Two Arrows: A Story of Red and WhiteStoddard, William O.
General
Two Arrows: A Story of Red and White
Stoddard, William O.
Indians of North America -- Fiction
That was Greek to Sile, but Yellow Pine rummaged one of the wagons and
brought out a long-nosed bellows and a crucible and a sort of mould that
opened with two handles. He put the crucible in among the coals, filled
it from Sile's yellow heap, covered it, and began to work the bellows.
Sile was astonished to find how speedily what Pine called "bullion"
would melt, and how easy it was to run it into little bars. There did
not seem to be so much of it, but there was less danger that any of the
smaller chunks and scales and particles could get away.
"There, Sile. There's your farm, cows, hosses, hogs and all, and it only
cost you a gitten' thirsty."
"They're wonderful," was all Sile could make out to say, and his father
put them in a bag and locked them up in an iron-bound box in one of the
wagons.
"You needn't scratch into all the sand you come to after this," said
Yellow Pine. "That's what takes the tuck out of placer miners. One good
pocket'll most ginerally spile the eyes of a green hand."
He assured the judge that one more push would bring them to good grass,
and he added,
"What's more, we ain't in any hurry to ketch up with no redskins till we
know what they are. It's peace with most on 'em, but this 'ere isn't a
strong band, and I kinder want to feel my way."
There was sense in that, especially as he knew that Indians without
horses are also Indians on the lookout for some. What he did not know
was the state of mind that band of Nez Perces was in at that hour.
They had set out very early that morning, and were plodding on steadily
down the winding slopes of the canon, when there came to them an
unexpected sensation. It was a dog.
Right up the trail trotted One-eye, all alone, and with an air of
business anxiety. He neither paused nor turned until he came to Long
Bear himself, and in front of the chief he sat down, threw up his head,
and let out the most mournful howl he knew--and he knew a great many.
"Where Two Arrows?" asked the chief, as if the dog had been human, and
he was answered first by another howl and then by an eager look and a
tug at his deer-skin leggings. Then One-eye trotted off a little
distance along the trail and looked back and barked, and the dullest man
in the world could have understood him. It all plainly meant,
"Come on. There's a fellow down this way that's in need of help. Follow
me and help him."
"Ugh!" exclaimed Long Bear, and he added the names of half a dozen of
the leading braves. "Two Arrows send dog after warrior. Come."
That was somewhat more than the truth, seeing that all the credit
belonged to One-eye, but in a minute or so the old chief was leading his
men rapidly down the pass. There was nothing whatever to be said, and
One-eye kept well ahead of them, every now and then trying to express an
idea he had that no time was to be wasted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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