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"You know Black Kettle's camp, Sergeant?" "We were almost within sight of it, sir. I saw his pony herd distinctly." "Where was that?" "On the Canadian, close to the mouth of Buffalo Creek." "Did you learn anything as to the number of Indians with him?" "Nothing definite, but it is a large encampment, not all Cheyennes." "So we heard, but were unable to discover the exact situation.
The entire force was slightly in excess of eight hundred men, and there was every probability that the Indians outnumbered them five to one. Scouts had reported to Sheridan that this camp of Black Kettle's was the winter rendezvous not only of Cheyennes, but also of bands of fighting Arapahoes, Kiowas, Comanches, and even some Apaches, the most daring and desperate warriors of the plains.
He had no sympathy with Kettle's constantly repeated theory that discipline ought to be restored. "Guess it's the captain's palaver," he would say. "If the old man likes his ship turned into a bear garden, 'tisn't our grub they're wasting, or our cargo they've started in to broach. Anyway, what can we do? You and I are only on board here as pilots.
"Me no sabbey. He say you too small and thin for chop." Captain Kettle's pale cheeks flushed. Curiously enough it never occurred to him to be grateful for this escape from a cannibal dinner-table. But his smallness was a constant sore to him, and he bitterly resented any allusion to it. "Tell that stinking scarecrow I'll wring his neck for him before I'm quit of this village."
"If we tell you where to go, how do we know the white chief will not fall upon the winter camp of our brothers as Custer, The Long-Hair, fell upon Black Kettle's?" "I am not going with the pony soldiers," Matthews hastened to say. "Across the Muddy Water, where the road passes, is a wide piece of land which has been stolen from me." One of the four condemned glanced up. It was Lame Foot.
"You'll find the tub in the backyard, and the kettle's near on the boil. Look sharp and get the tub, and then go upstairs and get a blanket off the bed." Coomber soon brought the tub, and a pitcher of cold water that stood near, but it was not so easy for him to grope his way upstairs.
He carried his pails of foaming milk to the dairy, and then entered the kitchen. "I've only a minute," he began hastily, seeking to forestall the widow. "Yes, the kettle's boiling all right. First scald out the coffeepot put three-quarters of a cup of ground coffee into the pot, break an egg into it, so; pour on the egg and coffee half a cup of cold water and stir it all up well, this way.
When she came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of competition. The kettle's weak side clearly being, that he didn't know when he was beat. There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum m m! Kettle making play in the distance, like a great top.
She rested her hands on the kettle's rim, and bent forward her head, wrapped round and round with its heavy braids, and with fingers deft as a woman's Alfred de Courtenay placed the flower in a shining fold. Somewhat lengthy was the process, for the braid was tight and the green stem very fragile, but at last it was accomplished, and Maren lifted her face flushed and laughing.
He did not see how Kettle could possibly carry out this evangelizing scheme, on which he had so suddenly gone crazed, without quite neglecting his other commercial duties. However, in the course of the next day or so, as he witnessed Captain Kettle's method of spreading his faith, Clay's forebodings began to pass away.
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