"Hank kin shoot more arrers with his mouth than some Injuns kin with thar bows," panted Jim, grasping a spoke and yanking his captive roughly against the wheel. "All I kin imitate is a lance." He chuckled at his joke and rested.

"When Hank tw.a.n.ged, Big Polecat, hyar, got right up an' stumbled plumb over me," said Zeb's weary voice. "I near busted his skull with that newfangled pistol. It's heftier than I'm used ter. Wonder is I didn't bash 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 several shots rang out in quick succession from the other side of the encampment. "Don't they know th' dance is over till mornin'?"

"Oh, them greenhorns'll be shootin' all night," growled Ogden. "If thar's a rush at daylight they won't have no more powder an' ball. When they hadn't oughter shoot, they shoot; when they oughter shoot, thar too danged scared to pull trigger."

CHAPTER XIII

HURRAH FOR TEXAS

At daylight the only Indians in sight were several rifle shots from the caravan, but encircling it. Hostilities of every nature apparently had ceased, but without causing the travelers to relax in their vigilance.

Breakfast was over before the savages made any move and then a sizable body of them came charging over the prairie, brandishing their weapons and yelling at the top of their voices. While not the equals of the Comanches in horsemanship they were good riders and as they raced toward the encampment, showing every trick they knew, the spectacle was well worth watching.

"Showin' off," said Jim Ogden. "Want ter talk with us. Now we got ter stop them fool greenhorns from shootin'!"

At his warning his companions ran along the line of wagons and begged that not a shot be fired until the captain gave the word. If the Indians wanted a parley the best thing would be to give it to them.

Meanwhile the captain and two experienced men rode slowly forward, stopping while still within rifle shot of their friends. The charging savages pulled up suddenly and stopped, three of their number riding ahead with the same unconcern and calm dignity as the white men had shown. One of them raised a hand, palm out, and when well outside of the range of the rifles of the encampment, stopped and waited. Captain Woodson, raising his hand, led his two companions at a slow walk toward the waiting Indians and when he stopped, the two little parties were within easy speaking distance of each other. Each group was careful to show neither distrust nor fear, and apparently neither was armed. Erect in their saddles, each waited for the other to speak.

"My young men are angry because the white men and their wagons have crossed the p.a.w.nee country and have frightened away the buffalo," said the leader of the warriors, a chief, through an interpreter.

"The buffalo are like the gra.s.s of the prairies," replied Woodson. "They are all around us and are bold enough to charge our wagons on the march and frighten our animals."

"From the Loup Fork to the Arkansas, from the Big Muddy to the great mountains, is p.a.w.nee country, which none dare enter."

"The Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, the Osages, and other brave tribes tell us the same thing. We do not know what tribe owns this prairie; but we do know that friends are always welcome in the p.a.w.nee country, and we bring presents for our brave brothers, presents of beads and colored cloth and gla.s.ses that show a man his spirit."

"The white chief speaks well; but my braves are angry."

"And my young men are angry because they could not sleep and their animals were frightened like the Comanches are frightened by the p.a.w.nees," replied Woodson. "They are hot-headed and are angry at me because I would not let them make war on our friends, the p.a.w.nees."

"The young men of the p.a.w.nees have not the wisdom of years and did not know the white men were friends, and had brought them presents of horses and powder and whiskey."

"I have told my young men that the p.a.w.nees are friends. We did not think we would meet our red brothers and have horses only for ourselves. Our whiskey and powder are for the great p.a.w.nee chiefs; our beads and cloth for their young men."

"It is well," replied the chief. After a moment's silence he looked keenly into Woodson's eyes. "The p.a.w.nees are sad. White Bear and two of our young men have not returned to their people." His eyes flashed and a tenseness seized him and his companions. "Great Eagle wants to know if his white friends have seen them?"

"Great Eagle's friends found three brave p.a.w.nees in front of their thunder guns and they feared our young men would fire the great medicine rifles and hurt the p.a.w.nees. We sent out and brought White Bear and his warriors to our camp and treated them as welcome guests. Each of them shall have a horse and a musket, with powder and ball, that they will not misunderstand our roughness."

At that moment yells broke out on all sides of the encampment and warriors were seen dashing west along the trail. A well-armed caravan of twenty-two wagons crawled toward the creek, and Woodson secretly exulted. It was the annual fur caravan from Bent's Fort to the Missouri settlements and every member of it was an experienced man.

The fur train did not seem to be greatly excited by the charging horde, for it only interposed a line of mounted men between the wagons and the savages. The two leaders wheeled and rode slowly off to meet the Indians and soon a second parley was taking place. After a little time the fur caravan, which had moved steadily ahead, reached the encampment and swiftly formed on one side of it. With the coming of this re-enforcement of picked men all danger of war ceased.

