we were free, but new problems arose to confront us. our only weapons were the knives and tomahawks in our belts. we were stranded all but defenseless in a desolate, unknown country. without the protection afforded by our muskets 'twas exceedingly doubtful whether we could travel far in face of strong hostile opposition. the awataba, any tribe of archers, easily could overwhelm us. moreover, winter was coming on. autumn was actually at hand. there were the twin questions of food and shelter to be answered. and finally, we had a fourth comrade to feed, protect and clothe.
but on this final score we had no occasion for worry, as events soon showed. kachina might acclaim the superior accessibility which tawannears enjoyed with the high gods, but her native self-reliance, courage and intelligence refused to acknowledge the handicap of her sex. at the very beginning of her association with us she claimed and fulfilled the rôle of an equal—proving in this, as in countless other ways, that she was of spanish blood, no ordinary indian maiden to accept meekly the drab duties of a squaw. tawannears, somewhat to my amusement, accepted her at her own valuation.
the seneca possessed a streak of innate chivalry entirely different from the normal attitude of courteous toleration which the people of the long house entertain for their women. no nation anywhere that i have read of in history give their wives and mothers greater honor than these barbarians of the forest. 'tis the women who select the candidates for the high rank of royaneh, the noble group of leaders who form the hoyarnagowar, the ruling body of the great league. they arrange marriages, and largely control clan politics. a warrior of the hodenosaunee says that he is the son of his mother, not of his father, when you ask his name. beyond all other indians, ay, and beyond all white men they yield power and place to women.
but as a race they treat women as a sex apart. the lives the men live are denied to the women. of love, in the sense that we entertain it, an affection transcending the arbitrary bounds of physical affinity, they are ignorant. tawannears, alone, joined to the sex courtesy of the hodenosaunee the white man's capacity for a flaming spiritual devotion. he loved with all his being, he worshiped, he felt a joyous sense of service based on an equality of partnership. so much, at least, of what they sought to achieve the missionaries had wrought into his character. let it be said for them that they supplied him with the mainspring of his life.
so it was that, having asserted the protection of his gods, the superiority of his orenda over all powers which might be brought against it, he proceeded, with the naïveté that was a cardinal point of his character, to admit the validity of the aid she was able to give us, aid without which, i believe, we must have perished. nor did he then or ever treat her as a squaw, a woman to be honored in the lodge and debarred from warriors' councils. and this, i must say clearly, has seemed most odd to me. for the real gahano or any other indian maid must naturally have adopted the habits, the ways of thought, bred into her. yet never did tawannears doubt the truth of the miraculous exploit he credited to himself.
so sure was he that he never mentioned it thereafterward. it had been a gift from hawenneyu, a recognition of human endurance and loyalty. very well, then, he took what hawenneyu gave, offered thanks and went his way. why talk of the obvious? anyone, so tawannears reasoned in his blend of christian philosophy and pagan faith, who strove hard enough could do what he had done. it had been done before, he believed. he did not even question the failure of jouskeha—or wiki—to seal his lost soul in the pumpkin-shell in which she had first appeared, and deliver her to him so. the gods, no more than men, must do a thing in the same way each time they undertook it. they had acted toward him as they saw fit. he refused to quibble over details. he was satisfied.
i have said that without kachina we should have perished. mayhap i exaggerate, but nevertheless 'tis true that she was the means of guiding us from the cliff-top above the grave of homolobi down to the valley-floor, which we had need to pass to gain the eastern vents. 'twas she who skirted the ragged mound the rock-slide had formed, and solved the first of our difficulties by retrieving two bows and a quiver of arrows which certain of the awataba had cast aside in flight. as weapons these were not much, crudely made, lightly strung, with flint-tipped arrows none too straight or dependable in flight; but they were better than nothing.
kachina, too, collected corn and vegetables from the standing fields and gardens on the far side of the river, which had been undamaged by the catastrophe, and with these she cooked us tasty stews that helped us to fight down the pangs of hunger we experienced as meat-eaters. and 'twas she who knocked over a turkey of one of the village flocks and afforded us thus a more substantial meal the next evening. and she knew the best passes and ravines leading from the valley, and saved us weeks of wandering, and very likely, death from starvation or at the hand of some hostile tribe, when we resumed our journey to the east.
she was a maid as quick in wit and devotion as in temper, scornful of peter's bulk whilst she respected his strength, affecting for me an amused toleration as of one incomparably aged, an incumbrance to be admitted for sake of tawannears. i think at first she was attracted by the seneca because of the novelty of his case, the strange part it gave her to play, the whimsical sensation of being one reborn again, an accepted intimate and favorite of the gods. but there can be no question she grew to love him with devotion akin to his own. he was a man amongst millions, ay, in the very words she used, a man!
both peter and i, whom she plagued and teased like the child she was, came to love her as a sister and a true comrade, and because of her mingling of indian unconsciousness and stoicism and white woman's coy mannerisms. 'twas peter, for instance, insisted upon taking from her the ridiculous costume of turkey feathers, which was all she had to wear. for herself, she gave it not a second's thought. i daresay it was fairly warm if unsubstantial, and she had as little false modesty as might be expected in one who was convinced of her semi-divinity. peter fashioned for her instead a neat costume of moccasins, breeches and coat, which he contrived from his own raiment, going afterward almost as naked as the awataba until good fortune threw in our way the chance to replenish ourselves. but i am again galloping in advance of my story, an ill trick, and to be attributed to the garrulity of old memories stirred afresh.
with weapons and food for the time being, our next concern was as to shelter for the winter, and on this point we were all agreed: we desired to get as far as possible from this valley of death before the cold weather and the terrible snows prevented traveling, and inasmuch as tawannears' search was ended there was no question but that we should go east. had we been by ourselves we three would have elected to follow the stream which flowed through the plantations of what had been homolobi—and we should have been led hundreds of miles to the southward. it was by kachina's advice that we chose a ravine which carried us due east into a more favorable country, where game was abundant.
we had feared the attentions of the remnants of the awataba, but if any were left they gave us a wide berth, nor did we see signs of other savages, until we came to a considerable river some four days' journey from the edge of the rock desert, where we were attacked by a small band of stalwart warriors, whom kachina called navahu. they came at us boldly, seeing how few we were, and we pretended to flee behind a thicket; but as they approached us there we charged upon them with heavy clubs of wood that peter had cut, and at the sight of our white, bearded faces they lost all their ardor and tried to escape, crying that we were naakai, by which, it seems, they meant spaniards. we overtook and plundered several of them, besides raiding their camp on the river-bank, and so became possessed of some handsomely woven robes or blankets, which kachina assured us were highly prized by all the tribes in these regions.
hitherto peter and i had been obliged to content ourselves with clubs to supplement our knives and tomahawks, it being manifestly the wisest policy to award our two bows to tawannears and kachina, who were more expert archers than we. now we acquired two more bows and nearly two quivers full of arrows, and plucking up our courage, deemed ourselves equipped to encounter any resistance short of musketry. we swam the river without difficulty, and continued east, being halted presently by a barrier of foothills beyond a smaller stream. long since we had passed the confines of kachina's narrow geographical knowledge, and after discussing the situation we decided to follow this stream north.
when it turned abruptly west three days afterward we were crestfallen, but we agreed to keep to its banks for one day more; and our perseverance was rewarded, for we discovered that it flowed into a larger river, apparently the one we had first crossed, which seemed to come down from the northeast. 'twas in this direction we felt vaguely that we should aim, and we made the best progress the broken ground afforded. several days' rough traveling brought us to a third stream, which joined our river from the east. ahead loomed range after range of rocky peaks; southeast the prospect* was also forbidding. we made the only decision possible, and headed east up the course of this new river. of course, it might have carried us anywhere, as in this land the streams seemed to be coming from and flowing toward all directions; but it was our good fortune that its head waters were high on the western slopes of the sky mountains, and we were able to winter in a glorious valley such as had been our home the year previous.
* ormerod's course grows increasingly difficult to trace, but i hazard a guess he came out of some point in the wasatch mountains of utah, crossed the grand and followed that river to the gunnison.—a.d.h s.
we built a comfortable cabin of two rooms, and had all the food we needed. indeed, we grew fat and sleek, and peter, with his clever hands, made us new garments of deerskin. the blankets we had captured from the navahu kept us warm. and we whiled away the hours when we were not hunting or working on pelts by cutting and straightening arrow shafts, chipping and fastening stone-heads and adjusting the feathering. we were better armed than ever, and peter and i improved in our shooting, although we could never hope to rival archers like tawannears and kachina, who had drawn bows since childhood—just as they were incomparably less expert than the marvelous bowmen of the plains tribes, who spend their whole lives in attaining proficiency in this weapon, thanks to their being entirely dependent upon it and unable to secure firearms.
spring set us afoot again. we delayed our departure from the cabin until we were certain the last snow storm had blanketed the mountains, but once we started we moved rapidly, as tawannears had shaped snow-shoes for all of us, and the soggy crust packed firm. two weeks' journey fetched us across a divide of land, a mountain-ridge running due north and south; and we descended by a series of valleys which carried us out of the mountains through a gateway betwixt two gigantic peaks that reared skyward many miles apart.*
* this tends to confirm the theory that ormerod followed the gunnison east, crossed the continental divide near gannon city, and came down into the valley of the arkansas, with pike's peak on his left and spanish peak visible in the distance.—a.d.h.s.
we encountered a river flowing east, which already was gathering size and force from the melting snows of countless minor streams. for want of more accurate guidance we followed its southern bank, abandoning it twice, when it seemed to deviate to the north, and striking eastward in a bee line, although in each of these instances we picked up the river again.
