PAWNEES

At this Ash Creek camp before the wagoners had unhitched their teams there was a cordon around the corral made up of every man who could be spared, and the cannon crews stood silently around their freshly primed guns. The air of tenseness and expectancy pleased Woodson, for it was an assurance that there would be no laxity about this night's watch. With the animals staked as close to the wagons as practicable, which caused some encroachments and several fist fights between jealous wagoners, the fires soon were cooking supper for squads of men from the sentry line; and as soon as all had eaten and the camp was not distracted by too many duties, the cordon thinned until it was composed of a double watch. Before dusk the animals were driven inside, secured by side-line hobbles, which are much more effective than hobbling the forelegs, and all gaps were closed as tightly as possible.

The evening shadows darkened and ran into blackness; the night wind crept among the branches of the thin line of trees on both banks of the creek and made soft soughings in the tall, thick grass; overhead the sky first darkened and then grew lighter, shot with myriads of stars, which gleamed as only prairie stars can; and among them, luminous and bright, lay the Milky Way. The creek murmured in musical tones as it fretted at some slight obstruction and all nature seemed to be at peace. Then sounded the howl of a buffalo wolf, the gray killer of the plains, deep, throaty, full, and followed by a quick slide up the scale with a ringing note that the bluffs and mountains love to toss back and forth. Yet it was somehow different. Woodson and his trapper aides, seated together against a wagon, stirred and glanced sidewise at each other. Not one of them had felt the reflex answer of his spine and hair; not one of them had thrilled. A simple lack; but a most enlightening one.

Franklin bit into a plug of tobacco, pushed the mouthful into his cheek with deft tongue, and crossed his legs the other way. "Hell!" he growled. "Reckon we're in fer it."

"They jest can't git it all in, kin they?" commented Zeb Houghton, coming up.

"No," answered Tom Boyd. "They leave out th' best part o' it." He glanced in the direction of the nearest fringe of trees, noisy cottonwoods all, and shook his head. "We been havin' too fine a stretch o' weather. Hear them trees? In two hours it'll be blowin' hard; an' I kin feel th' rain already."

From the blackness of the creek there arose a series of short, sharp barks, faster and faster, higher and higher, the lost-soul howl climbing to a pitch that was sheer torture to some ears.

"Kiyote sassin' a gray," chuckled Zeb, ironically.

"'Upon what meat hath—'" began Tom, and checked the quotation. "He oughter be tuckin' his tail atween his laigs an' streakin' fer th' Platte; or mebby he missed somethin', too," he said. "Everythin' else shuts up when th' gray wolf howls."

"Doubled watches air not enough fer tonight," growled Woodson, as a tremulous, high-pitched, chromatic, and descending run in a minor key floated through the little valley. If it were an imitation of a screech-owl it was so perfectly done that no man in the caravan could detect the difference.

"Us boys will be scoutin' 'round all night," replied Tom. "Hank an' th' others air gittin' some winks now. I don't look fer no fight afore daylight; but they'll shore try ter stampede us afore then. Reckon I'll take a good listen out yonder," he said, and arose. He went to Joe Cooper's little wagon and was promptly challenged.

"It's Boyd," he answered. "Stick to the wagon, Uncle Joe. We ain't looking for any rush before daylight. If one comes Hank and I will get here quick. Where is Miss Cooper?"

"In th' wagon, of course!"

"That's no place for her," retorted Tom. "Those sheets won't stop arrows. Put her under the wagon, an' hang blankets down th' sides, loose at th' bottoms. Tight blankets or canvas are little better than paper; but a loose Mackinaw yields to th' impact somewhat. I've seen a loose blanket stop a musket ball."

"Can I do anything useful, Mr. Boyd?" came Patience's voice from the wagon. "I can load and cap, anyhow."