Before noon the p.a.w.nee chiefs and some of the elder warriors had paid their visit, received their presents, sold a few horses to wagoners who had jaded animals and then returned to their camp, pitched along the banks of the creek a short distance away. The afternoon was spent in visiting between the two encampments and the night in alert vigilance.

At dawn the animals were turned out to graze under a strong guard and before noon the caravan was on its way again, its rear guard and flankers doubled in strength.

Shortly after leaving Ash Creek they came to great sections of the prairie where the buffalo gra.s.s was cropped as short as though a herd of sheep had crossed it. It marked the grazing ground of the more compact buffalo herds. The next creek was p.a.w.nee Fork, but since it lay only six miles from the last stopping place, and because it was wise to put a greater distance between them and the p.a.w.nees, the caravan crossed it close to where it emptied into the Arkansas, the trail circling at the double bend of the creek and crossing it twice. Great care was needed to keep the wagons from upsetting here, but it was put behind without accident and the night was spent on the open prairie not far from Little c.o.o.n Creek.

The fuel question was now solved and while the buffalo chips, plentiful all around them, made execrable, smudgy fires in wet weather if they would burn at all, in dry weather they gave a quick, hot fire excellent to cook on and one which threw out more heat, with equal amounts of fuel, than one of wood; and after an amusing activity in collecting the chips the entire camp was soon girdled by glowing fires.

The next day saw them nooning at the last named creek, and before nightfall they had crossed Big c.o.o.n Creek. For the last score of miles they had found such numbers of rattlesnakes that the reptiles became a nuisance; but notwithstanding this they camped here for the night, which was made more or less exciting because several snakes sought warmth in the blankets of some of the travelers. It is not a pleasant feeling to wake up and find a three-foot prairie rattlesnake coiled up against one's stomach. Fortunately there were no casualties among the travelers but, needless to say, there was very little sleep.

Next came the lower crossing of the Arkansas, where there was some wrangling about the choice of fords; many, fearing the seasonal rise of the river, which they thought was due almost any minute, urged that it be crossed here, despite the scarcity of water, and the heavy pulling among the sand-hills on the other side.

Woodson and the more experienced traders and hunters preferred to chance the rise, even at the cost of a few days' delay, and to cross at the upper ford. This would give them better roads, plenty of water and gra.s.s, a safer ford and a shorter drive across the desert-like plain between the Arkansas and the Cimarron. Eventually he had his way and after spending the night at the older ford the caravan went on again along the north bank of the river, and reached The Caches in time to camp near them. The gra.s.s-covered pits were a curiosity and the story of how Baird and Chambers had been forced to dig them to cache their goods twenty years before, found many interested listeners.

All this day a heavy rain had poured down, letting up only for a few minutes in the late afternoon, and again falling all night with increased volume. With it came one of those prairie windstorms which have made the weather of the plains famous. Tents and wagon covers were whipped into fringes, several of them being torn loose and blown away; two lightly loaded wagons were overturned, and altogether the night was the most miserable of any experienced so far. While the inexperienced grumbled and swore, Woodson was pleased, for in spite of the delayed crossing of the river, he knew that the dreaded Dry Route beyond Cimarron Crossing would be a pleasant stretch in comparison to what it usually was.

Morning found a dispirited camp, and no effort was made to get under way until it was too late to cover the twenty miles to the Cimarron Crossing that day, and rather than camp without water it was decided to lose a day here. It would be necessary to wait for the river to fall again before they would dare to attempt the crossing and the time might as well be spent here as farther on. The rain fell again that night and all the following day, but the wind was moderate. The river was being watched closely and it was found that it had risen four feet since they reached The Caches; but this was nothing unusual, for, like most prairie streams, the Arkansas rose quickly until its low banks were overflowed, when the loss of volume by the flooding of so much country checked it appreciably; and its fall, once the rains ceased, would be as rapid.

High water was not the only consideration in regard to the fording of the river, for the soft bottom, disturbed by the strong current, soon lost what little firmness it had along this part of the great bend, and became treacherous with quicksand. That it was not true quicksand made but little difference so long as it mired teams and wagons.

Another argument now was begun. There were several fords of the Arkansas between this point and the mountains; and there were two routes from here on, the shorter way across the dry plain of the Cimarron, as direct as any unsurveyed trail could be, and the longer, more roundabout way leading another hundred miles farther up the river and crossing it not far from Bent's Fort, over a pebbly and splendid ford. From here it turned south along the divide between Apishara Creek and the Purgatoire River, climbed over the mountain range through Raton Pa.s.s, and joined the more direct trail near Santa Clara Spring under the shadow of the Wagon Mound. Beside the ford above Bent's Fort there was another, about thirty miles above The Caches, which crossed the river near Chouteau's Island.

