'I don't suppose it matters what happens to me!' I says bitterly.
'Oh,' says he, 'Fat Bear is yore friend and wunst you git in his village he won't let the Sioux git you. You'll have a good start before they can see you, on account of the bluffs there, and you ought to be able to beat 'em into the village.'
'I suppose it ain't occurred to you at all that they'll shott arrers at me all the way,' I says.
'You know a Sioux cain't shoot as good from a runnin' hoss as a Comanche can,' he reassured me. 'You jest keep three or four hundred yards ahead of 'em, and I bet they won't hit you hardly any at all.'
'Well, why don't you do it, then?' I demanded.
At this Joshua bust into tears. 'To think that you should turn agen me after all I've did for you!' he wept-- though what he ever done for me outside of trying to skin me out of my wages I dunno. 'After I taken you off'n a Natchez raft and persuaded the company to give you a job at a princely salary, you does this to me! A body'd think you didn't give a dern about my personal safety! My pore old grandpap used to say: 'Bewar' of a Southerner like you would a hawk! He'll eat yore vittles and drink yore licker and then stick you with a butcher knife jest to see you kick!' When I thinks--'
'Aw, hesh up,' I says in disgust. 'I'll play Injun for you. I'll put on the blanket and stick feathers in my hair, but I'll be derned if I'll cut the seat out a my britches.'
'It'd make it look realer,' he argued, wiping his eyes on the fringe of my hunting shirt.
'Shet up!' I yelled with passion. 'They is a limit to everything!'
'Oh, well, all right,' says he, 'if you got to be temperamental. You'll have the blanket on over yore pants, anyway.'
So we went into the cabin to git the blanket, and would you believe me, that derned Injun didn't want to lemme have it, even when his fool life was at stake. He thought it was a medicine blanket, and the average Injun would ruther lose his life than his medicine. In fack, he give us a tussle for it, and they is no telling how long it would of went on if he hadn't accidentally banged his head agen a empty rum bottle I happened to have in my hand at the time. It war plumb disgusting. He also bit me severely in the hind laig, whilst I was setting on him and pulling the feathers out of his hair--which jest goes to show how much gratitude a Injun has got. But Joshua said the company had contracted to deliver him to Hidatsa, and we was going to do it if we had to kill him.
Joshua give the Yankton a hatchet and a blanket, and three shoots of powder for his hoss--which was a awful price--but the Yankton knowed we had to have it and gouged us for all it was wuth. So I put on the red blanket, and stuck the feathers in my hair, and got on the hoss, and started up a gully for the top of the bluffs. Joshua yelled: 'If you git to the village, stay there till we come back down the river. We'll pick you up then. I'd be doin' this myself, but it wouldn't be right for me to leave the boat. T'wouldn't be fair to the company money to replace it, and--'
'Aw, go to hell!' I begged, and kicked the piebald in the ribs and headed for Fat Bear's village.
When I got up on the bluffs, I could see the p'int; and the Sioux seen me and was fooled jest like Joshua said, because they come b'iling out of the willers and piled onto their ponies and lit out after me. Their hosses was better'n mine, jest as I suspected, but I had a good start; and I was still ahead of 'em when we topped a low ridge and got within sight of Fat Bear's village--which was, so far as I know, the only Arikara village south of Grand River. I kept expectin' a arrer in my back because they was within range now, and their howls was enough to freeze a mortal's blood; but purty soon I realized that they aimed to take me alive. They thought I was Big Nose, and they detested him so thorough a arrer through the back was too good for him. So I believed I had a good chance of making it after all, because I seen the piebald was going to last longer'n the Tetons thought he would.
I warn't far from the village now, and I seen that the tops of the lodges was kivered with Injuns watching the race. Then a trade-musket cracked, and the ball whistled so clost it stang my ear, and all to wunst I remembered that Fat Bear didn't like Big Nose no better'n the Sioux did. I could see him up on his lodge taking aim at me again, and the Sioux was right behind me. I was in a hell of a pickle. If I taken the blanket off and let him see who I was, the Sioux would see I warn't Big Nose, too, and fill me full of arrers; and if I kept the blanket on he'd keep on shooting at me with his cussed gun.
