hatred answered from the eyes.
Laforay grunted. “Kit, I give you scalp. You count coup. Lift it and let’s go.”
Carson tucked away the cap and slipped out his knife. It was the custom. Laforay, with innate courtesy, was offering him the chance at honor and esteem and revenge. A Blackfoot scalp was rare enough to be reported afar.
Time stopped for him as his hand poised. Not pity nor other weakness stayed him, but a swift upsurge of revulsion for everything beneath him and unworthy of his touch …. This was not hot, sharp battle where the blood ran boiling.
He straightened up.
“Bah! No coup of mine.” He sheathed his knife and turned. “I’ll wait for Plenty Eagle’s hair. That’s worthwhile.”
“All right. I not say no.”
Laforay whisked forward. The glittering, dying eyes looked up. They fastened with a stern disdain on the poised knife. The Iroquois was swiftly done.
“Now my knife, she’s happy. Where you get that cap?”
“Found it in one of the huts back yonder.”
“Huh! Injun mebbe steal it, mebbe buy it. That cock-feather sign of smart man. Same in old Nor'west Company, like in Hudson’s Bay.” Laforay swung around and cocked an ear. “Listen! Jim Bridger come back, huh?”
It was late afternoon. Dusk came early beneath the heavy clouds and the falling snow. The crash of brush, the hailing voices, tokened Bridger back and at the huts. Laforay hailed, and the men came on. Bridger was furious and glad, both at once.
“You run away like two squaws! Camp all safe. Missed you, come back, seen your hosses. What’s the sign, huh? All gone?”
Carson laughed. “All gone, yes; the trail crosses the river. We wanted to scout a bit. They put you on a false scent and lit out.”
“I feared it, but couldn't take no chances.” Bridger nodded.
They went back, old Laforay bragging of his trophy. But Carson said nothing of the cap under his shirt. It still puzzled him, fascinated him, worried him.