Each ford and each way had its adherents, but after great argument and wrangling the Dry Route was decided upon, its friends not only proving the wisdom of taking the shorter route, but also claimed that the unpleasantness of the miles of dry traveling was no worse than the rough and perilous road over Raton Pa.s.s, where almost any kind of an accident could happen to a wagon and where, if the caravan were attacked by Utes or Apaches before it reached the mountain pasture near the top, they would be caught in a strung-out condition and corralling would be impossible. The danger from a possible ambush and from rocks rolled down from above, in themselves, were worse than the desert stretch of the shorter route.

At last dawn broke with a clear sky, and with praiseworthy speed the routine of the camp was rushed and the wagons were heading westward again. Late that afternoon the four divisions became two and rolled down the slope toward the Cimarron Crossing, going into camp within a short distance of the rushing river. The sun had shone all day and the night promised to be clear, and some of the traders whose goods had been wetted by the storm at The Caches when their wagon covers had been damaged or blown away, took quick advantage of the good weather to spread their merchandise over several acres of sand and stubby brush to dry out thoroughly; and the four days spent here, waiting for the river to fall, accomplished the work satisfactorily, although at times the sky was overcast and threatened rain, while the nights were damp.

Some of the more impetuous travelers urged that time would be saved if bullboats were made by stretching buffalo hides over the wagon boxes and floating them across. This had been done more than once, but with only a day or so to wait, and no pressing need for speed, the time saved would not be worth the hard work and the risk of such ferrying. At last the repeated soundings of the bottom began to look favorable and word was pa.s.sed around that the crossing would take place as soon as the camp was ready to be left the next morning, providing that no rain fell during the night.

Daylight showed a bright sky and a little lower level of the river and it was not long before the first wagon drawn by four full teams, after a warming-up drive, rumbled down the bank and hit the water with a splash.

The bottom was still too soft to take things easy in crossing and the teams were not allowed to pause after once they had entered the water. A moment's stop might mire both teams and wagons and cause no end of trouble, hard work, and delay. All day long the wagons crossed and at night they were safely corralled on the farther bank, on the edge of the Dry Route and no longer on United States soil.

That evening the leaders of the divisions went among their followers and urged that in the morning every water cask and container available for holding water be filled. This flat, monotonous, dry plain might require three days to cross and every drop of water would be precious. Should any be found after the recent rains it would be in buffalo wallows and more fit for animals than for human beings. Again in the morning the warning was carried to every person in the camp and the need for heeding it gravely emphasized; and when the caravan started on the laborious and treacherous journey across the fringe of sand-hills and hillocks which extended for five or six miles beyond the river, where upsetting of wagons was by no means an exception, half a dozen wagons had empty water casks. Their owners had been too busy doing inconsequential things to think of obeying the orders for a "water sc.r.a.pe," given for their own good.

The outlying hilly fringe of sand was not as bad as had been expected for the heavy rains had wetted it well and packed the sand somewhat; but when the great flat plain was reached and the rough belt left behind, two wagons had been overturned and held up the whole caravan while they were unloaded, righted, and re-packed. Since no one had been injured the misfortunes had been taken lightly and the columns went on again in good spirits.

It was not yet noon when the advance guard came upon an unusual sight.

The plain was torn and scored and covered with sheepskin saddle-pads, broken riding gear, battered and discarded firelocks of so ancient a vintage that it were doubtful whether they would be as dangerous to an enemy as they might be to their owners; broken lances, bows and arrows, torn clothing, a two-wheeled cart overturned and partly burned, and half a score dead mules and horses.

Captain Woodson looked from the strewed ground, around the faces of his companions.

"Injuns an' greasers?" he asked, glancing at the remains of the _carreta_ in explanation of the "greaser" end of the couplet. The replies were affirmative in nature until Tom Boyd, looking fixedly at one remnant of clothing, swept it from the ground and regarded it in amazement. Without a word he pa.s.sed it on to Hank, who eyed it knowingly and sent it along.

"I'm bettin' th' Texans licked 'em good," growled Tom. "It's about time somebody paid 'em fer that d.a.m.nable, two thousand mile trail o'

sufferin' an' death! Wish I'd had a hand in this fight!"

a.s.senting murmurs came from the hunters and trappers, all of whom would have been happy to have pulled trigger with the wearers of the coats with the Lone Star b.u.t.tons.

Tom shook his head after a moment's reflection. "Hope it war reg'lar greaser troops an' not poor devils pressed inter service. That's th'

worst o' takin' revenge; ye likely take it out o' th' hides of them that ain't to blame, an' th' _guilty_ dogs ain't hurt."

"Mebby Salezar war leadin' 'em!" growled Hank. "Hope so!"