chatanskah's village was a group of buffalo-hide teepees on the bank of a creek flowing into the missouri, constituting with several similar communities the wahpeton council fire. this was one of the seven divisions, or sub-tribes, of the dakota, who held the north bank of the missouri as far as the foothills of the sky mountains, and whose political organization, in some ways, reminded me of the great iroquois confederacy, an opinion which tawannears also entertained.
there was about these sons of the open savannahs the same sturdy self-reliance and classic dignity which marked the people of the long house, dwelling beneath the shadow of the primeval forest which covered most of the wilderness country east of the mississippi. they were all big men, lithely-muscled, handsome, with clean-cut, intelligent features, fearless warriors, clever hunters, splendid orators. like the iroquois, too, they had conceived the advantages of union, and were consequently feared by all the neighboring tribes.
we had dwelt with them upwards of a week, resting from the fatigue of our recent adventures, when a party of young men came in with news of the approach of a gigantic herd of buffalo from the north. the end of summer was at hand, and the herds ranging north were beginning to turn back for the southward migration to the spanish countries, an event of the utmost importance for the dakota, for whom the buffalo furnished the staples of existence.
they fed largely upon its flesh. they clad themselves in its fur. they wove rope from its hair. its dung they used for fuel in a country nearly destitute of wood. from its sinews they devised bow-strings. its horns were employed for weapons or to strengthen their bows or for containers.
for them the buffalo represented the difference between hunger and repletion, between cold and warmth, between nakedness and protection—as it did for all the surrounding tribes, for hundreds of thousands of wild, free-roving people, inhabiting a country equal to the area of western europe. and the buffalo was most valuable in the late summer or fall, after it had fattened for months upon the juicy grasses of the boundless savannahs, and its fur was grown long and silky in preparation for the winter.
there was a flurry of preparation amongst the teepees, and as every man counted, we volunteered to accompany the hunting party, which chatanskah mustered within the hour. the second day we came upon isolated bunches of buffalo, but the chief would not permit his warriors to attack them, claiming, with reason, that if the animals continued in their present direction they would pass close by the village, and might be attended to by the home-stayers. the third day we saw several large herds of many thousands each, but the young men who had brought the news of the migration claimed that the main herd was yet ahead of us.
we proved this true the next morning when the prairies showed black under the migratory hordes. north and west they filled the landscape. eastward they stretched for a bare half-mile, and chatanskah hastened to lead his hunters across the front of the serried columns, so as to be able to attack the herd in flank and maintain a constant forward pressure. no man would have cared to attempt to stop in front of that animal mass. their hoofs shook the ground, and a slight haze of dust rose over them.
to gain our flanking position we were compelled to dip into the bed of a small creek shaded by dwarf trees, and we followed this for perhaps a quarter of a mile. coming out into the open again, an entirely different spectacle presented itself. bearing down upon the herd from the northeast appeared a second party of warriors fully as numerous as our own. exclamations broke from the dakota ranks, and although at that distance the strangers looked to me no different from our allies, none of chatanskah's men were in doubt as to their identity, and tawannears answered my question without hesitation.
"cheyenne, brother. they are the striped-arrow people, so-called from their custom of using turkey feathers on their arrow-shafts."
"are they friends or enemies?"
he smiled.
"when two tribes have one herd of buffalo, otetiani, they cannot be anything else but enemies."
"yet surely there are buffalo enough here for all the indians in the wilderness!"
"my brother forgets that once the buffalo are attacked they will begin to run, and no man can tell which way they will go."
"then we must fight the cheyenne?"
"so it seems, brother," he replied with truly savage indifference.
chatanskah and his people were equally convinced that there was but one way out of the difficulty, and they advanced upon the opposing party at a run. the cheyenne, of course, had seen us as soon as we saw them, and they made it their business to meet us half-way. but both bands halted as though by command a long bow-shot apart, and stood, with weapons ready, eyeing each other provocatively.
a curious scene! less than a mile away the buffalo poured south like a living river of flesh. there was some tendency on the part of the outer files to edge away from us, but the bulk of the vast herd paid us no attention whatsoever. they were terrifying in their numbers and inexorable progress. there must have been millions of them. and here were we, so relatively few, preparing to dispute with an equally insignificant body the right to slaughter some few units of their multitudes.
the chief of the cheyenne stood forward, a giant of a man, his arms and chest gashed by the ordeals of the sun dance.
"why do the dakota interfere with the hunting of the cheyenne?" he demanded. "have they painted for war?"
"the cheyenne know best whether there is war," retorted chatanskah. "it is they who interfere with the dakota's hunting."
"there is war only if the dakota make it," asserted the cheyenne. "the cheyenne have pursued these buffalo for a day. let the dakota retire to their own country, and await there the coming of the buffalo."
"since when have the cheyenne said what the dakota shall do?" flashed chatanskah. "my young men have an answer ready for you."
the cheyenne surveyed our array before replying.
