第19章

THE ILLUSIVE COPPERHEAD

Cameron's approach to the Piegan camp was greeted by a discordant chorus of yelps and howls from a pack of mangy, half-starved curs of all breeds, shapes and sizes, the invariable and inevitable concomitants of an Indian encampment.The squaws, who had been busy superintending the pots and pans in which simmered the morning meal of their lords and masters, faded from view at Cameron's approach, and from the teepees on every side men appeared and stood awaiting with stolid faces the white man's greeting.Cameron was known to them of old.

"Good-day!" he cried briefly, singling out the Chief.

"Huh!" replied the Chief, and awaited further parley.

"No grub yet, eh? You sleep too long, Chief."The Chief smiled grimly.

"I say, Chief," continued Cameron, "I have lost a couple of steers--big fellows, too--any of your fellows seen them?"Trotting Wolf turned to the group of Indians who had slouched toward them in the meantime and spoke to them in the singsong monotone of the Indian.

"No see cow," he replied briefly.

Cameron threw himself from his horse and, striding to a large pot simmering over a fire, stuck his knife into the mass and lifted up a large piece of flesh, the bones of which looked uncommonly like ribs of beef.

"What's this, Trotting Wolf?" he inquired with a stern ring in his voice.

"Deer," promptly and curtly replied the Chief.

"Who shot him?"

The Chief consulted the group of Indians standing near.

"This man," he replied, indicating a young Indian.

"What's your name?" said Cameron sharply."I know you."The young Indian shook his head.

"Oh, come now, you know English all right.What's your name?"Still the Indian shook his head, meeting Cameron's look with a fearless eye.

"He White Cloud," said the Chief.

"White Cloud! Big Chief, eh?" said Cameron.

"Huh!" replied Trotting Wolf, while a smile appeared on several faces.

"You shot this deer?"

"Huh!" replied the Indian, nodding.

"I thought you could speak English all right."Again a smile touched the faces of some of the group.

"Where did you shoot him?"

White Cloud pointed vaguely toward the mountains.

"How far? Two, three, four miles?" inquired Cameron, holding up his fingers.

"Huh!" grunted the Indian, holding up five fingers.

"Five miles, eh? Big deer, too," said Cameron, pointing to the ribs.

"Huh!"

"How did you carry him home?"

The Indian shook his head.

"How did he carry him these five miles?" continued Cameron, turning to Trotting Wolf.

"Pony," replied Trotting Wolf curtly.

"Good!" said Cameron."Now," said he, turning swiftly upon the young Indian, "where is the skin?"The Indian's eyes wavered for a fleeting instant.He spoke a few words to Trotting Wolf.Conversation followed.

"Well?" said Cameron.

"He says dogs eat him up."

"And the head? This big fellow had a big head.Where is it?"Again the Indian's eyes wavered and again the conversation followed.

"Left him up in bush," replied the chief.

"We will ride up and see it, then," said Cameron.

The Indians became voluble among themselves.

"No find," said the Chief."Wolf eat him up."Cameron raised the meat to his nose, sniffed its odor and dropped it back into the pot.With a single stride he was close to White Cloud.

"White Cloud," he said sternly, "you speak with a forked tongue.

In plain English, White Cloud, you lie.Trotting Wolf, you know that is no deer.That is cow.That is my cow."Trotting Wolf shrugged his shoulders.

"No see cow me," he said sullenly.

"White Cloud," said Cameron, swiftly turning again upon the young Indian, "where did you shoot my cow?"The young Indian stared back at Cameron, never blinking an eyelid.

Cameron felt his wrath rising, but kept himself well in hand, remembering the purpose of his visit.During this conversation he had been searching the gathering crowd of Indians for the tall form of his friend of the previous night, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Cameron felt he must continue the conversation, and, raising his voice as if in anger--and indeed there was no need of pretense for he longed to seize White Cloud by the throat and shake the truth out of him--he said:

"Trotting Wolf, your young men have been killing my cattle for many days.You know that this is a serious offense with the Police.

Indians go to jail for this.And the Police will hold you responsible.You are the Chief on this reserve.The Police will ask why you cannot keep your young men from stealing cattle."The number of Indians was increasing every moment and still Cameron's eyes searched the group, but in vain.Murmurs arose from the Indians, which he easily interpreted to mean resentment, but he paid no heed.

"The Police do not want a Chief," he cried in a still louder voice, "who cannot control his young men and keep them from breaking the law."He paused abruptly.From behind a teepee some distance away there appeared the figure of the "Big Chief" whom he so greatly desired to see.Giving no sign of his discovery, he continued his exhortation to Trotting Wolf, to that worthy's mingled rage and embarrassment.The suggestion of jail for cattle-thieves the Chief knew well was no empty threat, for two of his band even at that moment were in prison for this very crime.This knowledge rendered him uneasy.He had no desire himself to undergo a like experience, and it irked his tribe and made them restless and impatient of his control that their Chief could not protect them from these unhappy consequences of their misdeeds.They knew that with old Crowfoot, the Chief of the Blackfeet band, such untoward consequences rarely befell the members of that tribe.Already Trotting Wolf could distinguish the murmurs of his young men, who were resenting the charge against White Cloud, as well as the tone and manner in which it was delivered.Most gladly would he have defied this truculent rancher to do his worst, but his courage was not equal to the plunge, and, besides, the circumstances for such a break were not yet favorable.