I have said that the ownership of my first Colt was one of the great days of my life, but it was nothing compared with this second great day. And there was still a third mighty moment to come.
THE TEEPEE OF THE RISING SUN
When I dismounted, it was among the crowds in front of Bald Eagle’s tent. My companions stood near me. What lean and hungry-looking wolves we were from that year of arduous trailing, but that price and all our time, our suffering, seemed nothing for the reward. We stared at White Smoke with eyes newly appreciative, because we saw him with the wonder and the joy of that whole tribe of Pawnees. They were like men among whom a gift had dropped from heaven, visibly, through the clouds. They pointed out his features one by one: the satin black stockings that clad him almost to the knee, the hoofs like polished ebony, the thin silver of mane and tail, and perhaps most of all his coat. It was not white. Only at a distance did it seem so. Close at hand one noted a dark patterning like the faded spots of a panther worked thickly over the surface. But he shone in the sun like burnished metal - pure, flaming silver at a little distance.
But even for this Bald Eagle did not come forth from his teepee. I was bitterly disappointed. I had been looking forward to the time when I should see the face and features of the famous chief and hear, perhaps, some word of praise from him. Yet there was not a hint of him. Only old Dark Water stepped out and hobbled away with a dozen braves, leading the stallion on ropes. They had not gone ten paces before White Smoke broke from them and came rushing back to me. I spoke to him, and he followed me like a house dog, while, with a swelling heart, I led him through the press and saw him tethered. There I left him and went back to the tent that was appointed for me.
There, Sitting Wolf came in to see me, but not with a boyish rush and a shout, as I had expected. I had left him a boy. I came back to find him a man. He was only fifteen, but a year among an alien nation had done a great deal for him. He was tall, still slender, but with a promise of bigness. He had a grave and quiet face, more finely featured man any Indian I ever saw with the exception of Zintcallasappa, and she had a strain of white blood, while Sitting Wolf was purest Dakota. Only when he spoke of White Smoke did he become a child again. He had seen the stallion, but he had not been able to come to me through the crowd. He wished to know if it was true that, by magic, I had trained the horse so that he would answer my hand, my voice, and come rushing at my whistle? I told him that it was no magic, simply kindness and patience, but he shook his head. He was irresistibly determined, always, to make me out a superman.
I asked him how he had been treated, and he told me mat Bald Eagle had allowed him perfect freedom after I left, telling him simply that, if he ran home to the Sioux, I, Black Bear, should lose my life with torments, whether or not I came back with White Smoke. Once again I felt surety that the mysterious chief was a white man. What Indian would have trusted so much to the loyalty of a boy - even such a boy as the son of Three Buck Elk?
He told me, too, the history of the Pawnee-Dakota war since myself and the twelve had disappeared into the west. In the year the Sioux had organized a great expedition that amounted almost to the dimensions of an army. According to Sitting Wolf, they were as many as a great herd of buffalo, darkening the plains. But no Indians have ever looked at facts without a magnifying glass. They detest scrupulous truth, not like liars but like children. This horde brushed the outlying divisions of the Pawnees before them until Bald Eagle threw himself into their path. He had not numbers, no matter how well trained, to meet the shock of such a swarm. But on the edge of a river, so that he might be sure of water, he entrenched himself, throwing up big mounds - twice as high as a teepee, according to Sitting Wolf. He stored mat rude fort with heaps of dried meat and with corn. He brought in scores of loads of ammunition. Then he waited for the Sioux.
When they came, they tried to swallow the little fort in one charge. He blew the van of their charge to bits and drove them back. For a whole month they remained before the fort, but it was a miserable month for the Sioux. Their provisions ran out almost at once, and they found no buffalo herds near to supply them with meat. Every night or two Bald Eagle rushed out from the fort and struck them with the sledgehammer-stroke tactics against which barbarians have never known how to stand. They lost men by hundreds and hundreds while the Pawnees were scarcely touched. Finally the Sioux broke up the siege and began a retreat.
Bald Eagle was not content with this mere repulse. He mounted his men on fat, strong horses, preserved all this time in the center of the camp, and with these he hung on the rear of the Sioux. Twice or thrice they turned back. He evaded their starved ponies easily and returned. Every man who fell behind on the march was swallowed by Bald Eagle. And they straggled by hundreds. It was a cowed and desperate army that finally reached the proper domains of the Dakotas and thence dispersed to their homes. The fame of Bald Eagle was greater than ever. He was both chief and enchanter in the eyes of the Pawnees and of their enemies.
Sitting Wolf had hardly concluded when Dark Water came to us and showed us two fine horses, saddled, bridled, with bags of provisions tied on. They were for us, and we were free. Bald Eagle was keeping his promise.
Who has said the Indian does not love horses? Sitting Wolf turned to me and said very gravely: “Do you ride with me, brother, or will you stay here with White Smoke?”
I did not make an answer until we had ridden clear of the outskirts of the village. Then I said, as I drew my rein: “They have tethered White Smoke with only one rope. I myself saw to that. Perhaps he will prefer us to the Pawnees.”
There were half a dozen Pawnee scoundrels on the edge of the horizon at that moment, but I put two fingers against my lips and raised a whistle like the scream of hawk mat swings to earth through half a mile of rushing wind. White Smoke would hear, and he would either come or break his neck, of that I had no doubt. I knew at once what had happened. There was a dull roar of shouting from the town, then a silver streak flashed toward us through the sunset light with mounted men rushing behind him. Oh, how he came to me, like a creature of the air, scorning the ground he touched with his bright hoofs. I did not wait to change saddles. I stripped the bridle from my horse, tossed its rope to Sitting Wolf, and was instantly on the back of the stallion. By the time I was sitting there, the Pawnee hoofbeats were loud behind me as they came screeching like demons, and Sitting Wolf streaked far away.
My danger ended there. In half a minute I had put those Pawnee scoundrels hopelessly behind me, and Sitting Wolf was drawing back at every stride. I had never loosed White Smoke before. I felt as though I were clinging to the back of a great arrow launched from the bow of a giant, save that the flight of this shaft that bore me never slackened, never failed. The wind of that gallop cut my face and seared my eyes. I found myself yelling like an Indian - and half with fear that White Smoke was beyond my control. But, when Sitting Wolf was just before me again, a single word brought him down to the pace of the other horses. Those horses were gallant runners. The pride of Bald Eagle would not have allowed him to mount us on any but the best for our return from his people. Now Sitting Wolf was jockeying the uttermost speed from them, but White Smoke floated effortlessly over the ground as he ran at their side. Never, never, was such a horse before or since.