Well, I'd ruther be shot at by one Arikara than a hundred Sioux, so all I could do was hope he'd miss. And he did, too; that is he missed me, but his slug taken a notch out of the piebald's ear, and the critter r'ared up and throwed me over his head; he didn't have no saddle nor bridle, jest a hackamore. The Sioux howled with glee and their chief, old Bitin' Hoss, he was ahead of the others; and he rode in and grabbed me by the neck as I riz.
I'd lost my rifle in the fall, but I hit Bitin' Hoss betwixt the eyes with my fist so hard I knocked him off'n his hoss and I bet he rolled fifteen foot before he stopped. I grabbed for his hoss, but the critter bolted, so I shucked that blanket and pulled for the village on foot. The Sioux was so surprized to see Big Nose turn into a white man they forgot to shoot at me till I had run more'n a hundred yards; and then when they did let drive, all the arrers missed but one. It hit me right where you kicked Old Man Montgomery last winter and I will have their heart's blood for it if it's the last thing I do. You jest wait; the Sioux nation will regret shooting a Bearfield behind his back. They come for me lickety-split but I had too good a start; they warn't a hoss in Dakota could of ketched me under a quarter of a mile.
The Arikaras was surprized too, and some of 'em fell off their tipis and nearly broke their necks. They was too stunned to open the gate to the stockade, so I opened it myself--hit it with my shoulder and knocked it clean off'n the rawhide hinges and fell inside on top of it. The Sioux was almost on top of me, with their arrers drawed back, but now they sot their hosses back onto their haunches and held their fire. If they'd come in after me it would of meant a fight with the Arikaras. I half expected 'em to come in anyway, because the Sioux ain't no ways scairt of the Arikaras, but in a minute I seen why they didn't.
Fat Bear had come down off of his lodge, and I riz up and says: 'Hao!'
'Hao!' says he, but he didn't say it very enthusiastic. He's a fat-bellied Injun with a broad, good-natured face; and outside of being the biggest thief on the Missoury, he's a good friend of the white men--especially me, because I wunst taken him away from the Cheyennes when they was going to burn him alive.
Then I seen about a hundred strange braves in the crowd, and they was Crows. I recognized their chief, old Spotted Hawk, and I knowed why the Sioux didn't come in after me in spite of the Arikaras. That was why Fat Bear was a chief, too. A long time ago he made friends with Spotted Hawk, and when the Sioux or anybody crowded him too clost, the Crows would come in and help him. Them Crows air scrappers and no mistake.
'This is plumb gaudy!' I says. 'Git yore braves together and us and the Crows will go out and run them fool Tetons clean into the Missoury, by golly.'
'No, no, no!' says he. He's hung around the trading posts till he can talk English nigh as good as me. 'There's a truce between us! Big powwow tonight!'
Well, the Sioux knowed by now how they'd been fooled; but they also knowed the Pirut Queen would be past the p'int and outa their reach before they could git back to the river; so they camped outside, and Bitin' Hoss hollered over the stockade: 'There is bad flesh in my brother's village! Send it forth that we may cleanse it with fire!'
Fat Bear bust into a sweat and says: 'That means they want to bum you! Why did you have to come here, jest at this time?'
'Well,' I says in a huff, 'air you goin' to hand me over to 'em?'
'Never!' says he, wiping his brow with a bandanner he stole from the guvment trading post below the Kansas. 'But I'd rather a devil had come through that gate than a Big Knife!' That's what them critters calls a American. 'We and the Crows and Sioux have a big council on tonight, and--'
Jest then a man in a gilded cock hat and a red coat come through the crowd, with a couple of French Canadian trappers, and a pack of Soc Injuns from the Upper Mississippi. He had a sword on him and he stepped as proud as a turkey gobbler in the fall.
'What is this bloody American doing here?' says he, and I says: 'Who the hell air you?' And he says: 'Sir Wilmot Pembroke, agent of Indian affairs in North America for his Royal Majesty King George, that's who!'
'Well, step out from the crowd, you lobster-backed varmint,' says I, stropping my knife on my leggin', 'and I'll decorate a sculp-pole with yore innards--and that goes for them two Hudson Bay skunks, too!'
'No!' says Fat Bear, grabbing my arm. 'There is a truce! No blood must be spilled in my village! Come into my lodge.'
'The truce doesn't extend beyond the stockade,' says Sir Wilmot. 'Would you care to step outside with me?'
'So yore Teton friends could fill me with arrers?' I sneered. 'I ain't as big a fool as I looks.'