Tom's chuckle came straight from his heart. "Not yet, God bless you. Despite their reputation in some quarters, Pawnees are not the most daring fighters. Any of the tribes east of the Mississippi are paragons of courage when compared to these prairie Indians. Pawnees would rather steal than fight; and they know that this is no helpless caravan, but one with nearly two hundred armed men. If they were Comanches or Kiowas, Utes or Apaches, I'd be bothered a lot more than I am now. And they know that there are two cannons pointing somewhere into the night. All we have to worry about is our animals."

The mournful, hair-raising screech of an owl sounded again, and then all the demons of hell seemed to have broken loose around the camp. The corralled animals, restless before, now surged one way and now another, largely cancelling their own efforts because wave met wave; but all the while they were getting wilder and more frantic and the blood-chilling yells on all sides finally set them into a sort of rhythm which more and more became uniform. They surged from one side to the other, striking the wagons harder and harder. Then the yelling ceased and the Pawnee whistle was heard. There ensued a few minutes of silence and then the whistle sounded again. It set off a hellish uproar on one side of the encampment and the frantic animals whirled and charged in the other direction. The shock rocked some of the wagons and would have overturned them but for the great weight of their loads. Anticipating this surge of the animals some of the traders, told off by the captain, had bound bundles of twigs and dried grass to long cottonwood sticks and now set them afire and crawled under the wagons, thrusting the torches into the faces of the charging mass. This started the animals milling and soon the whole herd was running in a circle. The stampede had failed.

Here and there from under the wagons on the threatened side of the encampment guns stabbed into the night, showing where tenderfeet were gallantly engaged in guessing matches. Arrows curved over the wagon tops and some of the torch wavers on the other side of the camp had narrow escapes before their purpose was accomplished and the torches burned out.

A cricket chirped twice and then twice again not far from Joe Cooper's little wagon, and the alert plainsman crouched behind an outer wheel answered by three short trills. "Don't shoot, Uncle Joe," Tom softly called. "That's Hank."

Hank seemed to be having a hard time of it and made more noise than was his wont. Alarmed, Tom was about to crawl out and help his friend to the corral when Hank's querulous complaint barely reached him.

"Danged if ye ain't so plumb full o' buffaler meat ye nigh weigh a ton," growled the hunter. "Yourn as heavy as mine, Jim?"

"Wuss," complacently answered Ogden.

"Huh!" snorted another voice, crowding so much meaning into the grunt that he had the best of the little exchange and the last word.

"If I could twang like you, Hank," said Ogden, pausing a moment to rest, "I'd have a hull dozen, danged if I wouldn't. Mine's got nigh ter six feet o' feathers a-hangin' ter him."

Tom rocked back and forth, laughing silently. "Then he makes up fer th' rest o' yer dozen!" he gasped. "Hostages, by th' Great Horned Spoon!" He made some funny noises in his throat and gasped again. "A chief, too!"

"An' a plumb waste o' good ha'r," growled Hank. "But jest now it's wuth more on thar heads than fastened ter our belts. Hyar, haul this hyar warrior o' mine under th' waggin. I'm all tuckered out."

"Hank kin shoot more arrers with his mouth than some Injuns kin with thar bows," panted Jim, grasping a spoke and yanking his captive roughly against the wheel. "All I kin imitate is a lance." He chuckled at his joke and rested.

"When Hank twanged, Big Polecat, hyar, got right up an' stumbled plumb over me," said Zeb's weary voice. "I near busted his skull with that newfangled pistol. It's heftier than I'm used ter. Wonder is I didn't bash his brains out. Hyar, gimme a hand, I can't hardly wiggle no more."

"Wonder what them danged fools air firin' at?" queried Hank, as several shots rang out in quick succession from the other side of the encampment. "Don't they know th' dance is over till mornin'?"

"Oh, them greenhorns'll be shootin' all night," growled Ogden. "If thar's a rush at daylight they won't have no more powder an' ball. When they hadn't oughter shoot, they shoot; when they oughter shoot, thar too danged scared to pull trigger."