United States or Oman ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Na-tee-kah did not utter a sound until she had gained a spot behind a huge bowlder, from which she could peer out and down, and see what was going on at the barrier and beyond it. She felt well paid for her trouble. The braves of the Nez Percés were all there or behind the rocky fragments on either side, and mingled with them here and there were the red shirts and slouched hats of the miners.
With or without an invitation the relatives of Na-tee-kah trudged along with the wagons mile after mile, and Long Bear gained an extra pound of tobacco by sticking to Yellow Pine until the train halted at noon. Ha-ha-pah-no scolded Na-tee-kah pretty nearly all the way for not knowing more about pale-faces, but she broke down at the noon camp-fire.
"That's the way for a feller to lose his hair looking too hard in one direction while somebody comes up behind him. No, Sile, I haven't heerd a thing." Na-tee-kah sprang to her feet. "Horse come. Ugh!" and she held up her hand for silence, while Ha-ha-pah-no also arose, listening intently. "Indian ears for it," said Jonas. "'Pears to me I can hear something now myself."
The Big Tongue was no longer parading over the slope in front of the gap. He had even cut short an uncommonly fine whoop in his retreat to a place as safe as that occupied by Na-tee-kah or Ha-ha-pah-no.
He might also fairly be said to have led his band into that valley, and now the pity of it was that they had no ponies to eat such excellent grass. The remainder of the band came down the pass remarkably, with Na-tee-kah well in advance of everybody else. "Could anything terrible have happened to Two Arrows?"
His pride was touched in a tender spot, for although he was sure he had sent an arrow into an Apache, he had nothing to show for it. Na-tee-kah was enormously proud of that arrow, and Ha-ha-pah-no was compelled to remind her that her hero brother had brought in neither scalp nor horse, and had saved his own by the timely rifle practice of Sile and the men at the gap.
Na-tee-kah thought continually of her pony, between thoughts of her daring brother and wonderings of what he had done and seen. She knew very well that there is nothing so disables a "plains Indian" as to dismount him. It is not so bad as to break both his legs, but he is so accustomed, from childhood, to use a horse's legs instead of his own that he is like a man lost when he is set on foot.
It was a picture of several ladies in evening dress, and Na-tee-kah had been looking at it for five minutes. No such woman as those could possibly be, nor could any human beings get themselves up so wonderfully. It was all a lie, and any intelligent squaw could detect the fraud at a glance.
"Two Arrows!" almost breathlessly exclaimed Na-tee-kah. "Caught some pale-faces this time." "Got horse," said Ha-ha-pah-no. Long Bear and his warriors did not say a word, for they were all but dumb with astonishment from the moment that they recognized the returning wanderer. What would not that remarkable boy do next? Had he killed anybody?
He was entitled to do so with the best weapons in his father's collection. The day would surely come when he would be allowed to paint himself and do a great many other things belonging to full-grown braves and warriors. It was even lawful for him to wear a patch or two of paint now, and Na-tee-kah helped him to put it on.
Word Of The Day