"nakuiman* sees that the dakota have with them two of the mazzonka,"** he remarked. "one of them is a large man, but very fat. send him out here and let him show the warriors if he has strength in that big belly. tell him to lay aside his weapons, all save his knife, and nakuiman will do the same. if he comes, nakuiman will tear out the mazzonka's heart with his fingers and eat it before the dakota. but the mazzonka will not come. he is afraid."
* the bear.
** iron-makers, indian name for white men.
chatanskah somewhat dubiously translated this speech to corlaer.
"the bear is a strong warrior," he added. "he has counted more coups than any man of his tribe."
"ja," said corlaer, and putting down musket, tomahawk, powder-horn and shot-pouch, he pulled his leather shirt over his head.
still chatanskah hesitated. as it happened, the dakota had never seen the big dutchman at hand's-grips with an enemy, and whilst they had respect for his marksmanship and quiet sagacity they were inclined to make fun of him behind his back because of his excessive corpulence.
"chatanskah need not be concerned," spoke up tawannears, smiling. "our brother corlaer is the strongest warrior of his people. the cheyenne will choose a new chief tomorrow—those who escape from the arrows of the dakota. tell nakuiman to lay aside his weapons."
chatanskah complied none too happily, and a young cheyenne warrior advanced from the ranks of his band and relieved his chief of bow and arrows and tomahawk.
"nakuiman waits," proclaimed the cheyenne chief. "the mazzonka is not in a hurry to die."
but corlaer shambled forward as soon as his opponent had given up his weapons. the dutchman's legs wobbled comically. his huge paunch waggled before him as he walked. fat lay in rolls and ridges all over his hairy brown torso, and lapped in creases on his flanks. only those who had seen him in action knew that beneath his layers of blubber were concealed muscles of unhuman strength, and that his placid exterior was a mask for a will that had never yielded to adversity.
the cheyenne warriors greeted him with guttural laughter, and the dakota pulled long faces. nor could i blame them, after contrasting the outward appearance of the two champions. the cheyenne was the biggest indian i have ever seen, well over two yards in his moccasins, with the shoulders of an ox, clean-thewed, narrow-flanked, his legs like bronze pillars. he crouched as corlaer approached and drew his knife, circling on the balls of his feet, the keen blade poised across his stomach in position to strike or ward, as need arose.
corlaer, on the other hand, had not even drawn his knife, and his hands hung straight beside him. he slouched along with no attempt at a fighting posture, his whole body exposed to the cheyenne's knife. the cheyenne warriors passed from laughter to gibes and humorous remarks—which, of course, corlaer could not understand—and nakuiman evidently decided that they were right in their judgment, for he commenced a kind of dancing progress around corlaer, never coming to close quarters, hut maintaining a constant menace with his knife.
peter, affecting his customary manner of stolid indifference, turned clumsily on his flat feet as the cheyenne circled him, making no effort to stay the quick rushes by which his opponent gradually drew nearer and nearer. this went on for so long that the dakota around me commenced to fume with rage and humiliation, whilst the cheyenne were convulsed with mirth. then nakuiman evidently decided to end the farce. he bounded at the dutchman like a ball flung at a wall, and confident as i had been, i experienced a moment of foreboding as that rush came. compact with concentrated energy, the cheyenne drove home his thrust so fast that we bystanders could not follow it.
but peter could. the dutchman came awake as though by magic. his lolling stupidity vanished. his great body became instinct with the vitality that flowed inexhaustibly from springs that had never been plumbed. the cheyenne struck. there was a flash of steel. peter's arms whipped out. steel flashed again in a wide arc, and the knife soared high in air and fell, point-down in the sod, twenty feet away. remained, then, two heaving bodies. peter held his man by one wrist and a forearm. the cheyenne was struggling with every ounce of strength to break one of these grips so that he might seize his foe by the throat. whilst i watched he stooped his head and fastened his teeth in peter's shoulder.
the blood spurted from the wound and a quiver convulsed peter's mighty frame. but he refused to be diverted from his purpose. slowly, inexorably, he applied his pressure. and slowly, but inevitably, the cheyenne's straining sinews yielded to him. nakuiman's left arm was forced back—and back. suddenly there was a loud crack. the indian yelped like an animal in pain. the arm fell limp—and with the swift ferocity of a cat peter pounced on the man's throat.
the jaws still fastened in the dutchman's throbbing shoulder yielded to that awful pressure. a single gasping cry reached us. the cheyenne's head sank back, and by a marvelous coordination of effort, peter heaved the man's body at arm's-length over his head. a moment he held it there, his eyes on the ranks of cheyenne warriors who had laughed at him. then he flung it at them as though it had been a sack of corn.
it twisted through the air, struck the ground and rolled over and over into a huddle of inanimate limbs.
peter shook himself, turned on his heel and walked slowly back to us.