on this comparatively low tableland the snow had disappeared, and the long grass and foliage were greening out. there was no lack of antelope and deer, and we saw frequent herds of buffalo, the advance-guards of the vast migrations which were shifting from the southern feeding-grounds. we were now in the country of the horse indians, those wide-ranging tribes whose bands ride hundreds of miles for a handful of booty or a scalp, lovers of fighting by preference, and we were at pains to avoid all contact with them. twice we hid in the grass to let gorgeously feathered parties ride past. once we lay in a patch of timber by the river-bank, unable to move, and watched a band make camp.
but we could not hope to be successful always, especially as the country became flatter and less adaptable for concealment as we traveled east. there arrived a day when the river looped north, and we abandoned it for the third time, squaring our backs to the westering sun and entrusting ourselves to the open plains. the grass here was still short of its midsummer luxuriance. cover was negligible, and the land rolled evenly in gigantic swells. we were climbing one of these, weary and anxious to reach a water-supply, as a war-party rode over the crest, fifty painted warriors in breech-clouts and moccasins, long hair stuck with feathers, white shields and lance-points glistening, quivers bristling with arrows.
they howled their amazement, and swept down upon us, two of their number racing up the swell behind us to make sure we were not the bait of a larger band, lying in ambush. we bunched together, and made the peace sign, arms upthrust, palms out. but the newcomers rode wearily around us in a contracting circle, their lances slung, arrows notched, ready to overwhelm us with a rain of shafts. they carried hornbound bows that could shoot twice as far as ours. when the scouts scurried back with yells of reassurance, they reduced the circle they had strung until we were fairly within bow-shot from all sides. then a chief, resplendent in eagle's feathers, hailed us in a sonorous dialect marked by rolling r's. tawannears started at the words.
"they are the nemene, or comanche," he exclaimed. "we are in grave danger, brothers. these men are the mightiest raiders on the plains."
"shall we fight them?" i asked.
"yes," approved kachina, notching an arrow. "let us fight them."
"what does der chief say?" asked peter. "can you understand?"
"a part. i have heard the comanches talk when they came north to trade with the dakota. i will try them in dakota."
tawannears shouted his answer, and the comanche chief summoned a warrior to interpret.
"he asks who we are," tawannears explained swiftly after a brief interchange of words. "i have told him. he says that we must come with him to his camp."
there was another interchange of remarks.
"i have told him we are hurrying to our own land, that we mean no harm to his people, but he will not agree to let us go. he says we are on his people's land, and we should have asked permission to come here. i will say that we were looking for him, but——"
tawannears shrugged his shoulders.
once more the shouted questions and answers, accompanied by signs and gestures, and the ring of warriors commenced to weave around us again. the chief rode leisurely to one side, and regarded us indifferently. his interpreter shouted two words.
"it is no use, brothers," said tawannears. "we are to throw down our weapons or they shoot."
"is it a question of dying now or later?" i asked resentfully.
"it looks so."
"let us die here in the open," proposed kachina fearlessly.
"nein," spoke up peter. "if we fight here, we die, dot's sure. if we go with dem, we die—maype. berhaps not. not sure, eh? we petter go, andt wait andt see. ja!"
the dutchman was right. we dropped our weapons, and the ring of comanches swirled in upon itself. we were suddenly in the midst of a sweating mob of men and horses, scowling faces bent over us, rough hands snatching at our possessions; rawhide thongs were lashed about our waists, and the cavalcade dashed away between the swells, each of us running fast to keep up with the horseman who had us in tow, plenty of careless hoofs ready to beat our brains out if we stumbled. but after the first mile they lessened the pace, and toward evening we rode into a circle of teepees pitched on the bank of a tiny river.
on one side was a grove of trees, reaching to the high-water mark. opposite, the pony herd grazed in a natural meadow. we were bound hand and foot and suffered to lie on the grass betwixt the easternmost of the teepees and the horse herd, the adolescents of the herd-guard being summoned to watch us. the chief and his warriors, after exhibiting us to a group of several hundred people, including women and children, shooed them all away and left us, evidently to decide how to treat us—which, apparently, meant how to end us.
the shadows lengthened steadily, but nobody brought us food. now and then a man lounged over to test our bindings or look at us. women and children who sought to stare at us further were importantly warned off by the adolescents of the herd-guard. the light was failing, too—so much so that i was surprised at feeling a cold muzzle thrust against my cheek. a delighted whinny greeted me.
i twisted my head around, and looked up into the quivering nostrils of a mottled stallion. he nuzzled me again, whinnying with every appearance of recognition, his white mane ruffling in pleasure. i spoke to him softly, and he buried his muzzle in my neck, pawing with his forehoof as though inviting me to rise and mount him. yes, there was no doubt of it. he was sunkawakan-kedeshka, the spotted horse, that i had tamed at nadoweiswe's teton village in the north before we first crossed the sky mountains.
