The Talking Leaves: An Indian Story, William O. Stoddard [best novels for beginners TXT] 📗

anything to say in favor of peaceful action and a prompt "getting away." He was even surprised at the warlike ardor with which many of the warriors declared their eagerness for a blow at the Lipans, and the good reasons they were able to give.

The presence of the band of Two Knives was a sort of invasion of the Apache hunting-grounds. The Lipans had no business this side of the mountains. They had come to strike the Apaches, and if they should be allowed to get away unhurt they would surely come again. Send Warning had already told how many there were of them. If there were no more than that, none of them ought to be allowed to get away.

Murray could but think that a party of Apaches in the Lipan country would probably be talked about and dealt with very much in the same way; but it seemed to require a special effort for him to think at all. His head had been in a sort of whirl for some minutes before the time when Many Bears turned suddenly upon him with the question,

"What Send Warning say? His head is very white."

Murray was muttering to himself at the moment, while Dolores handed her husband a stick with a piece of corn bread on the point of it, "She is not an Apache; she is a full-blooded Mexican. Yes, I've seen that woman before—" But the chief's inquiry startled him out of that train of recollection. He could not have answered instantly to save his life, but it was according to Indian notions that he should not speak too quickly, so he had time to recover himself.

"More enemies besides Lipans," he said at length. "Apaches better not forget pale-face miners."

"Ugh!"

The exclamation went all around the circle, for that was the very thing none of them had mentioned.

"Pale-faces fight Lipans," remarked Many Bears.

"Is the great chief sure of that?" asked Murray. "Suppose they come all together. Apaches need more braves then. Suppose they fight each other first, then Apaches eat up all that are left. Great chief better find out."

"Ugh!"

It was a very loud grunt indeed to come from the throat of Many Bears, and the chiefs and braves looked at one another in a way that spoke a good deal for the value they set on the advice of their white friend.

Whipping sixty Lipans was one thing; attacking them with a strong force of pale-face riflemen to help them was quite another.

"What Send Warning say do?"

"Do?" almost sharply exclaimed Murray, with his eyes upon the retreating form of Mother Dolores. "I'll tell you. Send your whole camp across the river. They can surround it here. Then send out your best braves to watch for the Lipans. They'll attack you before morning. That's what they came for. They won't fight the miners."

He was partly right and partly wrong, but Many Bears and his chiefs rose to their feet as one man.

"The words of Send Warning are wise. He is very old, and he is a chief. No use talk any more. All braves go and eat a heap. Tell squaws bring up all ponies. Get ready to cross river. No lose time."

Murray was not a "general," and he had never studied war, but he knew it would be a good thing to have deep water between that camp and any assailants instead of behind it. Many Bears was a chief of great experience, but it had never occurred to him that it would cost him all his horses if he should be beaten in a fight with a river behind him. The blunder was remedied now with a rapidity which astonished even Murray, for he had not known how good a ford there was right there.

"Hope the Lipans won't find that out," he said to himself. "They'll think twice before they try to swim their horses. I've given these fellows good advice. May prevent a battle. But if one should come, how could I fight the Lipans? What am I doing in an Apache camp anyhow? Steve and I must make haste out of this."

And then a puzzled, pained, anxious look came over his wrinkled face, and he seemed to be looking around him very wistfully indeed, as if he wanted to see somebody.

"Not to-night, perhaps; but I'll see her again in the morning. Steve and I must get away to-morrow. It'll be easy enough to give him his directions, and I can find Two Knives and his braves in a few hours."

Murray was a good deal upset by something or other, and it may be he had not quite made up his own mind what his difficulty might be.

As the deepening gloom of the evening settled slowly down he stood beside Many Bears on the bank of the river, and watched the young braves drive in the last squads of ponies from their pasturage and urge them across the ford. He had no idea how much quiet fun Steve and his friend Red Wolf had already enjoyed in a very similar occupation. The squaws had insisted upon making all the boys and girls who were big enough swim instead of going over on pony-back, and the youngsters in their turn had revenged themselves by doing all the mischievous pranks they knew.

Old Too Many Toes had been conspicuous in shoving small Indians into the water, and when at last she finished packing her little borrowed mule and a borrowed pony, there was a perfect swarm of "divers and duckers" around her. The water came well up the sides of the little mule, and she would not have minded that if the boys had been willing it should go no higher.

Even the solemn face of Many Bears himself expanded into a chuckle of dignified fun.

"Ugh! Squaw scold. Get spattered."

"Look!" said Red Wolf at the same instant. "Drop baby."

Not her pappoose, for it was safe under her blanket, but her three-year-old girl had slipped from behind her, and the river was sweeping it down stream.

"It will be drowned!" exclaimed Steve, in some excitement.

"No. Apache baby never sink. Swim a heap. Look!"