"oof," he remarked mildly. "dot made me sweat."
that matter-of-fact action, brought the cheyenne to realization of what had happened. carried away by the spectacle of their chief's end, they abandoned all thought of moderation and charged us, bow-strings twanging. but the dakotas were not unprepared. chatanskah had fetched along a dozen of the french firelocks, in the use of which we had instructed his warriors, and we were able to meet the enemy with a devastating discharge which brought them up short. leaderless and doubly dismayed, they had no fight left in them, and fled across the prairie pursued by the fleetest young men of the band.
we were left with the pleasant task of reaping a full toll of buffalo-meat, and the remaining dakota, after scalping the dead cheyenne and congratulating corlaer, formed in a long line and trotted down toward the flank of the moving herd. the firing of the muskets had disconcerted the outer files of its mass, but these so far seemed to have made no impression upon the inner columns, and the net result of their perturbation was to slow up the herd's pace and start a confusion which was accentuated to a horrible degree as soon as the dakota came within bow-shot.
chatanskah afterward assured us that this herd must have wandered far without encountering men because it showed so little evidence of fear at our approach. he was also of the opinion that any herd of such enormous dimensions was more difficult to stampede than a herd of comparatively small size. at any rate, it was several moments after the booming twang of the bow-strings began that the herd showed a tendency to mill and change its direction. and during those few moments the dakota slew enough meat to last their village through the winter. aiming between the ribs of the shaggy beasts they drove their flat-headed hunting-arrows into the fat carcasses up to the feathers, and it was seldom that two shots were required for one buffalo. some staggered on a ways, but any buffalo that had a dakota hunting-arrow in its vitals was sure to drop.
they dropped so fast and so easily that i was overcome with a pang of horror. it seemed ghastly, this wholesale slaughter. bulls, cows, half-grown calves—but especially cows—fell by the score. it was a battue. and yet it made no impression at all upon the myriads of the herd. as far as we could see from horizon to horizon all was buffalo. they surged up over one skyline and dwindled behind another. and the only noises they made were the low rumbling of their countless hoofs and an indescribably plaintive note, part bellow, part moo—before the fright took them.
our hunters had slain until their arms ached from pulling the taut bows, and whilst the thousands of buffalo adjacent to us had threshed away and striven to gallop either backward or forward or into the heart of the mass, the mass, itself, had given no indication of realizing that it was being attacked. i remember thinking that if the brutes possessed any reasoning power they would turn upon us in their numbers and trample us in the dust.
instead, they fled from us. by some obscure process of animal instinct the warning was conveyed at last from the minor hordes we had harried so mercilessly to their farther-most brethren on the unseen western edge of the swarming myriads. one moment they were trending from north to south like some unsoluble phenomenon of nature, an endless, dusty procession of shaggy brown hides. the next they had showed us their sterns, turned westward, and were galloping away with a deafening roar of hoofs. it was as if the whole world was in motion. the dust clouds became so dense as to hide all movement. we stood now on the verge of the prairie. from our feet a brown desert stretched in the wake of the fugitive herd, a desert of pulverized earth in which there was not a single growing thing.
the roar of hoofs became faint in the distance. the dust-clouds slowly settled. a short while afterward i came and looked in the direction the buffalo had taken, and they were gone. the brown desert filled the skyline. and all about our indians were busy with skinning-knives, wrapping the choice cuts of meat in the bloody hides; and chatanskah was dispatching runners to bring out the full strength of the tribe; for we had made such a killing as seldom fell to the lot of an indian community, and it behooved them to lose nothing of the riches nature had thrown in their way. whatever might be the lot of their brothers in the neighboring villages, the dakota of the wahpeton council fire knew that for this winter at least they were certain to abide snug and well-fed in their teepees.
chatanskah talked of our deeds as the band clustered about the camp-fire that night, with sentries thrown out around the area strewn with dead buffalo to guard the spoil against wolf and wild dog and the eagles that swooped from the air.
"there will be much spoken of this in the winter count," he announced proudly. "the old men will say we have done well. the other council fires will be envious. but remember, brothers, that it was our white brother who slew nakuiman with his bare hands and turned the hearts of cheyenne to water. hai, that was the greatest fight i ever saw! the cheyenne will go home and creep under their squaws' robes.
"and what shall we say of our white brother who broke nakuiman in pieces? the cheyenne was called the bear. is not a warrior who slays a bear more than a bear? hai, my warriors, i hear you say yes! so let us give the slayer of the bear a new name. we will call him mahtotopah*—for he is a bear, himself; he is two bears."
* two bears.
"hai, hai," applauded the circles of warriors who sat around the fire, first the old men, outside those the youngsters, who had names to win.
"but chatanskah will not forget that he has promised to guide tawannears and his white brothers to the country of the teton dakota?" reminded tawannears.
chatanskah shook his head sorrowfully.
"chatanskah has not forgotten," he said, "but he hoped that a bird might come and whisper in the ears of his new brothers and tell them to stay with the dakota. in the sky mountains you will find no sweet buffalo meat. there are no teepees to shield you from the wind. mahtotopah will waste his strength on the rocks. but you are brave men, and i know you will go on until the great spirit calls you."
