United States or Northern Mariana Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then Piegan Smith set the keg on the ground by the fire where everybody could help himself as he took the notion, and I laid down by a wagon while dinner was being cooked. After six weeks of hard saddle-work, it struck me just right to lie there in the shade with a cool breeze fanning my face, and before long I was headed smoothly for the Dreamland pastures.
"But it must 'a' changed location lately, for them fellers rode north a ways, an' then kept swingin' round till they was headin' due southeast. I follered their trail t' where yuh seen me turn this way, if yuh was watchin'. Poor devils" Piegan grinned covertly while voicing this mock sympathy "they must 'a' got lost, I reckon.
"I got a hunch they'd got onto us, an' maybe set us afoot for a starter," Piegan explained. "I reckon that must 'a' been a deer or some other wild critter." Once more we turned into the canyon, and this time followed its narrow, scrub-patched floor some three hundred yards up from the river.
Then we unsaddled and unpacked the horses, and moved them up on the grassy flat. Piegan elected himself guard over the prisoners, while the rest of us cooked a belated breakfast, and he assured them repeatedly that he would be delighted to have them make a break, so that he could have the pleasure of perforating their individual and collective hides.
She went home and lay down by her dog, and kept crying, she felt so sorry for this poor man. Pretty soon she heard people shouting out the orders of the chief. They said: "Listen! listen! To-morrow we move camp. Get ready now and pack up everything. Before we go, the Piegan man will be given to the Sun." Then the old woman knew what to do.
Something in the look thrilled him; it was fantastic, masterful. He wondered that he had not noticed this singular influence before. After all, he was only a savage with cleaner buckskin than his race usually wore. Yet that glow, that power in the face was he Piegan, Blackfoot, Cree, Blood? Whatever he was, this man had heard the words which broke so painfully from him.
Piegan turned and strode out of the timber. He unfastened the coffee-pot from my saddle, and made for the coulée channel we had crossed, in which a buffalo-wallow still held water from the recent rain. Goodell coughed, and a red, frothy stream came from his lips. It isn't in the average man to be utterly callous to the suffering of another, even if that other richly deserves his pain.
Stop an' eat dinner with us, an' we'll call it square." The policeman withdrew his foot from the stirrup and smiled at Piegan Smith, and Piegan, to show that his intentions were good, impulsively unbuckled his cartridge-belt and threw belt and six-shooters on the ground. "I don't hanker for trouble with a hombre like you," he grunted. "I guess I was a little bit hasty, anyhow."
Now when Owl Bear had come to the camp, he asked in signs for the chiefs lodge, and they pointed him to one in the middle. It was small and old. The Piegan got off his horse, and the Snake chief came out and hugged him and kissed him, and said: "I am glad you have come to-day to my lodge. So are my people. You are tired. Enter my lodge and we will eat."
When all were gone, the old woman went and untied her dog, and then, going up to where the Piegan was tied, she cut the ropes, and he was free. But already the man was very weak, and he fell down on the ground. She rubbed his limbs, and pretty soon he felt better. The old woman was so sorry for him that she cried again, and kissed him. Then the man cried, too.
Word Of The Day