Indian dances.
While the drum beat and the Natchee danced I said to Itchakomi, 'You are sure?'
'I am.'
'If your people need you, we can go back. I will take you back.'
'My place is with you. The Ni'kwana knew this.'
'We will be much alone. There will be too few of us, but we shall build a strong fort. We will trade with the Indians.'
'What of the Men of Fire?'
I shrugged. 'Perhaps they will come. That we must face when they do. I have my own fire,' I added, 'and will use it if I must.'
'When morning comes, my people will go,' she said. 'They will go back to Natchee, our home by the Great River, but they will always know there is a place for them if they wish to come.'
'Tell them,' I said suddenly, 'to send a messenger to my people at Shooting Creek, to tell them I have found you and am happy.'
'It shall be done.'
There was a moon above the mountains, and a white glow upon the camp. The water rustled swiftly by, and the aspen leaves stirred restlessly, as always. The fire burned low and the drum ceased to beat and the Indians to dance. Beyond the leafy bower where we lay the red coals smoldered, and I knew that one of the Natchee or Keokotah would be watching.
How far were we from the fens of old England! How far from the Isle of Ely, whence my father had come, so long ago! Now I was here, where no white man was supposed to be, finding my own land in a world far from others. We would go deeper into the mountains. We would leave them all behind.
The Natchee would not have a dugout. There was not time. They would use a raft and go down the river upon it until they found my canoe, and then they would use both raft and canoe unless they were so lucky as to capture another canoe.
At dawn we helped them load their meat and the few things they possessed.
At dawn we saw them push off and watched them disappear, going down with the swiftly rushing waters. When they had gone we turned and looked around. Only five were left, in a land vast and lonely, a land where the only people of whom we knew were enemies.
We walked where the wind had blown and where the autumn leaves had fallen and rotted into soil, but there was color in the sky, and on the mountains the green lay dark where the spruce were and bright where aspen grew. We killed some sage hens and ate them, and we caught some fish from a stream. Then, on the night when we had almost reached the place we were to build, we saw a flash of light from down the long wet valley, a flash of sunlight from a blade, and then we saw them coming, six mounted men and twenty marching. Of the twenty, several were battered and bloody. Of the mounted, only two rode as if unhurt.
At dawn that day Keokotah had killed an elk, so we stood and watched them come.
At last they saw us and pulled up, looking warily. Knowing them for Spanishmen I stepped out with my right hand up, palm toward them. Slowly they came on and then drew up to look again.
I spoke then, in Spanish. They came on then and drew up, wary, wounded, weary of riding and holding themselves in the saddle.
'Get down,' I said. 'We'll make a fire. Have you eaten at all?'
'Not for two days,' their leader said. He was a tall man, lean and with a sparse beard. He bore his own share of wounds, two that I could see.
'You are Diego?'
Surprised, he looked at me. 'We met a man of yours, fleeing ahead of you and bound for the settlements.'
His face shadowed. 'Gomez!' he said. 'Ah, that one is trouble!'
'We knew nothing of him. We fed him and he went his way, but with no liking for us, I think.'
'He likes only himself,' Diego said. His men had gotten down and come to the fire as to a cold spring. These were beaten men.
'You've had a fight, then? With the Conejeros?'
'With some others, strange Indians. They attacked us at once. I lost two men that first time and four since. They were hard upon us until we slipped away in the night.'
We were beside a small stream with trees close by and a good defensive position.
He noticed my guns. 'Handsome pistols. I would buy them from you.'
'No. They were given me by my father. They are the best of their kind, made by a master in Italy.'
'I was apprenticed to an armorer,' he said. 'I knew them at once. I knew the workmanship. You have a fine pair of pistols.'
He glanced at Itchakomi, standing beside me. 'Your woman?'
'My wife,' I said, 'by an Indian marriage, which I hold as a true one. You don't have a friar among you? Or a priest?'
'He was killed, died well, too. A game man.' He glanced at me. 'You wish to be married again?'
'I am a Christian,' I said, 'although not a Catholic. I'd like to be married again by a Christian sacrament.'
'She's beautiful,' he said simply, 'and proud.'
'Among her own people, the Natchee, she is a Sun, a princess.'
'I can believe it,' he said.
He walked to the fire, and the Ponca woman passed him a bowl of broth made from the elk meat. He tasted it greedily and then, shamed, looked quickly around to be sure his men were eating. They were, but I liked him for it. The Spanishmen had been our enemies, but this was a man fit to walk upon the mountains.
'Sit you,' I said. 'I'll care for your horses.'
His hand came up sharply. 'No! My men will do that. Nobody touches our horses!' Then more gently he said, 'They are few and hard to come upon. We bring them up from Mexico, and the Indios have taken to stealing them. Soon they will be riding them against us.'
'Indians who ride?'
'I have seen a few,' Diego replied grimly, 'and they ride well, too!'
He ate, and then looked at me. 'English?'
'My father was. I am American.'
He smiled quizzically. 'American? What is that? I have not heard the name before.'
'I was born in this land.' Pausing, I gestured to the south. 'I shall set up a trading post. You are welcome to trade.'
'It will not be allowed,' he said. 'This is Spanish land.'
'We are befriending you now, and could again. It might serve the Spanish well to have a friend out here, and not an enemy.'
He shrugged. 'I do not decide. There are regulations from the king.'
He ate in silence until his bowl was empty. Then he cut a slice from a haunch of elk meat. 'I will speak for you,' he said. 'I think it a good idea.'
'Gomez hoped to reach the settlements before you,' I said. 'He has plans of his own.'
'Gomez is always planning,' Diego said. 'I know him.'
Keokotah had chosen a sleeping place for us among the rocks on a soft stretch of grass. We gathered there and left the Spanish by the fire. Most of them had fallen asleep right where they were, too tired to even think of defense.
We could even have stolen their horses.
Chapter Thirty.
Through the long day that followed, Diego and his men rested, and well they needed it. Haggard and driven, they had suffered a grievous defeat, but it was a time for learning. Here were men who had met strange Indians from the north--some of the Spanish were calling them Komantsi--and had fought them and escaped.
Diego had coffee, and he shared it with us. Over the fire we sat to talk, and Itchakomi sat with me.
'Fierce men who love to fight.' Diego looked over the rim of his cup at me. 'They take no prisoners, want
