The Great Sioux Trail

Chapter 9

Drawn by an impulse that he tried to check but could not, Will went in the morning to the point in the bushes whence the growling had come the night before, finding there nothing but the bones of the Sioux, from which every trace of flesh had been removed. He shuddered once more. He, instead of the warrior, might have been the victim. His eyes, trained now to look upon the earth as a book and to read what might be printed there, saw clearly the tracks of the wolves among the grass and leaves. After finishing what they had come to do they had gone away some distance and had gathered together in a close group, as if they had meditated an attack, possibly upon the horses and mules.

Will knew how great and fierce the mountain wolves of the north were, and he was glad to note that, after their council, they had gone on and perhaps had left the valley. At least, he was able to follow their tracks as far as the lower rocks, where they disappeared. When he returned to the little camp he told what he had seen.

"We're in no danger of a surprise from the big wolves," said Brady. "They'd have killed and eaten some of the horses and mules if we hadn't been here, but wolves are smart, real smart. Like as not they saw Thomas shoot the Sioux, and they knew that the long stick he carried, from which fire spouted, slaying the warrior, was like the long sticks all of us carry, and that to attack us here was death for them. Oh, I know I'm guessing a lot, but I've observed 'em a long time and I'm convinced wolves can reason that far."

"All animals are smarter than we think they are," said the Little Giant. "I've lived among 'em a heap, an' know a lot o' their ways. Only they've a diff'rent set o' intellectooals from ours. What we're smart in they ain't, an' what they're smart in we ain't. Now, ef I had joined to what I am myself the strength o' a grizzly bear, the cunnin' o' a wolf an' the fleetness o' an antelope I reckon I'd be 'bout the best man that ever trod 'roun' on this planet."

"I've one thing to suggest before we start," said Will, "and I think it's important."

"What is it?" asked Boyd.

"That we make copies of the map. We may become separated for long periods-everything indicates that we will-I might fall into the hands of Felton, who seems to have a hint about the mine, and, if I saw such a thing about to occur, I would destroy the map, and then you would have the copies. Each of you faced by a similar misfortune could make away with his copy, and if the worst came to the worst I could re-draw it from memory."

"Good idee! Good idee!" exclaimed the Little Giant with enthusiasm. "I've been tellin' Jim an' Steve that though they mightn't think it, you had the beginnin's o' intelleck in that head o' yours."

"Thank you," said Will, and they all laughed.

"It's a good thought," said Boyd, "and we'd better do it at once."

Will carried in his pack some pens and a small bottle of indelible ink, and with these they drew with the greatest care three more maps on fine deerskin, small but very clear, and then every man stored one in a secure place about his person.

"Now, remember," said Boyd, "if any one of us is in danger of capture he must get rid of his map."

Then, their breakfast over, they began the ascent of the slope, leading toward the White Dome, finding it easier than they had thought. As always, difficulties decreased when they faced them boldly, and even the animals, refreshed by their stay in the valley, showed renewed vigor, climbing like goats. The Little Giant whistled merrily, mostly battle songs of the late war which was still so fresh in the minds of all men.

"I notice that you whistle songs of both sides," said Brady. "Musically, at least, you have no feeling about our great Civil War."

"Nor any other way, either," rejoined the Little Giant. "I may hev hed my feelin's once, though I ain't sayin' now what they wuz, but fur me the war is all over, done fit clean out. They say six or seven hundred thousand men wuz lost in it, an' now that it's over it's got to stop right thar. I'm lookin' to the future, I am, to the quarter of a million in gold that's comin' to me, an' the gorgeous ways in which I'm goin' to spend it. Young William, see that big mountain ram standin' out on the side o' the peak over thar. I believe he's the same feller that you tried to stalk yesterday, an' that he's laughin' at you. He's a good mile away, but I kin see the twinkle in his eye, an' ez shore ez I stan' here he lifted his left foot to his nose an' twisted it 'bout in a gesture which among us boys allers meant fight. Do you stan' his dare, young William, or are you goin' to climb over thar whar he is an' hev it out with him?"

"I'll let him alone," laughed William, looking at the splendid ram, outlined so sharply in the clear mountain light. "I meant to do him harm, but I'm glad I didn't. Maybe that Indian was engaged in the same task, when he saw me and changed his hunting."

Then he shuddered once more at the growling he had heard and what he had seen in the bushes the next morning, but his feeling of horror did not last long, because they were now climbing well upon the shoulder of the White Dome and the spectacle, magnificent and inspiring, claimed all their attention.

The last bushes and dwarfed vegetation disappeared. Before them rose terrace on terrace, slope on slope of rock, golden or red in the sun, and beyond them the great snow fields and the glaciers. Over it all towered the White Dome, round and pure, the finest mountain Will had ever seen. He never again saw anything that made a more deep and solemn impression upon him. Far above all the strife and trouble of the world swam the white peak.

Meanwhile the Little Giant continued to whistle merrily. He was not awed, and he was not solemn. Prone to see the best in everything, he enjoyed the magnificent panorama outspread before them, and also drew from it arguments most favorable for their quest.

"We're absolutely safe from the warriors," he said. "We're above the timber line, and they'd never come up here huntin'. An Indian doesn't do anythin' more than he has to. He ain't goin' to wear hisself out climbin' to the top o' a mounting ten miles high in order to hev a look at the scenery. We won't be troubled by no warriors 'til we go down the shoulder o' your White Dome on the other side."

He resumed his clear, musical whistling, pouring out in a most wonderful manner the strains of "Dixie," changing impartially to "Yankee Doodle," shifting back to "The Bonnie Blue Flag," and then, with the same lack of prejudice, careering into "Marching Through Georgia."

The horses and mules that they were now leading felt the uplifting influence, raised their heads and marched forward more sturdily.

"What makes you so happy?" asked Will.

"The kindness o' natur' what gave me that kind o' a disposition," replied the Little Giant, "an' added to it the feelin' that all the time I'm drawin' closer to my gold. What did you say my share would be, young William, a matter o' a million or a half million?"

"A quarter of a million."

"Seems to me it wuz a half million, but somehow it grows ez we go 'long. When you git rich, even in the mind, you keep on gittin' richer."

Then he began to whistle a gallant battle stave with extraordinary richness and variety of tone, and when he had finished Will asked:

"What was that song, Tom? It's a new one to me."

"It's new to most people," replied the Little Giant, "but it's old jest the same. It wuz writ 'way back in the last war with England, an' I'll quote you the first two verses, words an' grammar both correct: