Crow Indians -- Fiction; Indian captivities -- Fiction; Western stories; Yellowstone River Valley -- Fiction
"Long-Horse," the boy continued, "was making up a party to go to the
Dakotahs. I asked to be one of them, but he thought I was young. I said
my medicine was strong and that my horse was fat. He said I was young to
learn the war-path secret, but after smoking my talk he consented. I had
only eight cartridges and one horse, all the other Indians having two
apiece. Your old pack-pony is a war-horse now, father; he has carried a
warrior," and the turquoise eyes gleamed brilliantly. "Long-Horse had a
big band; we made the war-path medicine and travelled many sleeps with
our backs to the sun. One morning our scouts found two men, an Absaroke
and a white man, and brought them in. They belonged to the white
warriors' camp, which was fighting the Dakotahs, who were all around
them, and these men were going for help. Long-Horse moved toward this
place guided by the men we had met. Before the sun was up, the Absaroke
rode into the camp of the white soldiers, and they were glad to see us.
They had the white cloth lodges and many wagons, but their horses had
been taken by the Dakotahs and they had lost some soldiers. The white
men had put their dead men in the ground. I saw where they had dug in
the earth and left mounds such as the prairie-dog builds. The camp was
on the low ground, and back of this were bluffs. When the sun gave
light, we could see the Cut-Throats swarm on their hill as the ants do
when you lift a stone. There were five Cut-Throats to one white soldier,
and the white men could not go out to them. While the white men had no
women, they had more wagons than I could count, loaded with sugar and
coffee until the wheels cut the ground. I never knew there was so much
coffee and sugar; where does it come from, father? The white men are
rich, and there are so few of them that each has more than he wants. In
a place of that kind the Absaroke would have run away, but the white men
cannot run, and they think more of the coffee and sugar than they do of
their own lives. It made my head weak when I saw the enemy; they rode
swiftly; they were all warriors, for they all had the war-feathers in
their hair. They had guns, and as they rode they made the gestures of
women and snakes and dogs at us. They rode away from a spot which they
pointed at, and then they pointed at us, saying we were buffalo that
always ran away like this. Long-Horse and the white chief, a big man
with short hair, made a long talk. The Absaroke gave their old
travelling-ponies to the white warriors, who put their own saddles on
them. These white soldiers mounted the ponies on the wrong side, and
tired as the horses were, they jumped like rabbits under them. Though I
was afraid of the enemy, I had to laugh, father.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account