Steve looked, and there was no question but what the queer little thing was paddling bravely, and not even showing fear. To be sure, the current was carrying it away, but Steve now saw that three or four older boys and girls were swimming around it and were ready to give it all the help needed.

For all that, the wrath and anxiety of Too Many Toes exhibited itself in a torrent of long words.

Steve had learned among the Lipans that the red men have a great deal of fun in their compositions, but he was almost surprised to hear Red Wolf say, "Squaw talk big rain. Fall in river. Have freshet then. Lipans can't follow Apaches."

If talk could have raised the river, the chatter of nearly two hundred squaws of all ages, added to the scolding of Too Many Toes, would have made a torrent of it.

And yet a number of the squaws, wives and daughters of men of character and station attended to the business of fording the stream with the silence and gravity of the most dignified white matrons.

Dolores would have scorned putting herself on a level with such a squaw as Too Many Toes, even in the use of her tongue; and as for Ni-ha-be and Rita, they never forgot for a moment whose family they belonged to.

"Rita," said Ni-ha-be, as they rode down to the river, "your blanket is loose. Red Wolf and Knotted Cord are watching us."

"Send Warning is not there."

"No, of course not. He is with the chiefs. Don't let them see we are looking at them."

"I'm not looking at them."

"Neither am I. I don't care for Red Wolf either."

"And I don't care whether Knotted Cord sees me or not. I wish I could talk with Send Warning."

"What for?"

"To ask about the talking leaves."

"Knotted Cord could tell you. He is a pale-face."

"He is a mere boy. Send Warning's head is very white."

"Look out, Rita. Your horse's feet are slipping."

Ni-ha-be had better have been attending to the feet of her own pretty mustang. The ford was not very wide just there, and the two girls were compelled to get a little out of the way of the two mules loaded with lodge-poles.

Alas for the vanity of the chiefs self-confident daughter!

Her horse's fore-feet went over the ledge, and in an instant more she was floundering in the river, while every squaw and young Indian who could see her broke out into merry laughter.

It was well, perhaps, that she slipped from the ford on the up-stream side, but it was clear that she did not need a bit of help from anybody. No Apache girl of her age ever needed to be taught to swim. It was quite a credit to her, indeed, in the eyes of Steve Harrison, that she should so promptly catch her mustang by the head, turn it to the ledge, find her own footing on the rock, and encourage the unlucky quadruped to follow.

Then, although the water was at her shoulders, she managed, all dripping as she was, to clamber into the saddle again. It was so dreadfully provoking. She had heard Red Wolf laugh.

"Rita, did you look at them?"

"Look at whom? I was looking at you."

"Did they both laugh? Or was it only Red Wolf?"

"I don't know."

"Go on! Go on! Too Many Toes is saying something about me. She says it is her ford, and I fell in because I did not know where it was. Hurry on, Rita."

It was a sad blow to the pride of poor Ni-ha-be, but it need not have been. Any girl in the world might have had just such an accident befall her, but not a great many could have helped themselves out of it so skilfully and so bravely. That was precisely what Steve Harrison had been thinking, and he had not joined at all in the laughter of Red Wolf.

It had been the chief's order that the lodges should be set up on the safe side of the ford, and so there was work enough before the squaws. Even some of the younger braves were called upon to lend a hand, and in less than an hour's time there was a very respectable Indian village. Lodges, ponies, fires, dogs, everything belonging to an Apache hunting-camp was there, and between them and any probable danger the river was rolling now, and the Lipans did not know where to look for the ford.

"Ni-ha-be," exclaimed Dolores, sharply, a little later, "go into lodge. Too late for young squaw. What will the great chief say?"

"It is early yet."

"Go in. Lipans come and carry you off. Old pale-face see you, and say foolish young squaw. Not know enough to keep dry. Fall off pony. Ugh!"

That was a sharp hit, and Ni-ha-be obeyed Dolores rather than stay for another reminder of her ducking, but Rita followed her very slowly.

"If I could see him again," she murmured, "I feel sure he would speak to me. I don't care what they say. Dolores may scold as much as she pleases. I will ask Send Warning about those words, and all about those pictures."

She little guessed that at that very moment Murray was saying to Steve Harrison,

CHAPTER XXII

To-la-go-do-de had all the pride of an Indian chief, but he had good reasons for respecting Captain Skinner. He had seen him handle his men in a fight, and he had talked with him afterward, and he knew that he had not beaten the Captain in either case. Now, therefore, that they were to go on a war-path together, he was not at all above a consultation with so wise and brave a leader.

For his own part, he had decided upon the right policy to follow. He had told his older warriors, "The pale-faces are cunning. The Lipans must be wise. Suppose the Apaches kill many pale-faces. Ugh! Good. Lipans kill rest of them very easy. Not so many to kill."

He was right about the Captain's "cunning," for it was a good deal like his own "wisdom," and it had been expressed to his men in the same way.

"The Apaches are strong enough to beat them and us